Page 1 of Daring the Bad Boy
Chapter One
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“I’m allergic to Valentine’s Day.” Rosie Smith stared into her second strawberry daiquiri, which had failed to make the happy hour in the crowded Soho bar remotely happy – even at two-for-one prices. “Either that or I’m suffering from PTVD.”
Her friend, Tash, spat out a mouthful of her own daiquiri. “Bloody hell, Rosie, have you been to the clinic to have it checked out?”
“It’s not a communicable disease, you muppet. It’s worse than that,” Rosie replied. “I have Post Traumatic Valentine’s Day Disorder.” She glanced around the packed bar in London’s West End, festooned with enough pink and fluffy décor to make the Sugarplump Fairy barf. “Because anything red and sparkly and/or shaped like a love-heart brings me out in hives. And those penis-shaped deely boppers are making me want to puke.”
A thirty-strong hen party had entered the bar ten minutes ago, each one shouting and laughing and proudly sporting phalluses springing from the alice bands on their heads – inadvertently making an ironic statement about how Valentine’s Day brought out the dickhead in every man, to Rosie’s way of thinking.
She sighed, gazing into the vibrant red cocktail. “And when I woke up this morning I actually missed Vince. You know we broke up a year ago today? Which means my love life has now officially sucked for twelve solid months.”
Rosie’s other bestie, Imogen – better known as Imo the Emo because of the Goth phase she’d never grown out of – sent Rosie a death stare through the eyeliner she’d OD’d on that morning. “You don’t miss Vince. Because Vince was a dick. And you’re probably just allergic to V-Day because, like every other single woman with more than two functioning brain cells to rub together, you’ve figured out it’s a corporate myth manufactured to sell greeting cards and overpriced flower arrangements.”
“Spoken like someone else who hasn’t humped anything without batteries in over a year,” Tash replied good-naturedly, laughing off Imo’s death stare. “But our resident femi-nazi is right about one thing.” She laid a consoling hand over Rosie’s on the sticky table of the booth they’d managed to secure across from the long antique bar. “Not having sex for over a year is bad for your mental health.”
“When did I say that?” Imo grumbled.
“You didn’t, because you’re a lost cause,” Tash continued. “But Rosie isn’t. Not yet.”
“Then why am I doing such a good impression of one?” Rosie asked, hating the miserable tone, but unable to shake it.
How could she possibly be missing her ex-boyfriend? Vince had been a dick. Informing her after she’d cooked them a special meal on Valentine’s Day and even worn the seedy crotchless panties he’d bought her for Christmas, that he wanted more space in their relationship. Which turned out to be code for he wanted to shag the nineteen-year-old intern at his architectural practice without fear of reprisals.
Vince hadn’t just been a dick. He’d been a dick with an appalling taste in lingerie, whom she’d been an idiot to trust. And she hadn’t thought about him in months. But this morning, when she’d woken up without a date on Valentine’s Day, or the prospect of getting one in the foreseeable future, Rosie’s neat, tidy apartment had seemed emptier than usual.
And she’d actually become a tiny bit wistful at the memory of Vince’s dirty socks lying by the washing basket, the crumbs he’d always left on the countertop and the gunk he’d never cleaned off the bathroom sink after shaving. And it had been bringing her down all day.
Why had she found it so hard to connect with anyone new in the last year? Was she on the shelf for life already, at twenty-six?
She’d gone on a few dates, during her half-hearted spree of online dating a few months ago. But she’d never managed a second date and had eventually deleted her profile, bored with the email flirting that promised much, only to deliver either an interminable half hour of arduous conversation over a caramel latte in the local Starbucks, or a request for a Snapchat of her boobs.
“You’re not a lost cause,” Tash said, interrupting Rosie’s maudlin thoughts. “But drastic action is called for or you soon will be. We don’t want your lady bits to dry up and desiccate like Imo’s.”
“Piss off, Tash. Just because my lady bits don’t have ADHD,” Imo mumbled.
“Exactly how drastic is drastic?” Rosie asked, because drastic for Tash might be a smidgen outside Rosie’s comfort zone.
“Drastic as in, we need to get your sex life fully operational again.”
“My sex life isn’t the Starship Enterprise, you know.”
“Au contraire,” Tash said, grinning. “If we could boldly get Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk to go down on you your problems would be solved.”
Rosie all but choked on her daiquiri as Imo laughed, but she couldn’t deny the definite spark of something hot and fluid.