Reign A Romance Anthology - Nina Levine Page 0,327

Queensland, Australia. She has always been a reader. When she was little, she would be up late, reading Garfield and Asterix comic books and also Footrot Flats. When she hit high school, she read Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden, and from there, her love of books continued to grow. She always has a book to read beside her bed, along with a notebook for when inspiration hits at those crazy hours.

She is a stationery and one-click addict. She loves everything books, authors, and of course, has chocolate and lollies to keep her going.

QUEEN OF THE V

The Boss Girl Series Book 1

Reign: A Romance Anthology

Liz Lovelock

Copyright 2021 Liz Lovelock

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, real people, and real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, organizations, or places is entirely coincidental.

All rights are reserved. This book is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author. All songs, song titles, and lyrics contained in this book are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders.

Editing and Proofreading by Swish Design & Editing

Proofread by Jenn Lockwood Editing

All Rights Reserved

King’s Gambit

Emma James

The author’s imagination of Old Town Chicago set in 2040 is without skyscrapers and tree-lined quiet streets nestle among small businesses and residential homes with the 19th-century architecture not swallowed up among modernization.

Queenie’s building is wholly imagined.

1

Queenie

The streets of Chicago are never a safe place to be alone at well after three in the morning on a Saturday. I know this, but still, I walk out the back door of Queenie’s Tavern, carrying a trash bag in each hand, with the moon helping to illuminate the way toward the familiar dumpster at the end of the long, dimly lit alley. Something I have done a hundred times, at least over the years.

I ignore the frosty air rapidly cooling my bare skin along the back of my neck where my thick, long, box-dyed silver-gray hair (my pride and joy) styled in a clever mermaid’s tail ropes down my back. However, it is now more of a bedraggled mermaid’s tail.

I swapped trash duty with the relatively new bartender, Layken. A stunning, leggy, raven-haired beauty with cerulean eyes. She originally had the job for tonight, being the new kid on the block, so that I could take off early to hook up with the hot guy who flirted up a storm with me. I didn’t want all his efforts to go to waste.

We close at 2 a.m., but we are usually pretty empty an hour beforehand. Layken and Hans would’ve shooed any stragglers out the door probably by half one, locking up the front doors, leaving with the security guys: Jerome and Roadtrip (yes, that is the guy’s nickname).

I am taking my time, giving the guy upstairs in my bed the chance to high-tail it out of my room without any awkward conversation. I’ve left the security system off so he can use the smart locking system. The door will unlock when he approaches it and lock when he leaves.

No awkward small-talk to finish off the night is necessary.

Have a nice life and all that jazz.

He didn’t blend with the usual crowd propped up on a barstool at Queenie’s. He does well for himself from his fashion sense. Hottie looked like he had come straight from his day job, swapping out his suit pants for jeans and unbuttoning the top few buttons on his crisp business shirt before walking into Queenie’s. I saw the telltale folded burnt-orange silk tie poking out of his inside suit jacket pocket when he fished his wallet out to pay for his drinks. But that is all based on my assumptions because he was tight-lipped about any personal details.

He told me his name was Blake, but I could tell he was lying. I didn’t mind, so I told him my name was Daisy Duke. From the mega-watt grin he blinded me with, he knew I was lying too—even Stevens. Blake flirted up a storm, and I flirted right on back. He was funny and generous with buying me shots while I worked.

I didn’t have time for dating, working the number of hours