The Fifth Avenue Trilogy Book Two: Scandalize Me by Caitlin Crews

I’m so excited to be a part of the Fifth Avenue Trilogy, a multi-author series featuring Maisey Yates (who wrote the prequel and the first book in the series, Avenge Me, out next week!), Kate Hewitt and me! 

I won’t spoil the first book for you because really, you need to read it!  My book is the second in the trilogy and it features two very strong, yet very damaged people…

Ten years ago, Hunter Grant failed the woman he loved.

So it seemed like a great plan to make sure he failed at everything else, too—as spectacularly as possible. 

In Scandalize Me, the second book of the Fifth Avenue trilogy, Hunter has finally moved back to New York City after a decade spent fighting his demons and letting them win.  He’s disgustingly wealthy but after his antics on the football field as the worst behaved quarterback in history, he’s also a national disgrace, which works out well—because a disgrace is the only thing he knows how to be.  He doesn’t want to dig deeper into what happened that night ten years ago.  He doesn’t want to help his old friends figure out what really happened or force a showdown with Jason Treffen, the man responsible.  He’s comfortable as he is: estranged from everyone, disgraced and disreputable, and alone.

Enter Zoe Brook.  She spent too long on the wrong side of Jason Treffen and she’s ready to take her revenge.  She just needs Hunter to play along—and she’s willing to do whatever she has to do to make sure he does. 

Neither one of them is ready for the passion that burns between them from the first glance—or the least bit sure what to do about it when each of them is hiding the most important parts of themselves from each other.  And the world.  Or when every touch seems to nudge them closer to the truths they least want to share.

But ghosts and secrets are the least of their problems when they put together a plan that will finally take Jason Treffen down—because a game stakes this high means only that there’s that much more to lose…

EXCERPT:

It wasn’t the first time a man had propositioned her.  But it was the first time she’d felt a burst of flame lick over her when he did, and she was terribly afraid he knew that, too.  That he felt the same slap of heat.

She couldn’t let that happen, it was impossible, so she shoved it aside.

“Is that caveman code for ‘sleep with me so I can put you back in your proper place?’” she asked, cool and challenging and back on familiar ground, because she knew this routine.  She could handle this.  Jason Treffen had taught her well, one painful lesson at a time.  “Because you should know before you try, dragging me off by my hair somewhere won’t end the way you think it will.  I can promise you that.”

Hunter looked intrigued and his head canted slightly to one side, but that wolfish regard of his never wavered—bright and hot and knowing.  Reaching much too far inside of her, deep into her bones, like an ache. 

It was that last part that made her wonder exactly how much control she was clinging to, after all.

 “I don’t want to drag you off somewhere by your hair and have my way with you, Ms. Brook.”

The smile on her lips turned mocking, but she was more concerned with the sudden low, slow thump of her heart and the heavy, wet heat low in her belly.  “Because you’re not that kind of guy?”

There was something more than predatory in his eyes then, hard and hot, a dark knowing in the curve of his mouth that connected with that deep drumroll inside of her, making it her pulse, her breath, her worst fear come true.

“I’m absolutely that kind of guy.  But I told you.  You have to ask me nicely.” 

He smiled, as if he was the one in control.  And she couldn’t allow it.

“No,” she said, furious that it came out like a whisper, thin and uncertain.  His smile deepened for a moment, like a promise.

“Your loss,” he murmured, and that aching fire swelled inside of her, nearly bursting.

And then he laughed again, dismissing her that easily, and turned to go.  Again.  For good this time, she understood, and she couldn’t let that happen.

Zoe had no choice.  She pulled out her best and biggest gun and aimed it right at him.

“I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Grant.”  She didn’t know why that dryness in her mouth seemed to translate into something like trembling everywhere else, when she’d known before she’d approached him that it would probably come to this.  She waited until he looked back at her, and pretended the blue gleam of his eyes didn’t get to her at all, with all that weary amusement, like he could see right through her when she knew—she knew—he couldn’t.  That no one could.  She made herself smile.  “I know about Sarah.”