PASSION ON PARK AVENUE
By Lauren Layne
Book 1 of The Central Park Pact series
On sale May 28, 2019
Trade Paperback - Price: $16.00 - ISBN: 9781501191572
eBook - Price: $11.99 - ISBN: 9781501191589
Book
description
For as long as she can remember, Bronx-born Naomi Powell has had one
goal: to prove her worth among the Upper East Side elite—the same people for
which her mom worked as a housekeeper. Now, as the strongminded, sassy CEO of
one of the biggest jewelry empires in the country, Naomi finally has exactly
what she wants—but it’s going to take more than just the right address to make
Manhattan’s upper class stop treating her like an outsider.
The worst offender is her new neighbor, Oliver Cunningham—the grown son of the very family Naomi’s mother used to work for. Oliver used to torment Naomi when they were children, and as a ridiculously attractive adult, he’s tormenting her in entirely different ways. Now they find themselves engaged in a battle-of-wills that will either consume or destroy them…
The worst offender is her new neighbor, Oliver Cunningham—the grown son of the very family Naomi’s mother used to work for. Oliver used to torment Naomi when they were children, and as a ridiculously attractive adult, he’s tormenting her in entirely different ways. Now they find themselves engaged in a battle-of-wills that will either consume or destroy them…
The first thing Naomi had done
after the shock of reading that Brayden Hayes was freaking married was
to google the crap out of his wife, desperate for an indication that the Times
had been wrong about his marital status. That it was a misprint or he was
divorced. The paper hadn’t been wrong. There really was a Mrs. Brayden Hayes.
And she, too, had chosen Central
Park over Brayden’s funeral.
Nearly even with Claire Hayes now,
and with the sunglasses still providing Naomi anonymity, she dared to sneak a
look at the other woman out of the corner of her eye.
Brayden’s widow looked pretty much
like the picture Naomi had rummaged up online: a thirty-something Upper East
Side WASP. Like Naomi, she wore oversize sunglasses, the Chanel logo glinting
in a stray ray of sunshine. Naomi’s trained eye pegged the basic black sheath
as St. John, and the basic black pumps Louboutins—identical to Naomi’s.
But unlike Naomi, Claire had
a genteel poise about her. Like she’d never said darn, much less dropped
an f-bomb. Naomi would bet serious money that Claire Hayes didn’t eat Kraft
Macaroni & Cheese straight out of the pan when she was stressed and that
Claire had never been so poor that she’d actually once considered taking home a
neighbor’s discarded mattress, bedbugs be damned, simply because it was free.
Claire’s placid expression betrayed
nothing as Naomi passed her, the glasses too large to reveal any emotion on her
face. For that matter, Naomi wondered if women like her experienced emotion at
all. It didn’t seem it. The woman was the picture of calm, except for . . .
Her hands.
Brayden’s widow’s hands were
clenched tightly in her lap, the fingers of her right hand white-knuckled
around the fist of her left hand. But it wasn’t the subdued pink manicure that
captured Naomi’s attention. It was the bright red crescent moons beneath
the nails.
Naomi had a lifelong bad habit of
acting before thinking, and she did so now, crossing to the other woman and
sitting beside her on the park bench.
“That’s enough now,” Naomi said,
using her CEO voice, calm and commanding.
Claire didn’t move. Naomi wasn’t
even sure the other woman heard her.
Naomi hesitated only for a moment
before slowly reaching over and prying the nails of Claire’s right hand away
from her left hand. Little streaks of blood were left in the wake.
Claire looked down in confusion, as
though just now registering the pain.
“Does that Givenchy have any
Kleenex?” Naomi asked, nodding toward Claire’s clutch on the bench.
Claire didn’t move for a long
moment, then taking a deep breath, she calmly reached for her purse, pulling
out a travel-size package of tissue.
“We’re wearing the same shoes. Same
dress, too,” Claire said, dabbing at the blood on the back of her hand with a
tissue, using the same casual indifference of one dabbing up a drop of spilled water.
Naomi nodded in agreement, though
Claire’s St. John was a knee-length mock turtleneck, and Naomi’s Chloé was a
boatneck that hit at midthigh.
For a long moment, neither said
anything.
“I’m supposed to be at a funeral,”
Claire said, balling up the tissue and dropping her hands back into her lap.
“Why aren’t you?”
Naomi was genuinely curious. She
knew why she wasn’t at that funeral. But the widow being a no-show . . .
that was some serious Page Six–worthy gossip right there.
Claire opened her mouth to respond
but shut it when a pretty young woman with dark brown hair walked past them.
Naomi waited for the other woman to pass and, when she gave the brunette a
closer look, realized the other woman was walking a bit too slowly, as though
tempted to approach. She looked vaguely familiar. Naomi was fairly sure they’d
crossed paths at a couple of events, though Naomi couldn’t put a name with the
face.
Brayden’s widow, however, could.
Claire went rigid beside Naomi, even as she called out to the other woman,
“Audrey.”
Unlike Claire and Naomi, the
brunette wasn’t wearing sunglasses, and Naomi saw her round eyes go even wider.
“You know who I am?”
“You’re Audrey Tate. I did a little
digging after you called the house that night,” Claire said quietly. “I know
you were sleeping with my husband.”
Naomi’s head whipped around in
surprise, and then surprise escalated to shock as she realized Claire wasn’t
talking to her.
About
the author
Lauren Layne is the New York Times and USA
TODAY bestselling author of more than two dozen romantic comedies. Her
books have sold over a million copies in nine languages. Lauren's work has been
featured in Publishers Weekly, Glamour, The
Wall Street Journal, and Inside Edition. She is based in New
York City.
