Charity Case - The Complete Series - Piper Rayne Page 0,103

fill the corners of my eyes, but they aren’t the sad kind this time. “It’s perfect.”

“I’m so happy you think so.” He erases the distance between us and lifts me into his arms. “What does that mean exactly?” A nervous chuckle escapes his lips.

“It means,” I close my eyes for a moment and then let them slowly open to the man who has stolen my heart and soul. “We’re moving in together.”

His arms tighten, and he swings me around. “Thank you,” he mumbles and I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or fate itself.

My phone rings and Reed lets me go to grab it out of my purse in case it’s the school or my mom.

He ventures down the hall while I press accept on Chelsea’s call.

“What’s up, Chelsea?” I ask. “Did you know he bought the house next to my mom?” I say, unable to contain my excitement.

“Did he? I didn’t know.” Her voice is flat and doesn’t hold any of the humor I’m used to.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

Reed comes back into the room, his eyebrows furrowed wondering what he’s missing. He wraps his arms around my stomach from behind, kissing my neck.

“I saw the tax attorney.”

“Is he hot? You’ve been into good guys lately and what tax attorney isn’t a good guy, right?” I giggle when Reed nips at my neck.

“Hey now,” he whispers.

“He’s not a good guy, Vic.” She sounds near hysteria as she sucks air in and out of her lungs. “He’s my ex-husband!” she screams.

Oh, shit.

What happened when Chelsea was face-to-face

with her ex-husband?

Keep Scrolling!

Cockamamie Unicorn Ramblings

The Charity Case Series was born from an idea for a book Elisabeth (Piper) had before we decided to form Piper Rayne. It was going to be called Divorcee Dating (did you catch the term in the book?) and she’d written the blurb and everything.

So, in order to turn her idea of one book into three, we had to find two more women. After writing The Manny and introducing you to Hannah Crowley, we knew she was born from Elisabeth’s idea and her book, Happy Hour (Book #3) would be the story Elisabeth had in mind originally. Not that it was Happy Hour at the time, we just knew she was our woman to take on the task.

The only thing we did want was three women who had been introduced in previous books to get their own. It’s easy to write snarky and quick witted secondary characters. We’re not in their heads. They can say a funny line and disappear into the darkness. Add on the fact, we needed them to be divorced. It was tricky to figure out who the other two women would be.

Let’s talk Victoria, since Manic Monday is her book. You’ll have to wait for Chelsea until Afternoon Delight. Sorry, but we can’t give you all the intel.

When Victoria was written in The Manny originally, you were given a short glimpse of her character as Jagger’s assistant. We didn’t know then that she would get her own book. The fact that she had a kid was just kind of thrown in there when Payne spilled his drink on her desk. Actually, the fact she was hiding having a kid was supposed to say more about Jagger than it was about Victoria.

By Jagger’s book, Chore Play, we thought Victoria might get her own book at some point. Her and Jagger sparring was just so fun to write. I think we didn’t want to say good-bye. We added an ex-husband and the decided the kid would be a seven-year-old daughter. All we had to do was get her to relocate from L.A. to Chicago. And that’s when we decided that she’d only do that if it were to help out someone she loved dearly.

Some of you are probably saying, yeah, yeah, we like Victoria, but give us the skinny on Reed.

Reed sure is dreamy, right? In our plotting, we knew we wanted the guys in Charity Case to be different than others we’ve written. We wanted to do another series with only the heroines POV (sorry dual POV lovers, but we’ll be writing some extra scenes in Reed’s POV as bonus material). We agreed he needed to be a good guy—not a player or a bad boy. Someone who would pull Victoria out of her self-imposed dating hibernation and make her realize how beautiful and strong she is.

Fun fact on how fast our stories can change. Reed was just going to be an attorney, but he was