What the heck do I mean by a novel novella? Welp, it’s simple. I had meant to write a novella–you know, just a fun little tale around 30K words. Instead, I wrote a 50K word full-length novel in less than three months, with lots of depth and secondary characters that made me grin.

Oopsie. 😉

But don’t worry! I’m still selling GOOD GIRL at a novella price of $2.99. Maybe that’ll make up for the fact that this book came out a month late! 

Now, enough chitchat. Let’s get to that yummy 1st chapter of GOOD GIRL!

Chapter One

“Guess what? Mr. Moneybags is back.”

Serena Daniels looked up from securing her work locker’s padlock to find her friend and fellow pediatric nurse, Hannah Saito, heading her way. “Who?”

“Serena, come on.” Hannah spared her a chiding glance before opening her own locker a few doors down. “You know who I’m talking about.”

“I really don’t.” Liar. “By the way, your new scrubs are beyond cute, with all those Archie comic book characters,” she added, trying desperately to change the subject. “I used to love reading those comics when I was a kid, though I hated it whenever Archie went all gooey for Veronica. I’m a total Betty stan.”

“Ugh, you and me both. Unfortunately men seem to go for the mean girls, including Archie.” Hannah shot a pleased glance at her colorful new scrubs before she waved an impatient hand. “And speaking of mean, you totally know the guy I’m talking about. Remember that tall, dark and pushy guy who looks like a Greek god and supposedly owns the building? He came in with his super-bitey demon spawn last month around Christmas. Salvador or Salvatore. Something like that.”

“Salvatore.” At the name, Serena’s blood pressure put on a jetpack and shot straight up. The one person she’d be happy to never hear from again was Lorenzo Salvatore. “Did you say he’s back?”

“Yup.” Hannah nodded and pulled a hairband from her glossy black hair. “You know what they say about bad pennies—they always turn up when you least expect it. Though that dude is so hot I might be able to overlook that whole bad penny issue.”

Wasn’t that the truth. “His kid didn’t try to take his skateboard off the roof again, did he?”

“Thankfully I didn’t see his spawn’s name on the white board. I just caught a glimpse of the man hanging around with Heidi King. I wonder why we never see a Mrs. Moneybags? The kid’s got to have a mother.”

“Divorced.” When Hannah shot her a searching glance, Serena aimed for a casual shrug. “The kid mentioned it when he was here. He also told me that if his mom ever showed up, he’d throw himself out the window rather than see her.”

Hannah winced. “Yeesh. That doesn’t sound good.”

Her sentiments exactly. “She must have gotten that message, because I never saw her around here, did you?”

Hannah shook her head. “The kid’s yummy-looking father was the only parent I ever saw. Then again he was kind of hard to miss. Talk about a helicopter parent. You’d think his kid was dying, instead of in with a busted arm.”

“Maybe she doesn’t live anywhere close by.”

“Maybe,” came the absent reply as Hannah rooted through her locker. “Question is, what’s Mr. Moneybags doing back here now?”

“Beats me.”

“What if he’s here for some sort of I-own-this-place meeting that changes our lives around here forever? Guys like that love to throw their weight around. They never give a damn about how they upend everyone’s lives just because they want to run the show their way.”

“I’ve been thinking about all those rumors swirling around that guy.” Serena zipped up her insulated jacket and pulled out the red knit beret and mittens she’d stuffed into the jacket’s pockets when her shift started twelve long hours ago. She gave a ridiculous amount of attention to putting them on, because she didn’t want to admit she’d actually been thinking about Lorenzo the man, rather than the rumors about him. “This is Cook County’s brand-new Pediatric and Women’s Health Center, right?”

“Last time I checked.”

“Doesn’t that mean Cook County owns the hospital? There are all these rumors about Lorenzo Salvatore owning this place, but I’m not buying it. It doesn’t seem plausible that one dude could own a whole frigging hospital.”

“Somebody’s got to own it. Why not tall, dark and insanely pushy while still being a total sex bomb?”

“I don’t know.” Trying not to freak that Lorenzo Salvatore might actually be in the same building as her, Serena again tried for an air of nonchalance. “Maybe he just decided to float that rumor around when his kid was here.”

Hannah stared at her. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he thought sounding like some big shot would get his kid preferential treatment. Maybe he’s got inferiority issues and overcompensates by pumping himself up to godlike levels. Maybe he’s a pathological liar and a total epic dick.” And maybe she needed Lorenzo Salvatore to be as bad as could be, so she could convince herself she’d dodged a bullet when it came to having him in her life. “Remember that one lady who claimed she was the concubine of Justin Trudeau, and her child was—oh, how did she put it?—the fruit of their union?”

