Exquisite Betrayal (42 page)

Authors: A.M. Hargrove

Tags: #contemporary romance, #new adult, #romance and betrayal

We walk on stage, and the roaring turns into
thunder. I’m afraid the roof is going to come down. We look at each
other and simply laugh. We can’t speak because it’s too loud, so we
just stand there feeling goofy as all hell. Ryland Thomas raises
our linked hands in the air, probably thinking it will start to
quiet them down. It has the reverse effect. The crowd goes wild
once more.

He leans over to me and asks, “What should I
do?”

“
How the heck should I know?” Then we
merely laugh because, really, there isn’t anything else to do.
Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the audience starts to
calm down, allowing Ryland Thomas to speak.

“
Wow. I was
so
not
expecting that.
You totally amaze me. Whew.” He looks at me. I’m just grinning at
him. “I told Fallon, here, before we came out that we had a
fifty-fifty chance of a positive response
because
—
”

The applause breaks out again and he has to
stop. We look at each other and laugh again. Then he shouts in the
microphone, “I love you guys!”

They go insane with that shout out.

He puts his arm around me and yells, “Bloody
hell, is this all we have to do?”

I’m almost doubled over in laughter by now
because it truly is funny to me.

They quiet down again and then he grabs the
microphone off the stand. We walk closer to the front of the
stage.

“
You blokes are amazing. But you’re
gonna have to calm down or I won’t be able to tell our story and
you won’t get to ask any questions.”

He gains control of the audience with that
and gives his informal speech about us. Then he hands the mike over
to me and I talk about our life together and how it all started
right here in Vegas and how we wrote our own romance novel. They
love it.

We’re finally at the point of the Q and A.
They want to know everything, so we tell them. The toughest
question I get is the one about his speech from last year’s Wicked
Wench’s Con. He starts to answer, but I stop him.

“
Ryland Thomas did what he thought was
right at the time. He left home to avoid the media because they
were camped out on his lawn. How do I know this? Because I went
there, dozens of times. He actually left the country and didn’t
know I’d been calling. So we both had obstacles to overcome. He
manned up and I dealt with everything. We’ve made things right
between us, and in the long run, it’s made our relationship
stronger. Would I recommend this route to anyone? Hell, no! Would I
do it again this way? Hell, no! Would I do it again with Ryland
Thomas? An unequivocal hell, yes!” He grabs me and then kisses me.
Need I say the crowd goes wild again?

We finally finish and leave out the back
entrance where my girls are waiting with tackling hugs. And we do
end up on the ground… all of us, while Ryland Thomas and Tilly
stand there, laughing.

Yeah, I sure did meet my goals at the Wicked
Wenches Con in Vegas. It may not have been the one from two years
ago, but I succeeded and then some. I happened to snag the sexiest
author in the world and boy did I hit it right when I picked him to
lose my virginity to. Looks like the odds were in my favor in Vegas
after all.

Epilogue
September — News Release

The San Francisco Chronicle reported today
that Ryland Thomas Sinclair and Fallon McKinley Sinclair were
awarded a combined ten million dollars in damages from a lawsuit
against Critics Abound. The lawsuit was filed thirteen months ago
against Critics Abound, claiming that they fraudulently published
an article by McKinley Sinclair, when in fact, she never wrote it.
It was the article that revealed the true identity of world
renowned author, R.T. Sinclair.

Sinclair and McKinley Sinclair were also
awarded an additional five million in a case against Ruth Conner,
the Executive Vice President at Critics Abound who gave permission
and demanded that the article be published. According to McKinley
Sinclair, in the original suit against Critics Abound, it was
Connor who planted an illegal electronic recording device on her
and recorded private conversations between her and Sinclair.

“
Though what Connor
published was true, the fact that she used me as the byline
constituted fraud, and I wasn’t going to stand for
that
,” said McKinley Sinclair.

Sinclair and McKinley Sinclair joined forces
in seeking damages. The couple donated the ten million dollars
awarded to them from the first suit to the local children’s
shelter. The second five million will be set up in a charity called
the David McKinley Dream Big Scholarship Fund For Creative Writing.
It will be a need base fund for students wanting to study creative
writing who can’t afford the cost of student loans in college.

“
I struggled with student
loan debt after I graduated from college and Ryland Thomas saw what
a burden I was under. If we can help students alleviate that debt,
we’ll achieve our goal
,” McKinley Sinclair
said.

As a side note, McKinley Sinclair and
Sinclair were wed in a private ceremony in July at their home in
Lake Tahoe, California.

About The Author

A.M. Hargrove lives in South Carolina with
her husband and family. After spending years in the corporate
world, she now enjoys writing fiction while she is fully
caffeinated. She also thinks coffee and chocolate should be added
to the USDA food groups. Oh, and ice cream too!

Other books by A.M
Hargrove include
Tragically
Flawed
,
Edge of
Disaster, Shattered Edge,
Kissing
Fire,
The
GUARDIANS OF VESTURON
Series
(
Survival
,
Resurrection, Determinant, Beginnings
and
reEMERGENT
) and
Dark Waltz
(A Praestani
Novel).

