Since she read her first romance novel at age twelve, Katie Pressa wanted to write a romance. A recovering journalist, she finally decided to chase her fiction dream. The Santore Security romance series, published by Three Fires Press, comprises her first four novels. Book one, A Gentleman of the Old School, appeared in January of 2018. The series also includes the novels Lashon's Theory of Relationships, America's Sweetheart, and Shotgun Wedding. Sign up for the latest from Katie and join her readers' group by visiting her website KatiePressa.com.
Edie Bayette has it all: looks, money, and loyal friends. A top-notch attorney, she relishes a good legal fight and works pro-bono for a local women's clinic. But when a one-night stand delivers more than Edie bargained for, she must make a choice: let it wreck her life, or take a huge risk—falling in love, for the first time.
Mack Santore served his country with honor and retired to start his own top-notch security service. Celebrities love him because of his intelligence, experience, and discretion. But Mack's current client—a women's clinic targeted by terrorists—puts him on edge. Then, the most beautiful woman he has ever seen walks in. And he can barely breathe.
When Edie catches Mack staring, her whole body thrills with a dangerous desire. But despite their attraction, how can a relationship ever work? Mack swears by love and commitment, two things Edie only knows about from the dictionary.
Can Mack and Edie overcome the odds? Will they even have a chance to try?
A Gentleman of the Old School is the first volume in a series of romantic suspense novels about a made-up Michigan town (seems like Detroit to me) and a security firm operating there. Even though the novels end happily, they run down some dark terrain to get to that ending. I love these books, and hope this first one will encourage you to pick up the others. – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
ONE
February, 2015
Ironic, that's what it was, and not in the way of that stupid little Alanis Morissette song. Edie Bayette parked her car a block away from the clinic, not because she needed to. In theory, she didn't care if anyone saw her five-year-old Audi down here. She'd parked it near the clinic a dozen times before, and no one said a word.
But today—today, it bothered her.
She slung her purse over her shoulder, got out, slammed the door, and locked the car, chiding herself as she did so. If she parked in the clinic's parking lot, the new security guards could keep an eye on it. But here, she was stuck in a transitional neighborhood, where she—and the car—stood out like a sore thumb.
Not that she was scared. She wasn't. She was the most capable woman she knew.
Most of the time.
She took a deep breath and glanced at the car. It wasn't its usual shiny self. Covered in road sand and ice goop, it looked like its owner didn't care about it. Her mother, the therapist, always said that the way a person took care of her car reflected on the way she took care of herself.
Screw you, Mom, Edie thought, then put a hand to her forehead. Chastising her dead mother in her mind for some casually made comment that just happened to return at the wrong time just showed what a state Edie was in.
She shouldn't have come to work today, and she certainly shouldn't have answered this call. She'd been off balance all afternoon, handling pretrial motions and one recalcitrant client who just didn't listen.
Now she was coming here to acquire yet another client who probably wasn't going to listen.
She took a deep breath. The air was frigid and her coat really wasn't up to the walk. Neither were her legs, peeping out from underneath the skirt that had seemed so sensible this morning, nor the shoes, which had never seemed sensible.
But she always wore high heels on court days, even if she had to carry them in her briefcase and change in the ladies room. It hadn't been snowing today, so she hadn't done that, and this morning—sensibly again—she had parked in the courthouse's parking garage so that she wouldn't have to traverse ice.
Which she was doing now.
Picking her way over ice was probably more accurate.
All right. She was wrong. She really didn't want anyone to see the car and jump to conclusions, which was just stupid because what conclusion could they jump to?
She was acting counsel for the Margaret Sanger House, a volunteer position that she had thought would be real easy and would count as her pro-bono work. And it would have been easy, too, if it hadn't been for the nutballs who somehow thought being pro-life meant you could bomb the shit out of a place where women went for their reproductive health.
She exhaled and saw her breath float away from her. She wasn't wearing a hat because warm hats were one of the few things that could muss her black hair, cut in a wedge because wedges were easy to maintain. She had left her leather gloves in the car, because she always took them off to drive. And her feet already felt like blocks of ice.
Yeah, yeah. Going to the Sanger House today of all days didn't bother her at all.