“Yeah, but that lady wound up in the psychiatric ward because the only thing wrong with her poor child was her,” Hannah drawled. “That’s life in the world of pediatric medicine.”

“Exactly. Which means I’m not going to believe anything I hear through the grapevine until I see his name on the deed to this lovely piece of real estate.”

Not that she cared enough to look into who exactly owned the hospital where she worked, Serena thought, digging for her car keys as she headed out of the locker room. Lozo’s signature wasn’t on her paycheck, so she’d be smart to not give him another thought.

Lozo.

An instinctive wince scrunched her nose before she could corral it. Grimly she pushed the wayward thought away and headed down a quiet back hallway lined with closed administration office doors, heading for the employees’ exit. Lozo was what Lorenzo Salvatore’s friends called him, or so he’d claimed on the one and only date she’d ever gone on with him. At the time she’d had the weirdest flutter when he’d insisted she call him that. Like he’d wanted her to think she was special. A friend. Maybe even on her way to being something more.

Ha.

What a gullible rube she was.

She should have realized a jerk like Lorenzo Salvatore couldn’t possibly have any friends who called him anything, much less Lozo.

An office door belonging to her supervisor, Heidi King, opened up moments after she passed by. Hastily Serena quickened her pace and didn’t look back. No way was she going to get caught up in idle chitchat when all that mattered now was getting off of feet that felt every single one of the fourteen-thousand steps she’d already taken today—

“Ah, speak of the devil, there she is. Serena, do you have a minute?’

Grrrrrrr. “No, I don’t, Heidi. I’m sorry, but I’m already off the clock and I’ve got…” She made the unforgivable mistake of looking back, and her gaze ran slam-bang into Lorenzo Salvatore’s.

What.

The.

Hell.

 “Uh.” Furiously she tried to remember what she’d been saying, only to almost lose the thread all over again when Lorenzo’s sculpted face lit up with a crooked, predatory smile. Eek. “I’ve got two hard-earned days off, so guess what that means? So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye.”

“This won’t take but a minute, I swear.” Heidi, middle-aged, the mother of five and married since the dawn of time, seemed to be in a hormonal tailspin in the presence of such absurd levels of drool-worthy testosterone. As Serena watched, the other woman sent a fluttery gesture toward Lorenzo, and the glance she sent his way was downright coquettish. “Serena Daniels, pediatric RN, this is Lorenzo Salvatore, one of this hospital’s biggest benefactors.”

“I believe we’ve met.” Serena kept her voice neutral through sheer force of will. Oh, yes. She and Lorenzo Salvatore had definitely met. When his son, Matthew, had come in with a broken arm that needed to be surgically repaired, Lorenzo had demanded a nurse be in his son’s room every minute of the day. Never mind that there were other, far sicker children who needed that kind of attention. That didn’t matter to the great Lorenzo Salvatore. Oh, no. What had mattered was that his beloved son—who’d screamed and cursed at the hospital staff, bit Hannah, then went on a hunger strike because he wasn’t getting his way—was in pain.

Ultimately she’d had a showdown with the overbearing helicopter father. After he’d complained one time too many that she wasn’t giving his kid enough attention, she’d literally dragged him to the window of an isolation room occupied by a child who’d fallen through thin ice and had been underwater for several minutes. Then she’d told him in no uncertain terms that he should thank whatever pantheon of gods he believed in that his kid was destined to walk out of there with him someday, happy and whole. Some parents weren’t so lucky.

At the time she’d had no idea if she’d gotten through to him. Mainly because he was a frantic parent, and frantic parents were understandably not too big on calm and logic. But also because he’d accused her of not being able to comprehend what it was to have family, and to love them more than anything.

That was the exact moment she’d lost her mind.

Because that was the moment when she’d rashly invited him to a family dinner at her sister Mads’s house.

No one could have been more surprised than Serena when Lorenzo Salvatore actually said yes.

She honestly hadn’t liked Lorenzo when she’d accidentally invited him to dinner. Sure, he was gorgeous, with thick black hair that had a tendency to curl, scruff that was almost a beard, and onyx eyes so mesmerizing it was all she could do to stop herself from falling into them. But those hot Italian good looks were nothing when they were wedded to a self-absorbed personality. All she’d cared about in that moment was proving a point.

But then Lorenzo had shown up to that family dinner, complete with wine and flowers, and acted like a totally charming human being. As the night had progressed, she’d found herself staring at him time and again, amazed at how the rumble of his rare laughter moved through her like wine, and thrilling over how he’d insisted she call him Lozo.

Ugh.