Acknowledgements…

It’s become abundantly clear to me
that I have so much to be thankful for, it’s hard to even begin. So
let me start with my family… my husband Henry, daughter McIntyre,
son Tac and my soon to be daughter-in-law, Jaclyn. As always,
thanks for your patience. You all get put on the back burner
way
too much so thanks for putting
up with me.

Thank you Kathryn Grimes, Amanda Hootie
Clark, Andrea Stafford, Kristie Wittenberg and Mandy Anderson for
being a part of this novel. Y’all have done more for me than I can
ever say so big HUGS to each and every one of you. And Amanda,
thanks for the hot dog inspiration… enough said!

This book would never have been possible
without my amazing beta readers. You all are simply the best so I’d
like to thanks Megan Bracken-Bagley, Heather Carver, Amanda Clark,
Kathryn Grimes, Tawnya Peltonen, Alana Rock, Andrea Stafford, Terri
Thomas and Kristie Wittenberg. Thanks for your brutal honesty and
keeping me on track with EB. I seriously do NOT know what I would
do without you amazing ladies. And I need to give a special thanks
to Andrea for keeping my British slang spot on with Ryland Thomas.
One of these days I’m going to make that trip across the pond to
meet you in person!

And on those lines, I’d also like to extend
a huge thanks to my editing team at C & D Editing—Kristin
Campbell and Alizon Duckwall. Thank you for your diligence, all
your comments and kind words about EB! And I would be terribly
remiss if I didn’t thank my proofreaders, Lynne Beta, Megan
Bracken-Bagley and Heather Carver. Thank you, my eagle-eyed ladies
for catching those tiniest of typos.

Now for my street team…Annie’s Fan-Attics.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! You all are THE BEST! And I
sincerely mean that. From all the fun stuff we share (and y’all
know what I’m talking about here, right?) to all the other things I
ask of you, I couldn’t have a better group at my back. So a million
thanks to each of you because this whole show would never get off
the ground without you guys. I love you all! XOXO

I’d also like to thank my publicist, Jessica
Estep at InkSlinger PR. She’s always hopping around doing one thing
or another, along with handling my panic attacks, which is no small
feat. So thank you my friend!

There is one more person that needs to
be thanked, and that is Meredith
Fallon
Atkins, for whom the main character was
named. Thank you, Meredith, and the rest of the gang at Foothills
Allergy for all the chats and the support while I get my shots
every month! You ladies (and yep, the docs too) are pretty damn
amazing, not to mention fun! Oh, and keep on teasing you know who.
He deserves it. *Winks*

Music plays a huge role for me in my
writing, as it does for many authors. One day while I was on
Twitter, I noticed I had a new follower so I clicked on their page.
Much to my amazement, it was an extremely talented band named She
Said Fire. So I clicked the link to their website and listened to
their music and well, what can I say? It was instant addiction. Not
only that, I was in the middle of writing Exquisite Betrayal, and
their song,
Better Ways
, was
the perfect match for the scene I was writing, so I knew I had to
contact them. To make a long story short, I was fortunate to
connect with Joshua Hawksley and hence,
Better Ways
, did indeed become a part of this
story. So thank you Joshua, and the gang at She Said Fire, for not
only allowing me to use
Better Ways
as the introduction to this novel, but also for creating such
awesome music! By the way, you’ll have noticed other songs of
theirs referenced in this book and they’re pretty damn incredible
too. And one other thing, the scene in the book, where I referenced
that their drummer is a female is true. Don’t forget to click on
their links at the end of this section to stalk them. You won’t be
disappointed. You can also find their music on the Exquisite
Betrayal Playlist.

And finally… I’d like to thank all the book
bloggers out there who so tirelessly read and review books and put
their hearts into it day after day simply because of their love for
reading. Authors everywhere would be lost without you, so thank
you! I would like to recognize these blogs in particular, because
they have literally gone out of their way to help me. So thank you
from the bottom of my heart (in alphabetical order) to: Bestsellers
and Beststellars, Dark Obsession Chronicles, Delphina Reads Too
Much, Globug & Hootie Need A Book, I Read Indie, Kristie’s
Kaptivating Reviews, Love N. Books, Make My Day Book Club, Morning
After A Good Book, My Book Boyfriend, Random Jendsmit, and Tsk Tsk
What To Read. I know I’ve missed a ton of you, and please forgive
me, but there are just so many of you, my brain went into a
meltdown when I tried to remember you all.

Cover Art by Sarah Hansen at Okay
Creations

Photography by Kelsey Keeton at K Keeton
Designs

Cover Models: Jaclyn Baker Matthew
Samson

Follow A.M Hargrove

www.amhargrove.com

www.twitter.com/amhargrove1

www.facebook.com/AMHargroveAuthor

www.facebook.com/anne.m.hargrove

www.goodreads.com/amhargrove1

www.pinterest/amhargrove1

[email protected]

Follow She Said
Fire