The Color of Love Read online

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  Applause for L.L. Raand’s Midnight Hunters Series

  Acclaim for Radclyffe’s Fiction

  By Radclyffe

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  About the Author

  Other Radclyffe Titles Available via Amazon

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

  Synopsis

  Literary agent Emily May is in danger of losing everything she’s worked for—her job, her home, her friends, and the security she provides her older sister back in Singapore—all because she doesn’t have a green card. Racecar enthusiast, high-flying, fast-living Derian Winfield is called home when the only family member she still cares about falls ill. Forced into assuming a role in her father’s dynasty she’s spent years avoiding, Derian needs to rehabilitate her black sheep reputation in a hurry or the agency will likely end up being lost in a takeover. Together, she and Emily take on Derian’s father and his hatchet woman, and in the process, Derian comes up with a plan to solve both their problems. Now she only needs to convince Emily to marry her, a perfectly reasonable solution to all their troubles, or so she thinks. She just hadn’t counted on falling in love.

  Applause for L.L. Raand’s Midnight Hunters Series

  The Midnight Hunt

  RWA 2012 VCRW Laurel Wreath winner Blood Hunt

  Night Hunt

  The Lone Hunt

  “Raand has built a complex world inhabited by werewolves, vampires, and other paranormal beings…Raand has given her readers a complex plot filled with wonderful characters as well as insight into the hierarchy of Sylvan’s pack and vampire clans. There are many plot twists and turns, as well as erotic sex scenes in this riveting novel that keep the pages flying until its satisfying conclusion.”—Just About Write

  “Once again, I am amazed at the storytelling ability of L.L. Raand aka Radclyffe. In Blood Hunt, she mixes high levels of sheer eroticism that will leave you squirming in your seat with an impeccable multi-character storyline all streaming together to form one great read.”—Queer Magazine Online

  “The Midnight Hunt has a gripping story to tell, and while there are also some truly erotic sex scenes, the story always takes precedence. This is a great read which is not easily put down nor easily forgotten.”—Just About Write

  “Are you sick of the same old hetero vampire/werewolf story plastered in every bookstore and at every movie theater? Well, I’ve got the cure to your werewolf fever. The Midnight Hunt is first in, what I hope is, a long-running series of fantasy erotica for L.L. Raand (aka Radclyffe).”—Queer Magazine Online

  “Any reader familiar with Radclyffe’s writing will recognize the author’s style within The Midnight Hunt, yet at the same time it is most definitely a new direction. The author delivers an excellent story here, one that is engrossing from the very beginning. Raand has pieced together an intricate world, and provided just enough details for the reader to become enmeshed in the new world. The action moves quickly throughout the book and it’s hard to put down.”—Three Dollar Bill Reviews

  Acclaim for Radclyffe’s Fiction

  In Prescription for Love “Radclyffe populates her small town with colorful characters, among the most memorable being Flann’s little sister, Margie, and Abby’s 15-year-old trans son, Blake…This romantic drama has plenty of heart and soul.”—Publishers Weekly

  2013 RWA/New England Bean Pot award winner for contemporary romance Crossroads “will draw the reader in and make her heart ache, willing the two main characters to find love and a life together. It’s a story that lingers long after coming to ‘the end.’”—Lambda Literary

  In 2012 RWA/FTHRW Lories and RWA HODRW Aspen Gold award winner Firestorm “Radclyffe brings another hot lesbian romance for her readers.”—The Lesbrary

  Foreword Review Book of the Year finalist and IPPY silver medalist Trauma Alert “is hard to put down and it will sizzle in the reader’s hands. The characters are hot, the sex scenes explicit and explosive, and the book is moved along by an interesting plot with well drawn secondary characters. The real star of this show is the attraction between the two characters, both of whom resist and then fall head over heels.”—Lambda Literary Reviews

  Lambda Literary Award Finalist Best Lesbian Romance 2010 features “stories [that] are diverse in tone, style, and subject, making for more variety than in many, similar anthologies…well written, each containing a satisfying, surprising twist. Best Lesbian Romance series editor Radclyffe has assembled a respectable crop of 17 authors for this year’s offering.”—Curve Magazine

  2010 Prism award winner and ForeWord Review Book of the Year Award finalist Secrets in the Stone is “so powerfully [written] that the worlds of these three women shimmer between reality and dreams…A strong, must read novel that will linger in the minds of readers long after the last page is turned.”—Just About Write