She’d been stupid enough to think that dinner date might have been the start of something special. Vital, even. That was why she’d invited Lorenzo to a Christmas Eve art auction at her sister’s work, the famous tattoo studio, House Of Payne. She’d even worn her sexiest dress, strapped her hard-working feet into killer heels and dreamed of fenagling Lorenzo under the nearest mistletoe to see what that crooked mouth of his knew about kissing.

And then…

The bastard stood her up.

Which was fine, she’d told herself firmly. Totally. Utterly. Fine. Considering how they’d started out, she was obviously better off without having a pain in the ass like him around. The night he’d stood her up was the night she’d decided to forget he existed. In her opinion, it was the best damn Christmas present she’d ever given herself.

Yet now, here he was.

Again.

Damn it.

Fighting the desire to stomp her foot, Serena barely flicked a glance his way before pinning her attention on her supervisor. “I was on duty when his son, Matthew, was brought in for surgery for a badly broken arm. If his son is back, Darius Johns is the duty nurse now. As for me, I’m out, Heidi.”

“Mattie’s fine.” Lozo—no, Lorenzo Salvatore, she corrected herself fiercely—spoke for the first time. Grudgingly she turned her attention his way, only to find his gaze focused on her like a lion that had locked on to a wounded gazelle. “I’m not here because of my kid, Nurse Meanie. I’m here because of you.”

Nurse Meanie. Just one of the names his hunger-striking brat of a kid had come up with for her. Then the rest of his words sank in. “Wait, what? Because of me?” What the hell had she done now?

“That’s right.” Clearly delighted by this unexpected turn of events, Heidi clapped her hands together. “In the wake of the excellent care young Matthew received here, Mr. Salvatore has decided to fund a new activity center here on the pediatric floor, and guess what? You were the one who inspired this amazing generosity.”

“Oh. Really. Huh.” Well aware that nothing she’d done for Matthew had been good enough for either of the Salvatores, Heidi’s comment hit her like a joke, and she was the punch line. “Funny, I find that hard to believe.”

“What’s hard to believe? That you did a good job?” Much to her alarm, Lorenzo wandered closer, hands in his pockets. With a casual pose like that he should have looked harmless, but harmless was the one thing he’d never be. “You don’t strike me as the kind of person who doubts her abilities.”

“Oh, it’s not myself I’m doubting in this particular equation. I’m a freaking goddess, pal.” When Heidi gave her a vaguely horrified look, Serena looked to the ceiling and struggled for a more professional tone. “Whatever motivated you, I’m thrilled to hear there’s going to be a dedicated space for our recovering young patients to have some fun and normalcy brought into their lives.” With a smile that felt as fake as a three-dollar bill, she backed down the hall toward the exit. “Thanks for letting me know. Have a good weekend. Toodles.”

Thankfully Heidi was too aghast to say a word, so Serena took advantage by booking it as fast as she could to the stairwell door. She was just about convinced she’d made her escape when a large hand came from behind to clamp down on the door’s metal push-handle.

Dang it.

“I wasn’t finished. Which means you’re not finished, either… Nurse Meanie.”

Her stomach sank at Lorenzo’s gravelly baritone next to her ear, and the sudden heat radiating off his body told her just how much her personal space had been invaded. Instinctively she half-hopped sideways, not even caring how silly that probably looked, before she turned the full force of her glare on the man who clearly was intent on ruining her weekend.

On the surface, Lorenzo Salvatore was just about every woman’s lust-fueled dream. Even though she hated him, her hands still itched to smooth his curling black hair that always looked like he’d just gotten out of bed, and his liquid black eyes were so dark she couldn’t even see his pupils. The first time she’d locked gazes with him, she’d imagined that the devil himself had eyes like that—full of scorn and sin and the hottest black fire. His aggressively square jaw seemed to be perpetually covered in a five o’clock shadow, the scruff that much darker in the twin dimpled grooves on either side of his crooked mouth.

It was the tilt of that mouth that irked her. Even when she hadn’t known his name, she’d had that agitated reaction at the mere sight of it. It had a twist to one side, a perpetual, sardonic smirk that made him seem like he was scoffing at everything in general, and her in particular whenever he chose to focus on her.

And to think she’d been brainless enough to invite this smirking, black-eyed devil out on a date on Christmas Eve. What a moronic move that had been.

Good thing he’d ghosted her.

Jerk.

“Wow, look at you, thinking you can actually tell me when I’m done.” She sent him a scorching look. “Know your place.”

“Damn.” Far from being slapped back like she’d hoped, Lorenzo grinned as if delighted. “I knew you were pissed at me for not showing for our date, but I think I underestimated the level of pissiness you’ve got going on. You mad, Serena?”

