Putting the book back on the shelf, Connor’s gaze floated to two pictures in wooden frames. One photograph was of a young woman with a book—much like the ones on the shelf—opened and covering the bottom half of her face. Her mouth wasn’t shown, but there was no denying the smile in her blue eyes or the obnoxious French writing scrawled over the cover of the book. The second picture was of a young Gabriel with a wide grin and black tie draped around a white button-down shirt with his arms wrapped around the waist of a young woman. A curtain of dark, curly hair rained over her face as she twisted away from him, but there was no denying the playful grin beaming from her. The clinking of glass alerted him to someone behind him. He swiveled, and ice ran through his veins. Gabriel lingered at a drink cart set up beside the lone brown leather chair on the other side of the desk. He had the lip of a crystal decanter pressed against a short glass. Amber liquid flowed from one container to the other. Gabriel waited until his glass was filled before lifting his gaze to Connor….

When I first started writing Bound by Danger, the story started out as a flirty rom-com about a flight attendant who hurries off the plane to meet a blind date. She rushed to the restaurant only to discover the man she’s meeting had been on her flight, and she’d forced him from the bathroom with a woman he was on the verge of joining the mile-high club with. Enter the weak excuse, add a desperate man needing a date for a wedding, and the first half of the book was complete. But something was off. My hero had engaged in very unheroic behavior. How could I give him a plausible reason for his actions at the beginning of the book and still make him worthy of my heroine? Turns out I couldn’t. I could, however, give him a reason for being on that same plane. Instead of him chasing after a girl, he could chase a bad guy who tried to take over the plane. Then he and my heroine could meet under fast-paced, exciting circumstances that throw them together…leaving both a little shell-shocked and dripping with attraction. Wait a minute, I write sweet contemporary romance. Not fast-paced, sexy suspense…