Chapter one

Standing atop a lonely hill, Vivian gazed out upon the turbulent sea. Voluptuous and shapely, she cut a striking silhouette. Resembling the siren she was purported to be, she looked to the west. A dark ship appeared on the horizon, and with its sighting, her pulse quickened. Was it the dark pirate captain who haunted her dreams? A tall and fierce warrior, his face was full of fury. And passion. With just a glance from him, her loins quivered. With a touch . . . implosion.

Was it he? Returning from faraway lands and adventures she could only dream of, would he pillage and plunder her body as only he could? Would the pirate bestow upon her the treasure of his manhood? Or would he cast her aside as an empty booty?

Would he?

Would he?

Would he care for another Diet Dr Pepper?

Wait, what?

I was torn from my pirate fantasy by the nasal, weenie voice of Richard Harrison, CPA.

“Can I get another Diet Dr Pepper, please? And for the lady, another—what was it you’re having, Viv?”

“Scotch. Water. Neat,” I answered, looking across the table at the latest in a long line of blind dates. Set up by my mother, which should have been my first clue to say no and run screaming into that good night. Not that she didn’t have good taste; she’d picked a looker with Richard. Strike that—he was a looker if that’s what you were into.

Brown hair. Brown eyes. Brown chinos, perfectly creased. White button-down. White teeth. Blindingly white, actually; I was pretty sure when he smiled chimes went off. Every time a CPA smiled, a fairy got its wings?

Jesus, Viv, get a grip.

I sipped my Scotch, wincing not only at the good burn, but at the bad turn this conversation was taking. Tax laws over appetizers. Nothing like a little burrata caprese with a side of capital gains.

I’d gotten through the first twenty minutes of Current Bad Date by letting my mind wander to my favorite place, Romance Novel Central. But now even the thought of pirates marauding through my underwear couldn’t spare me from the drone of brown-brown-brown-white-white-boring.

I let my eyes wander around the restaurant, fingering the small locket around my neck. Shell-pink and ivory, the tiny cameo had been given to me when I was thirteen. A family heirloom, it had been given to me as a confirmation gift. My family was still active in the church; not so much me. Although I did love a good fish fry. With a side of guilt, thank you very much. Which was why I was here on a Friday night instead of relaxing with a good book.

Directly above my heirloom cameo was a face “framed by wisps of dark curly hair, with golden tanned skin, and sea-glass-green eyes.” This is how my mother sold me to Richard Harrison, CPA, and aforementioned weenie. I did in fact have dark curly hair, all two inches of it, and I did have green eyes. Golden skin? Well, it was tan, I’ll give her that. But what she neglected to mention was the barbell in my left eyebrow. She usually also left out the nose piercing, tongue piercing, and the tattoo at the base of my neck. When I took off my leather jacket earlier, it made Mr. Harrison cringe a bit, but he held his own. Barely five two in socks but almost five four in my favorite combat boots, I knew very well the image I was projecting—certainly one at odds with the familyfriendly TGI McGeneric restaurant he’d brought me to. All the great restaurants in South Philadelphia, and he brings me here?

Why in the world did I let myself get talked into another blind date?

Because you’re single, you’ve never been in love, and you’re Desperately Seeking Pirate?

True. I’d also take a cowboy. Or a fireman. Or an estranged prince separated from his royal bloodline by a ruthless uncle hell-bent on obtaining the throne, especially when it came along with the maiden princess from a rival kingdom, the most beautiful creature in all the land. Too bad for the uncle that the maiden had been de-maidened by said prince on a bed of snowy-white down feathers. And when the prince thrust into his lady love, her nails scored into his back like those of an eagle taking flight, a flight into passionate—

Whoa. No more Scotch.

Ten solid minutes later of listening to him wax poetic about tax shelters and Roth IRAs, I set my glass down and stared at him. I could be luxuriating in a bubble bath and inside my head with the pirate king, but I was listening to this? I was perfectly capable of finding my own dates, a fact I lectured my mother about over and over again. Though actually putting this capability into practice was a different matter; a practice I didn’t really engage in. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in dating; I was. To a point. I just didn’t have any patience for the small-talk two-step that one needed to engage in to catch a feller.

I knew that life couldn’t be like a romance novel, where someone could fall hopelessly in love with her soul mate the moment they met eyes across a crowded room.

Preposterous.

Or that you could be whisked off into a world of fantasy and excitement by a handsome stranger, instantly connect, and be in perfect sexual sync from the second his mammoth male member teased your delicate flower petals.

The idea.

Or that there was a billionaire bad boy at the head of every Fortune 100 company who was in his late twenties, six feet, three inches of barely tamed unchecked male aggression who was waiting for a tiny waif of a girl with no self-esteem and Chuck Taylor sneakers with no socks to knock him off his pedestal and change the course of his life over a two-martini lunch and a quickie in the restaurant ladies’ room.

For the record? Wearing Chucks with no socks makes your feet stink like bags of disgusting.

However. For all the ridiculous perpetuated in a romance novel, I still longed for the fantasy. The fairy tale. The wonderful give and take that occurred when two became one. So I went out on dates, met guys in bars, picked them up occasionally, and had the mostly bland, occasionally inventive, sex of the single-girl encounters. Orgasms, whether by my own hand or someone else’s, could never be discounted. So when my mother wore me down every few months about being the only one of my siblings who wasn’t married, I relented and let her set me up on blind dates.

My type and my mother’s type were as different as tuna fish and a curling iron. I liked a bad boy, and had enjoyed some a time or two. I preferred them a bit rough, tough looking. Messy hair? Yes, please. Artistic? Yes, please—musician, painter, performance artist, what have you.

My mother’s type was everyone’s type: good provider, steady, accomplished, smart, sociable at parties, and enough sperm to breed Catholic guilt into the next generation several times over.

And in this latest surge of motherly influence, no doubt spawned by the birth of her third grandchild and her wild desire to have a baker’s dozen, lately she had been setting up dates for me like it was going out of style. In the last two weeks alone I’d been out with Harry Thomson, Tommy Dickerson, and now Richard Harrison. A financial planner, a tax lawyer, and now a CPA. Same guy, same pants, same brain. Tom, Dick, and Harry? Oh hell, no . . .