SUDDENLY ONE SUMMER will be out tomorrow! To tide you over, how about a little sneak-peek? It’s not a spoiler-y excerpt, but I know that some of you don’t like to read anything at all before getting the book, so if that’s the case, avert your eyes now…
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“You don’t believe in marriage?” Ford asked.
“I don’t think every marriage is doomed. But these days, you’ve got as good of odds as a coin flip of finding one that will go the distance. And in the eight years I’ve been a divorce lawyer, I haven’t seen much that inspires me to try my luck.”
Ford was giving her that “amused” look again.
“What?” Victoria asked in exasperation.
“I’ve just never had a woman say that before on a date.”
“It’s a fake date. And welcome to 2015.”
He laughed. “You’re just so . . .” He trailed off, his expression a mixture of frustration and something else she couldn’t read.
“Beguiling? Irresistible?” she offered.
“Challenging.” His eyes held hers across the table.
The moment was interrupted when the waitress dropped by to take their orders. Starving after her first foray into undercover work—and a darn good performance, if she did say so herself—Victoria ordered the hand-cut fries with dips as an appetizer along with her brisket sandwich.
“Make that two,” Ford told the waitress, then picked up right where their conversation had left off. “Okay, so marriage doesn’t inspire you. What about kids? Is that something you’re considering down the road?”
“Maybe.” Victoria shrugged. “I don’t know how I’ll feel in a couple years, so I’ve taken precautionary measures to keep that option open.”
“‘Precautionary measures’? What does that mean?” He took a sip of his beer.
“I had my eggs frozen when I was thirty.”
He paused, mid-sip, and then set his beer bottle back down. “That’s . . . very forward-thinking.”
“Maybe it seems that way now, but I predict that in five, ten years, it’s going be an option a lot more women consider.” She leaned in. “Let’s be honest, it’s an advantage you men have in the dating game, a chip you wield over us—our biological clocks. How many times have I seen a woman, like me, single in her thirties, successful in her career, but she’s in a near panic when it comes to her personal life because she wants kids and she’s done the math: she has to meet a guy by the time she’s this age, so she can get married by this age, and pregnant a year later. I say the hell with that. I will decide if and when I’m ready to have kids. I’m not about to cede control over that to Fate, waiting around for Mr. Right to show up on my doorstep.” She paused, catching that.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
“Wow.” Ford rested his arms on the table. “I can’t decide if I’m frightened by you on behalf of the entire male gender, or really fucking turned on.”
She flashed him a grin. “All part of my allure.”
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