Thanks to our agent, Holly Root, to our partners in crime (husbands and kiddos), to our fantastic readers, and to our friends and family who put up with our glassy-eyed stares when we’re mentally plotting another chapter during a lunch date.

Thanks to every single wonderful person at Gallery. Thank you, Jen and Lauren.

And thank you most of all to our editor, Adam Wilson, who appreciates that knickers are best in a bunch.

‘Beautiful Player’ Excerpt

Hot on the heels of Beautiful Bombshell comes Will’s story.

Will this chronic Casanova finally meet his match in a bookish bombshell?

Take a sneak peek here at the opening chapter of Beautiful Player . . .

Prologue

Hanna

We were in the ugliest apartment in all of Manhattan, and it wasn’t just that my brain was especially programmed away from art appreciation: objectively these paintings were all hideous. A hairy leg growing from a flower stem. A mouth with spaghetti pouring out. Beside me, my oldest brother and my father hummed thoughtfully, nodding as if they understood what they were seeing. I was the one who kept us moving forward; it seemed to be the unspoken protocol that party guests should make the circuit, admire the art, and only then feel free to enjoy the appetizers being carried on trays around the room.

But at the very end, above the massive fireplace and between two garish candelabras, was a painting of a double helix—the structure of the DNA molecule—and printed across the entire canvas was a quote by Tim Burton: We all know interspecies romance is weird.

Thrilled, I laughed, turning to Jensen and Dad. “Okay. That one is good.”

Jensen sighed. “You would like that.”

I glanced to the painting and back to my brother. “Why? Because it’s the only thing in this entire place that makes any sense?”

He looked at Dad and something passed between them, some permission granted from father to son. “We need to talk to you about your relationship to your job.”

It took a minute before his words, his tone, and his determined expression triggered my understanding. “Jensen,” I said. “Are we really going to have this conversation here?”

“Yes, here.” His green eyes narrowed. “It’s the first time I’ve seen you out of the lab in the past two days when you weren’t sleeping or scarfing down a meal.”

I’d often noted how it seemed the most prominent personality traits of my parents—vigilance, drive, impulse, charm, and caution—had been divided cleanly and without contamination among their five offspring.

Vigilance and Drive were headed into battle in the middle of a Manhattan soiree.