The taunting tone—when he was the one who’d stood her up, goddamn it—told her that he didn’t like it when people called him out on his bad behavior. That was just the kind of person she didn’t need in her life. “I cannot stress this enough, so listen closely when I say it. Ready? Here it is. Fuck off.” With that, she shouldered his arm out of the way and pushed through the door leading to the stairwell.

There. Mission accomplished.

Except…

She could hear his steps on the stairs right behind her.

Maybe he was leaving too, she thought nervously, fighting the nearly crushing urge to look over her shoulder. Maybe he had somehow parked in the gated and guarded Employees Only parking lot, and this was the fastest way out to his car.

Yeah.

Right.

“I’m not saying I don’t deserve you being pissed off at me.” He dropped into step beside her the moment she pushed through the heavy metal exit door and into the twilight-shrouded, freshly plowed parking lot. “But it’s only fair you give me a chance to make up for it.”

She snorted and hit her car’s key fob. “Dude, you stood me up, then didn’t get in touch with me for literally weeks. Barring an excuse that involves a zombie apocalypse or a death in the family, everyone knows that the stand-uppee doesn’t have to give the stand-upper the sweat off her brow. Go away.”

“I had a Christmas Eve emergency. Shit like that happens when you have kids.”  

That sounded somewhat plausible, but… “Have you looked at the calendar lately? It’s mid-January. Here’s a pro tip for you in case you ever plan on hooking up with someone after you stand them up. Letting weeks go by after you ghost a woman isn’t the way to win her over.”

“The emergency I had to take care of… it’s taken a while to clean that shit up. But now that I’ve got everything locked down tight and I know my kid’s okay with how things are, we’re good to go. By the way, that’s probably the most important thing you should know about me—Mattie always comes first. I’m not even going to apologize for it. That’s just how I parent.”

What the hell did he mean, they were good to go? “Good for you.”

“The only reason I’m telling you this is because you need to know that’s the only thing that has more priority than you when we’re together.”

She stopped by her car and grimaced at all the snow that had accumulated on it during her twelve-hour shift. “One, Mr. Salvatore, we are not together—”

“Lozo. I told you, my friends call me Lozo.”

Which meant she’d bite her tongue out before ever using that name. “Two, I don’t know you. You don’t know me. We’re strangers, and we’re going to keep it that way.” Hauling her car door open, she sat behind the wheel just long enough to start it up and get the defrosters going full blast, before snagging up her trusty ice scraper. “And three, we are not going to be together. Why? Because you didn’t even call to let me know you had a so-called emergency.”

“Yes, I did.”

“You called the place we were supposed to meet, three hours after our date was supposed to start. So if you think I’m kidding when I say fuck off and go away, I’m not. From the bottom of my little black heart, I seriously mean it.”

“I didn’t call you personally because my phone took a swim in the toilet. And I did try calling House Of Payne several times that evening to let you know what was going on, but I wasn’t able to get through.”

She didn’t bother to roll her eyes as she stood on her tiptoes and tried to sweep all the snow off the windshield in one go. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you? You should’ve gone into politics.”

He took the scraper from her before she could dodge him. “You’re a nurse,” he muttered, using those long, well-muscled arms of his to efficiently wipe the snow off her car. “Aren’t you supposed to have a sweetly giving and understanding nature?”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m Nurse Meanie.” Apparently.

“Mattie won’t call you that anymore,” he said, surprising her. “I’ve told him that you’re Nurse Serena from now on, or else.”

“And as for my nature,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken, because she doubted very much that she’d ever see his food tray-throwing son ever again, “I’m very sweet and understanding when it comes to my patients. If you want to become a patient, I’m sure I can make that happen.”

The look he shot her as he moved to the back window could have melted all the snow in Chicago. “Feisty, aren’t you?”

“What I am is tired. This was a hell of a long shift after a hell of a long week, and my feet hurt all the way to my knees. So, if you’ve got something to say, just say it, because all I can think about now is going home, curling up on the couch next to a cozy fire, and conking out for the next forty-eight hours.”

“That’s a waste of a perfectly good weekend.”

“Any nurse coming off their shift would beg to differ.”

“You have to eat some time.” With one last swipe at the side windows, he returned to her and handed her the ice scraper. “Might as well eat with me.”

The fact that she hesitated only underscored just how exhausted she was. “I’m literally too tired to be hungry.” Yeah, she thought as she absently tossed the scraper back into her car. She had to be loopy if she felt even a teensy bit tempted to let her guard down and give him another chance. “I’m standing here now, and I can’t even remember what hunger feels like.”

