Tempting the Knight - Heidi Rice
Tempting the Knight
A Fairy Tales of New York Romance
Heidi Rice
Tempting the Knight
2015 Heidi Rice
Kindle Edition
The Tule Publishing Group, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
978-1-942240-86-0
The Fairy Tales of New York series
Book 1: Pursued by the Rogue by Kelly Hunter
Book 2: Tempting the Knight by Heidi Rice
Book 3: Taming the Beast by Lucy King
Book 4: Seduced by the Baron by Amy Andrews
Dedication
To Kelly, Amy and Lucy, the other musketeers! Let’s do this again…
How about Fairy Tales of London next? Maybe? Anyone?
Table of Contents
Title Page
Page
Dedication
Dear Reader
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Excerpt from Taming the Beast
The Fairy Tales of New York Series
About the Author
Dear Reader,
When Amy Andrews originally suggested doing hot new versions of classic fairy tales, I said… WTH? Seriously? That sounds like a crap idea, I can’t stand fairy tale princesses, they’re all such wimps and so annoyingly sweet and good. Then Amy said, these are ‘oblique’ versions, with non-wimpy heroines, who idiot. Well, she didn’t say idiot, but she should have… Because how wrong was I?
Once we started brainstorming, and Kelly Hunter and Lucy King got involved too, I discovered Zelda, my bad girl super-model Rapunzel who is anything but a wimp (or sweet or good, frankly). And Ty Sullivan, dedicated legal aid attorney and Zel’s very reluctant knight in battered denim who busts her out of her ivory tower one hot, naughty Labor Day weekend in Brooklyn.
I hope you love these two as much as I did, and get a chance to read the other terrific books in the Fairy Tales of New York series. We had far too much fun writing them, so it seems only fair you guys should have as much fun reading them. And if anyone ever tells you fairytale princesses are wimps ever again, send them our way and we’ll sort them out.
Cheers Heidi x
More from Heidi:
Visit her website Heidi-Rice
Check out her blog
Follow her on TwiterHeidiRomRice
Prologue
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Ten years ago, St. John the Apostle’s Academy, Upstate New York.
NEVER GET DRUNK on altar wine, because the hangover will probably kill you.
Zelda Madison gritted her teeth to accommodate the thundering pain radiating out from her temples and met the emerald glare of the man sitting opposite her.
Tyrone ‘High and Mighty’ Sullivan had been staring at her as if she was a bug under his shoe ever since Dawn had been ushered into the Mother Superior’s Office five minutes ago. Her friend Faith’s eldest brother obviously had something against Zelda. She had no idea what, as she had never met the guy before today.
Squinting her eyes to reduce the blaze of sunlight coming through the stained glass window of Christ on the Cross that bore down on them from the vaulted hallway, Zel attempted to glare back at him.
The glare wasn’t one of her best. Probably because her retinas felt as if they’d been lasered off, and there was a huge bottomless chasm opening up in her belly at the thought of what might be waiting for her once the Mother Superior had finished giving Dawn the gestapo treatment.
She broke her glare-off with Sullivan and stared at her sensible shoes. He could bugger off. Right now, his disapproval was the least of her worries.
Getting stoned on unconsecrated communion wine hadn’t been the smartest thing the four of them had ever done. But it had felt good at the time. Hiding in their dorm room with her three best friends—Faith, Dawn and Mercy—the giggly buzz of the alcohol had raced through her bloodstream, blurring all the jagged edges and making her feel euphoric. Until Sister Ignatius had marched in, thrown a complete hissy fit, and ruined everything.
The buzz was long gone now, but at least the killer hangover that she’d woken up to this morning had stopped her from having to contemplate the possible consequences of their actions. Until now.
She glanced at Sebastian, her older brother and guardian, who sat stoically beside her in his creased travel clothes and had arrived an hour ago. He looked remote and broody and indifferent, the way he always did.
While Faith’s brother had given his sister a hug and