  In Benjamin Franklin Award finalist Desire by Starlight “Radclyffe writes romance with such heart and her down-to-earth characters not only come to life but leap off the page until you feel like you know them. What Jenna and Gard feel for each other is not only a spark but an inferno and, as a reader, you will be washed away in this tumultuous romance until you can do nothing but succumb to it.”—Queer Magazine Online

  Lambda Literary Award winner Stolen Moments “is a collection of steamy stories about women who just couldn’t wait. It’s sex when desire overrides reason, and it’s incredibly hot!”—On Our Backs

  Lambda Literary Award winner Distant Shores, Silent Thunder “weaves an intricate tapestry about passion and commitment between lovers. The story explores the fragile nature of trust and the sanctuary provided by loving relationships.”—Sapphic Reader

  Lambda Literary Award Finalist Justice Served delivers a “crisply written, fast-paced story with twists and turns and keeps us guessing until the final explosive ending.”—Independent Gay Writer

  Lambda Literary Award finalist Turn Back Time “is filled with wonderful love scenes, which are both tender and hot.”—MegaScene

  The Color of Love

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  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  The Color of Love

  © 2016 By Radclyffe. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-717-0

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: July 2016

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author
’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editors: Ruth Sternglantz and Stacia Seaman

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  By Radclyffe

  Romances

  Innocent Hearts

  Promising Hearts

  Love’s Melody Lost

  Love’s Tender Warriors

  Tomorrow’s Promise

  Love’s Masquerade

  shadowland

  Passion’s Bright Fury

  Fated Love

  Turn Back Time

  When Dreams Tremble

  The Lonely Hearts Club

  Night Call

  Secrets in the Stone

  Desire by Starlight

  Crossroads

  Homestead

  Against Doctor’s Orders

  Prescription for Love

  The Color of Love

  Honor Series

  Above All, Honor

  Honor Bound

  Love & Honor

  Honor Guards

  Honor Reclaimed

  Honor Under Siege

  Word of Honor

  Code of Honor

  Price of Honor

  Justice Series

  A Matter of Trust (prequel)

  Shield of Justice

  In Pursuit of Justice

  Justice in the Shadows

  Justice Served

  Justice For All

  The Provincetown Tales

  Safe Harbor

  Beyond the Breakwater

  Distant Shores, Silent Thunder

  Storms of Change

  Winds of Fortune

  Returning Tides

  Sheltering Dunes

  First Responders Novels

  Trauma Alert

  Firestorm

  Oath of Honor

  Taking Fire

  Wild Shores

  Short Fiction

  Collected Stories by Radclyffe

  Erotic Interludes: Change of Pace

  Radical Encounters

  Edited by Radclyffe:

  Best Lesbian Romance 2009-2014

  Stacia Seaman and Radclyffe, eds.

  Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments

  Erotic Interludes 3: Lessons in Love

  Erotic Interludes 4: Extreme Passions

  Erotic Interludes 5: Road Games

  Romantic Interludes 1: Discovery

  Romantic Interludes 2: Secrets

  Breathless: Tales of Celebration

  Women of the Dark Streets

  Amore and More: Love Everafter

  Myth & Magic: Queer Fairy Tales

  By L.L. Raand

  Midnight Hunters

  The Midnight Hunt

  Blood Hunt

  Night Hunt

  The Lone Hunt

  The Magic Hunt

  Shadow Hunt

  Acknowledgments

  Love comes in all sizes, shapes, colors, and combos—of age, ethnicity, cultural heritage, gender identities, sexualities, social strata, and more. The color at the center of this book is green and seems fitting in a time when difference is feared, and a great many people think building walls, physical and metaphorical, will cure what ails us. Those of us in the LGBTQ community know a lot about breaking down walls and out of closets and fighting to be visible. Preserving the rights and freedoms of others is essential to preserving those same things for us. So goes one, so go we all, sooner or later. This book is a love story about two women, about home and family, and about the boundaries that must fall for us to preserve our love and our lives.

  Many thanks go to: senior editor Sandy Lowe for the inspiration and hard work, editor Ruth Sternglantz for endless attention and expertise, editor Stacia Seaman for her unique skills, Sheri Halal for a super cover, and my first readers Paula, Eva, and Connie for encouragement and aid.

  And as always, thanks to Lee for the best colors of all—green grass and blue skies. Amo te.