Pregnancy tests had evolved since she last used one, in college fifteen years ago. Now they had easy-to-read red lines with great graphics, instead of color coding that seemed easy until you peed on one of the strips and realized that your interpretation of a color might not be the manufacturer's interpretation of a color.
Still, after she took the test on Sunday, she had gone out and bought two more tests from different manufacturers. She used one yesterday, decided to dismiss it (two positives couldn't mean anything, right?), and then used one this morning.
Bleary-eyed and hoping against hope that the other manufacturer's test and her urine did not get along.
Nope. This new test had an even more emphatic feature than the old test did. This test didn't show little color bands in the window. This test actually said pregnant or not pregnant. There was no mistaking that little word in the window of the test. That little single word.
Pregnant.
Heaven help her.
She picked her way across the ice, her pointed heels sinking in. At least she wasn't sliding. She crossed the street like an elderly woman searching for balance, arms out.
So much for not calling attention to herself. She was the only stupid person on the sidewalk. She should probably mentally rephrase that. She was the only person on the sidewalk, which automatically made her stupid.
And that irony thing: it really was ironic that the day she found out (okay, the day she actually believed) she was pregnant was the day she had to make an emergency trip to the Sanger House. She felt awkward and icky and worried that everyone would 1) know she was pregnant and 2) think she was going in for an abortion.
It was like she couldn't control her brain or her emotions. Neither of those items should have bothered her—visiting the clinic, which she had done dozens of times, not just for work, but for herself—and having an abortion. She'd defended the clinic for its right to provide the service, defended women who wanted an abortion, and given money to every pro-choice group she could give money to.
So why the hell was she so bothered about the perception?
Her right foot slipped, arms pinwheeling, but her left foot—heel caught in the ice—grounded her. Pregnant woman, falling on ice.
Not that it mattered at this early stage. She wasn't even showing yet. She had some symptoms, but jeez, she'd had worse PMS.
She managed to make it across the street and over one thin sheet of ice before she got to the part of the sidewalk that had both salt and sand, and had also been recently shoveled. Her heels clacked on the concrete, and for a moment, she felt like she had found nirvana.
The clinic loomed before her, a red brick building that had seen better days. All of the money the clinic got in the form of grants, donations, and charitable gifts went toward improving the interior. Five years ago, the clinic had received one large charitable gift upon the death of one of their benefactors, which allowed the clinic to provide more services.
Some on the board were talking about moving to a new location, one with better protections and an easier path inside. Right now, there were five entrances. Two were staff entrances and one was for medical emergencies (usually departing to the nearest hospital, for things the clinic couldn't handle in-house), but two were on the front and side of the building, both leading into the waiting area.
She hated the two entrances, and tried to talk the board into closing one. But there was a long history of patients who didn't want to go in through the front door, for precisely the reason she had used, almost subconsciously, to park two blocks away.
Perception.
She let out another breath, watching the fog move past her. The air felt barbed, as if some moisture she couldn't see was already turning into ice crystals.
She was thinking about perception because she was thinking about her mother. Of course, she was thinking about her mother.
The first time she had gotten pregnant, she had been at home.
You've ruined your life now, her mother had said. All that work to get you to a good college, wasted, and for what? One good fuck?
Leave it to her mother to say the worst possible thing. Edie had flushed.
It wasn't good, she had said and walked away. Even though it had been. She had loved Kyle, her high school boyfriend. They had talked marriage, although his mother had talked her out of it, for both of their sakes.
And his mother had gotten Edie into her gynecologist, who talked options. Edie and Kyle were weighing all of the options—without the help of Edie's mother—when the miscarriage happened.
That had been more devastating than she expected. Even though her mother told her that God took care of these things. As if her mother had ever believed in God.
Edie just believed that there should always be retributions for crimes. Which was why Edie, much as she loved the law, never went into criminal law.
Too dangerous. Too Old Testament.
Just like her mother.
Edie squared her shoulders and walked the remaining distance to the clinic. She wasn't going in as a patient. She was going in as a lawyer.
She had to remember that.
And then maybe, just maybe, talk to a therapist about all the other crap. Because she clearly couldn't handle this on her own.
