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LAUREN LAYNE is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen novels. A former e-commerce and Web marketing manager from Seattle, Lauren relocated in 2011 to New York City, where she left the corporate world to pursue a full-time writing career. Her hobbies include maintaining a designer-purse addiction and observing cocktail hour. Lauren lives with her high school sweetheart in midtown Manhattan, where she writes romantic comedies with just enough sexy-times to make your mother blush.
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Read on for an excerpt from
Runaway Groom
&nb
sp; I Do, I Don’t
by Lauren Layne
Available from Loveswept
Prologue—Las Vegas
Gage
You know what twenty-nine-year-old bachelors don’t get a lot of photos of?
Babies.
I mean, I get a lot of shots of the baby makers. I’m not trying to be gross, I’m just saying…groupies like to text.
But I’m not one of those former high school quarterbacks whose glory days are long over, hunkered down in the suburbs outside my hometown, waiting to break out cheap cigars because there’s another baby on the cul-de-sac.
I didn’t play football in high school; I got my proverbial letterman’s jacket in sex and cigarettes, if you will.
And though I’ve long given up the cigarettes, on the few occasions I indulge in a cigar, it’s an expensive Cuban, and it’s because I feel like it, not because of the arrival of another squalling infant.
Damn. And now I want a cigar.
Instead, I pick up my bourbon and take a healthy swig. And try to block out the damn baby.
I feel a quick bite in the vicinity of my jugular, telling me that the woman currently in my lap is either part vampire or annoyed at me for ignoring her.
I drag my eyes away from the cards in my hand and ease her away from me. “Melissa, sweetie. Any chance you could fetch me another whiskey?”
Blue eyes turn icy as she slowly unwinds from around me and stands in her five-inch red heels. “It’s Marisa.”
Ah shit. I’m no gentleman, but usually I at least get their names right.
Then again, it’s not like I’ve known her for more than half an hour. Hell, I’m not even entirely sure how she, or any of the girls milling about, got here.
In fact, the whole reason we’re hanging out in my suite at the Encore instead of in the casino downstairs is to avoid groupies like this one.
My agent, Dan, is giving me the Look, so instead of telling the woman to go bite the neck of someone who actually wants it, I reach out and grab her hand, planting a kiss on the back. “Apologies, babe.”
