Settling the Score is out!!! Extra scene...

Today Torquere Press released Settling the Score! Find it here with my other Torquere stories:

I've already posted the blurb, so I'd like to share with you a little extra story that fits in a few weeks before the story starts:

***

Erica relaxed on the new white sectional in her boss's office, stocking feet
resting on the coffee table, sipping a rum and Coke. Good thing Troy was
currently in Cleveland at a book signing. However, she could have gotten
away with watching what he considered trash on his expensive new big screen
TV by telling him it was for research. She could have gotten away with it
anyway, just because Troy epitomized "pushover," not that she took advantage
of that -- much. Except that she'd also managed to talk a man who hated
network programming into buying the state of the art electronics to begin
with.

All for research purposes. Yes, research, that's what it was, because the
show featured the relatively unknown actor who'd won the lead role in
Something to Die For, the latest movie to be adapted from one of Troy's
books.

It wasn't easy being the assistant of a bestselling author, especially not
one as eccentric as Troy Steele, but beneath all the nervous twitches and
prickly exterior beat a heart of pure gold. Too bad he didn't have a special
someone to appreciate his finer qualities.

Erica watched her show, at first outraged by what appeared to be a public
forced outing of the handsome young star, but it didn't take long for her to
figure out that for Riker Sanderson, the world was a stage. He had the
audience eating out of his 'woe is me' little hand in no time.

Dismissing the man as a dime a dozen social-climbing diva, she paused in
turning off the TV when the scene changed to the small town
diamond-in-the-rough thrown over by Mr. Hollywood for all the world to see.

Reading between the lines, and studying the subtle clues in the young man's
very animated face, she deduced that the jilted lover hadn't seen it coming:
the summary dismissal of one no longer needed, sacrificed as a pawn in the
fame game.

The story sounded familiar. This real-life drama bore an eerie similarity to
the plot of Troy's work in progress, which was too autobiographical, in
Erica's well-honed opinion. She hadn't liked the direction the last few
chapters were going -- time to interrupt Troy's pity-party by reminding him
that looking forward beats the hell out of looking back. But first Troy
needed closure, and a chance to come out on top for once. Erica's keen mind
quickly formed the perfect plan.

It's a good thing she could coax her boss into practically anything in the
name of "research," because, although he didn't know it yet, Troy Steele was
about to hire that country boy.