  Radclyffe, 2016

  To Lee, for rainbows

  Chapter One

  At ten to nine, Emily settled into one of the leather and mahogany captain’s chairs at the round oak table in the library on the second floor of the Winfield Building and looked out the tall leaded-glass windows into the Flatiron District. A light, late snow fell, delicate and subtly powerful. So far the dusting was pleasantly picturesque, painting the sidewalks and marquees in a fleeting lacquer of white, and not enough to snarl traffic in Manhattan. She’d been in her office before six and hadn’t minded the walk from her apartment in Chelsea. Spring was around the corner, snow or not.

  She sipped her Earl Grey and waited for the others, soothed as always by the faint lemony scent of furniture polish and the seductive aroma of parchment. She never used the renovated conference room on the first floor, with its bright lights, steel and glass tables, sleek modern chairs, and absolutely no soul. This room had soul. The shelves were filled with history—history she was part of now—books discovered, sponsored, birthed by the Winfield Literary Agency for a hundred years. She hadn’t been born into this world, but she’d been born with the love of words and she’d found her home.

  Home. A flood of melancholy washed through her even after all this time. Almost ten years since home had become a place of sorrows and loss. She brushed the fleeting sadness aside, even while knowing it would return. The past was never truly gone, and she didn’t want it to be. She had forged a new life, but memories, even painful ones, could still bring moments of joy. She did not regret hers.

  Right now she had a very busy day ahead of her, and she looked forward to it. She sipped more tea and scanned the agenda on her tablet. Acquisitions, launches, marketing and ads, budget, contracts. Business items to some, but excitement to her. Behind every bullet point a book was waiting.

  At five to nine, Ron Elliott arrived, looking neat and polished as he always did in an open-collared, blue button-down shirt and flawlessly tailored black trousers. His chestnut brown hair draped over his forehead in a subtly artful accentuation of his dark brows and piercing blue eyes. He was handsome in the way some men could be beautiful and masculine at the same time. If she’d been interested in men in a personal way, and if he hadn’t been gay and happily married, she would have picked Ron as the perfect match. He loved the work the way she did—as more than a job. He hadn’t even complained when she’d been moved ahead of him into the senior agent position when she was younger and had less time in than him. He claimed he really only wanted to spend his time on acquisitions, and she believed him. Some days she envied him, when her carefully scheduled half-day of reviewing the slush pile went to hell in a handbasket with an unanticipated fiscal crisis, a frantic author with a missed deadline, or an impossible publisher request to advance a pub date.

  “New haircut?” Ron sat opposite her at the round table.

  Emily fingered the loose curls that just touched her shoulders and feathered back from her face. “Just a few inches off.”

  “Looks good. Now you could almost pass for twenty instead of twelve.”

  “I do have a mirror, you know. The twelve thing hasn’t been true for at least five years. And you’re the only one who ever thought so anyhow.”

  Ron grinned. “Just make sure to have ID if we ever go out clubbing again—or, miracle of miracles, you say yes the next time someone asks you for a date.”

  Emily shook her head and concentrated on her tablet. Ron was just about her best friend, but he was also one of those people who thought everyone should be as happily married as he was. She couldn’t convince him she was far too busy and had too much to accomplish to need anything else. Anyone else. Maybe someday, when she was sure Pam’s future was secure. Right now, her life was going according to plan—her plan,
and that was all she wanted. No more surprises, no more disappointments.

  At 8:59, the senior members of the agency arrived. Her team—two acquiring agents in addition to Ron, their interns, the marketing director and his intern, and the budget supervisor.

  “Morning, everybody.” Emily received a chorus of mornings and one barely audible groan. Clearly, one of the interns was not a morning person, but that would change if they wanted to make it in the rapidly transforming and ever-competitive world of literary discovery. Greetings completed, Emily jumped in.

  “Okay, we’ve got three months to the launch of the summer season—so where are we in terms of ads, promotions, and tours? Ron—why don’t you start.”

  Ron ran down his six forthcoming titles with reports from the corresponding publishers’ marketing divisions, recaps of conversations with the authors, and summaries of his agenda for pushing his titles out to reviewers and bloggers ahead of release. Emily listened but didn’t take notes. Ron was always on top of his list. For nearly an hour, the other agents in turn reviewed the forthcoming titles of the authors they represented, strategies were revised, and projected costs were approved, amended, and revised.

  “We should be in good shape,” Emily said, scanning the notes she’d made and projecting the timelines for the intersecting campaigns in her head. “Ron, Terry, you’ve got to keep on top of Heron—they’re going to let the Emery and Rosen titles fall to the bottom of the list if we don’t push, especially now that they’ve moved up the release of Baldwin’s mystery.”