Again, her exhaustion got the better of her, because it had her imagining a hint of concern flashing across those devil-black eyes. “You work too hard.”

“It’s the true plague of any medical professional—workaholism. We all have it.” When he continued to gaze down at her as if she were the most interesting thing he’d seen all year—though, admittedly it was a brand-new year, so that didn’t mean much—she cleared her throat and moved toward her car. “Well, um… thanks again for funding the new activity room. Getting children involved in interactive events like arts and crafts or music or gaming, is as important as any medicine we can give them when they’re healing.”

“I remember you had your sister do Mattie’s portrait when he was throwing his food trays against the wall and refusing to eat. He still talks about you,” he added when she slid into the driver’s seat and would have closed the door on him. “I’ve heard the story of how you finally got him to eat, by the way.”

“Oh, yeah? He told on me, did he?”

The crooked mouth of his smirked all the harder. “At first, that’s pretty much what it was—tattling on Nurse Meanie who wouldn’t take his shit.”

“That’s me, all right.”

“He described in great detail how you went into his room to eat your dinner right in front of him—the biggest, juiciest cheeseburger he’d ever seen in his life, according to him.” The other side of his mouth curled, and he graced her with one of those rare, out-of-this-world smiles. “Now he laughs about it. He calls that move your ultimate cheeseburger gambit.”

“I shared with him. Eventually.” She couldn’t help but smile as she thought of his nine-year-old kid, a sullen little replica of his father if there ever was one. “But I made him work for it.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“What can I say, he was being a stubborn jerk. The only thing left to do was give him exactly what he said he wanted—no food—until he couldn’t stand it. You would’ve done the same thing in my position.”

“Hell, I’ve been in your position. Babying him only feeds the troll.”

She scoffed. “Baby him? No way was I about to baby him when he was clearly furious with everyone who was trying to help him. I make it a rule to never reward bad behavior.”

His eyes narrowed. “Is that why you’re making me think you don’t want anything to do with me now? You’re punishing me for my bad behavior?”

The way he put it made her blink her bleary eyes. “Wait, what? Why I’m making you think… what now?”

“Because if that’s the case,” he went on, ignoring her, “that actually means you’re holding out in order to get me to do what you want.”

“Huh? Wait, no—”

“In the case of my son, you told him you didn’t care if he was a bonehead who starved himself to death. Then you proceeded to eat right in front of him until he caved and demanded half your cheeseburger. Now you’re doing it again, only this time you’re doing it with me.”

She gaped at him. Maybe his demon kid had driven him insane. “I’m doing what again?”

“Reverse psychology.”

“Really, I’m not.”

He shook his head, his dark eyes alight. “That’s exactly what you’re doing, but it’s cool, Serena. I see you.”

Holy shit. “And what do you see me doing, exactly?”

“You’re still interested in me.” That flabbergasting announcement came with a smile that was so arrogant it made her want to get back up on her aching feet, grab her trusty snow scraper, and bonk him repeatedly over the head with it. “That’s why you’re showing me the door so hard. With you pushing on me like that, you’ve got to know there’s no way I’m going to walk through it.”

“But I am showing you the door,” she said so loudly it was almost a shout. “In fact, if a magic door suddenly popped up in this parking lot, I’d shove you through it so hard you’d land in the factory where Sully and Mike Wazowski work.”

“It’s good that you like kid’s movies,” he remarked on a chuckle, and that weird warmth filled her yet again, like she’d drunk too much wine. “Monsters, Inc. is one of Mattie’s favorites. We should all watch it some time. You like family movie nights, yeah?”

What the hell. “Um, yeah. With family.”

“Mattie and I are a family. That’ll be good enough for you. Drive safely, you hear me?” he added, backing away, and his tone shifted to one of great seriousness. “I know your ass is dragging, so don’t you dare fall asleep behind that wheel.”

More unnerved than she wanted to admit, Serena reached for her seatbelt. “I won’t.”

“And give me a call when you get home so I know you made it there in one piece.”

“I don’t have your phone number anymore,” she told him with no small amount of relish. “Rude people who stand me up get deleted.”

He pulled out his phone. “Give me your number again. I lost it when my phone went for a swim.”

“I can’t remember it,” she lied, then shut the car door before he could say another word.

---

Sound intriguing? Click on the links below, and start reading my novel novella, GOOD GIRL, today!

Amazon: http://ow.ly/ZluA50EbScj

B&N: http://ow.ly/VMRw50EbSIG

iBooks: http://ow.ly/Z29x50EbSIF

Kobo: http://ow.ly/QXn050EbSIH