Only with You

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For Allie.

I’m lucky to call you my sister;
luckier to call you my best friend.
There’s a reason that the heroine of my
first book is a smart, sparkly,
irresistible little sister.

Only with You
is not my first published book, but it
is
the first book I ever sold, and for that, I have a whole slew of thank-yous:

Anth: You were there since the very beginning when this book was little more than a gangly document written in the back of an airplane hangar. You never doubted that I’d get here. I love you.

To my agent, Nicole, who read the first five pages of this book from the slush pile and asked for more. Without you, I’d be lost.

To Lauren Plude and the entire Grand Central Publishing team: thank you for believing in this story from the start and making my dream of becoming a published author a reality.

And to all of my friends, families, and colleagues, who upon learning that I’d sold
Only with You
, said, “Well, of course!”: your unwavering confidence was and is my rock.

I
f only the boots had come with some sort of warning label.

Perhaps a succinct sticker reading,
HOOKER
.

Or even a tasteful note card indicating, “These shoes will change your life.”

But the knee-high, rhinestone-covered boots said neither of these things, and so Sophie Claire Dalton made the most crucial decision of her life without having all the information.

Not that Sophie
realized
the magnitude of the choice she was about to make. If someone were to ask her about the important decision of her life, the feminine dilemma of shoe choice probably wouldn’t have been on her radar.

She might have thought it was the tearful junior prom date decision between Adam and Gary.

(Adam. Way cuter. Less acne.)

Or perhaps the melodramatic soul-searching about whether to pursue soccer or cheerleading.

(Cheerleading, totally. Boxy athletic shorts hadn’t stood a pubescent chance against a flippy little skirt.)

It could have been her long-deliberated college destination.

(Stanford. Yep, Sophie was one of
those
girls.)

Then there was the choice that had nearly ripped her heart out. Jon McHale had dropped to his knee their senior year of college with a diamond ring the size of her face and the promise of yuppie housewife security.

(Answer: No. Although
that
decision had been particularly rough. The ring had been Tiffany and the man had been sweet.)

Or perhaps most likely, Sophie might have guessed the proverbial fork was the debate over whether to finish her stint at Harvard Law or drop out and pursue a life of, well…aimlessness.

(Current occupation: cocktail waitress.)

And yet, none of these decisions would be as life-altering as the choice she was about to make.

Classic strappy black sandals, or…The Boots.

Clueless to the magnitude of what she was about to decide, Sophie teetered over to the full-length mirror of her Las Vegas hotel room, tugging at the hem of her black miniskirt. She extended the black sandal on her left foot for inspection and winced. Surely that white, flabby and unshaven stump wasn’t
her
leg.

Damn.
The testicle-shaped birthmark above her left knee said the limb was definitely hers. And the pasty complexion looked just about right for a lazy Seattle native in the middle of January.

As for the shoes, the delicate high-heeled sandals had potential. Sexy but understated. Very Audrey Hepburn. Very Jackie Onassis.

But on the other hand…

Sophie pivoted awkwardly to extend her other leg and inspected the boot option. They’d been an impulse buy (okay fine, a slightly
tipsy
impulse buy) from the Lover’s Package sex shop for last year’s Halloween costume of Sexy Space Girl.

Alas, due to some unflattering Halloween-day bloating, the Sexy Space Girl had never made an appearance, and Sophie had tackled Halloween as the green M&M for the third year in a row.

The boots had sat abandoned and unworn in her closet, awaiting their destiny.

Sophie chewed on her lip and considered. The boots were certainly tacky, but wasn’t that kind of the point of a bachelorette party in Vegas? Particularly a bachelorette party for which the slightly unhinged bride had declared a theme of Totally Trashy? These boots were practically the poster children for trashy.

Not to mention they’d cover the glow-in-the-dark-white shade of her calves.

Decision made, Sophie flipped off her old standby black sandal. There’d be plenty of time to channel first ladies and iconic movie stars at job interviews and bridal showers.

The bride’s pouty voice echoed in Sophie’s ear.
I want my bachelorette party to be hella skanky and memorable. If you’re going to be on your period that weekend, fix it.

Which was totally reasonable, since all women could
totally
just up and regulate their uteruses with a firm talking-to.

Sophie was a sucker for traditional wedding hoopla, bachelorette parties included. But she wasn’t looking forward to this one. Had the bride not been her cousin, and the maid of honor not been Sophie’s sister, she would have bailed. But family was family, so here she was in a hotel room she couldn’t afford, dressed like some sort of space-station call girl.

Grabbing her cosmetic bag, Sophie teetered into the bathroom and eyed the multiple mirrors. She pulled the magnifying mirror away from the wall and stared at herself in rapt horror. No pasty American female in her late twenties would have thought it a good idea to zoom in on skin that had been maybe just a
tiny
bit free with the gin and lax on the sunscreen.

Sophie pushed the judgmental mirror away and gave it the bird. She didn’t need a crappy little mirror calling attention to her flaws. She had a mother and a sister for that.

Turning toward the normal, less judgmental mirror, she began applying her makeup with a heavier hand than usual. And the last step in the transformation to tart?

Fake eyelashes.

They’d been deemed mandatory for all bridesmaids. A Totally Trashy uniform of sorts. Sophie squinted at the elaborate packaging. Not only were these things like an inch long, but they had little fake gemstones on them. She shrugged. At least they’d match her boots.

After twenty minutes and a good deal of cursing (Jackie O was long gone by this point), Sophie managed to attach something that looked akin to bedazzled pube clumps onto her normally pale, stubby lashes.

Lovely
, she thought.
Really lovely and classy.

Last, she wound her blonde hair around a curling iron to create a mass of showgirl curls. Stepping back, she surveyed the overall results in the mirror. Not bad, considering.

This
was not the Sophie Dalton who’d been dumped over the phone yesterday afternoon while standing in the airport security line as the TSA agents were disassembling her carefully packed bag.

A bag that contained The Boots. And a purple vibrator. Which the judgmental little security man had
sooooo
not believed was a gag gift for Trish.

But
that
loser version of herself wasn’t here tonight.

No, the Sophie in the mirror had her shit together. Granted, it was trampy shit. And she would have to blame the slightly red, puffy eyes on the dry Las Vegas air. Still, she thought she was hiding the pathetic pretty damn well. At least she wasn’t wallowing at home with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Sophie yanked the curling iron plug from the wall and blinked back the tears that would probably send her fake eyelashes sliding down her cheeks. She wasn’t even sure why she was crying. It wasn’t as though Brian had been The One. He was the fun guy, not the husband potential you brought home to Mom. They’d only been dating for eight months and Brian had switched jobs no fewer than three times.

For once,
Sophie
had been the stable one in the relationship.

Which was why it stung when he’d told her yesterday that she simply didn’t have enough
drive
. That he needed a woman who knew what she wanted, whereas Sophie was just floating.

Floating
, he’d said. Right before the Sea-Tac Airport TSA agents had loudly commanded her to hang up the phone and repack her “pleasure toys.”

Whatever. His loss.

Slopping on a glittery lip gloss that claimed to “plump” lips into a sexy pout with God only knew what kind of chemicals, Sophie took one final glance in the mirror.

Skirt the size of a Band-Aid? Check.

Scrappy halter top barely covering her nipples? Got it.

Pole dancer makeup? Definitely.

And the final touch: boots that belonged in a brothel.

Perfect.
She looked like a girl looking for no-strings-attached sex.

Exactly what she needed.