The love plot, p.1
The Love Plot, page 1
PRAISE FOR
A Cosmic Kind of Love
“Wow. I’ve been reading Samantha Young for years, and she has actually managed to top herself with A Cosmic Kind of Love.”
—Tessa Bailey, New York Times bestselling author of It Happened One Summer
“With a premise that shines like the brightest constellation, Samantha Young delivers a refreshing and delicious rom-com about star-crossed lovers event planner Hallie Goodman and NASA astronaut Christopher Ortiz. [With] sizzling chemistry, a tangible connection, and complex characters I rooted for from the get-go, A Cosmic Kind of Love did in fact launch my heart into space and left me on Earth, starry-eyed and hoping for my own Captain Chris Ortiz.”
—Elena Armas, New York Times bestselling author of The Spanish Love Deception
“A stellar blend of upbeat and endearing, A Cosmic Kind of Love is classic feel-good rom-com entertainment!”
—Chloe Liese, author of the Bergman Brothers series
“A Cosmic Kind of Love will fly you to the moon and leave you stargazing. This clever romantic comedy about two souls brought together by the stars is everything you need in your life, complete with swoons, smiles, and steam enough to power a rocket. A Cosmic Kind of Love doesn’t just get five stars—it gets the whole galaxy.”
—Staci Hart, author of Wasted Words
PRAISE FOR
Much Ado About You
“Bestselling author Samantha Young’s latest rom-com, Much Ado About You, is as cozy as a well-worn blanket.”
—PopSugar
PRAISE FOR
Fight or Flight
“A delightfully flirty read full of banter and heat, Fight or Flight also captivated me with the depth of its emotional intuition. . . . I was left at the end hugging my copy, both satisfied with the fantastic read and bereft that it was over.”
—New York Times, USA Today, and #1 international bestselling author Christina Lauren
“[Young’s] books have it all—gorgeous writing, sexy characters, heartbreak—I’m addicted.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Vi Keeland
“Funny, witty, sexy, and a little heartbreaking, [Young’s] outdone herself with Fight or Flight, and that’s saying a lot.”
—USA Today bestselling author Penny Reid
“Utterly delicious and addictive, Fight or Flight is Samantha Young at her best. I could not put it down.”
—New York Times bestselling author Kristen Callihan
“This romance is a knockout. . . . Passionate, pure, and a perfect addition to the genre; a romance with real heart.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Young makes the temperature rise in this sexy new novel, which blurs the line between friends and friends with benefits. . . . Readers will finish the novel craving more.”
—Booklist
PRAISE FOR NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR SAMANTHA YOUNG AND HER NOVELS
“Young pens a wonderful romance with lovable, multifaceted characters who want what everyone wants—someone to love them, no matter what.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Full of tenderness, fire, sexiness, and intrigue, Every Little Thing is everything I hope to find in a romance.”
—Vilma’s Book Blog
“Ms. Young delivers a character-driven storyline that is gripping from the get-go, injecting a beloved enemies-to-lovers trope with intense angst and eroticism.”
—Natasha Is a Book Junkie
“A really sexy book. . . . Highly recommend this one.”
—USA Today
“Humor, heartbreak, drama, and passion.”
—The Reading Cafe
“Young writes stories that stay with you long after you flip that last page.”
—Under the Covers
“Charismatic characters, witty dialogue, blazing-hot sex scenes, and real-life issues make this book an easy one to devour.”
—Fresh Fiction
Also by Samantha Young
THE HART’S BOARDWALK SERIES
Every Little Thing
The One Real Thing
THE ON DUBLIN STREET SERIES
Moonlight on Nightingale Way
Echoes of Scotland Street
Fall from India Place
Before Jamaica Lane
Down London Road
On Dublin Street
One King’s Way (novella)
Until Fountain Bridge (novella)
Castle Hill (novella)
Hero
Fight or Flight
Much Ado About You
A Cosmic Kind of Love
BERKLEY ROMANCE
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2023 by Samantha Young
Readers Guide copyright © 2023 by Samantha Young
Excerpt from A Cosmic Kind of Love copyright © 2022 by Samantha Young
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
BERKLEY and the BERKLEY and B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Young, Samantha, author.
Title: The love plot / Samantha Young.
Description: First Edition. | New York : Berkley Romance, 2023.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022057983 (print) | LCCN 2022057984 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593438633 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593438640 (ebook)
Subjects: LCGFT: Novels. | Romance fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6125.O943 L68 2023 (print) | LCC PR6125.O943 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92—dc23/eng/20221208
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022057983
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022057984
First Edition: August 2023
Cover design and illustration by Colleen Reinhart
Interior art: NYC Icons © vectorwin / Shutterstock.com
Book design by Kristin del Rosario, adapted for ebook by Molly Jeszke
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Cover
Praise for Samantha Young
Also by Samantha Young
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
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
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Readers Guide
Discussion Questions
Excerpt from A Cosmic Kind of Love
About the Author
_144774596_
For Billy
Chapter One
I’ve never been one to swoon over a man.
I’d felt attraction to gorgeous guys and had pretty good sex in my twenty-eight years on this planet. But swooning?
Nope.
In many ways, I was like the character I’d donned for the eight-year-old’s birthday party that day. My strawberry-blond hair wasn’t the right hue, so I wore a wig of tumbling, riotous bright red curls that were vivid against the teal velvet fabric of my medieval-style gown. I had a bow (fake weapon) looped over my shoulder and a brown belt slung across my hips, with a quiver holding plastic arrows attached to it.
It wasn’t too hard to guess that I was Merida from Disney Pixar’s Brave. This was a new character for me. I’d dressed up as many a Disney princess for parties, but it was the first time someone had paid me to play Merida. This character meant practicing a Scottish accent, and I didn’t think mine was too shabby. Och, ah was quite proud o’ it, so ah was.
The birthday party was hosted in the fanciest Upper West Side apartment I’d ever set foot inside, and I was feeling pretty c onnected to wee Merida because we were both independent women who had no intention of settling down with a man as a way of finding fulfillment in our lives. Merida would never swoon.
I was pretty damn annoyed that while I was in that moment, really feeling the character, making the kids laugh with my boisterous boasting and brogue, my gaze lifted for a second from the birthday girl and I saw him.
The sight of the stranger struck me in a way I didn’t understand. But it was like all the air fled my lungs. It felt like that time I got mugged when I was nineteen and I tried to fight the guy instead of letting him take what little money I had. He’d punched me so hard in the gut, I couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation. It was discombobulating.
“Merida!” The birthday girl, Charmaine, tugged on my dress. “You were telling us about the Loch Ness monster!”
I blinked, dazed. Thankfully, I was a great multitasker, because I launched back into my story of being sent to kill the Loch Ness monster to protect my people only to discover that he was a hilarious big softy that I needed to protect from my people, and all the while I kept throwing glances at him.
Who was he?
What was he doing at a children’s birthday party?
Whoever he was, he was a wondrous mix of male beauty and primal masculinity who just the sight of—once I got over the horrible breathless moment—made me tingle delightfully between my thighs.
Tall, very broad-shouldered, and from the thick forearms revealed by the pushed-up sleeves of his sweater, it was more than obvious he worked out. You could see the man’s biceps shaping the fabric. I’d never been into working-out types. However, he was a very fine specimen, with his tapered swimmer’s waist and long, long, long legs. What was also puzzling about my physical response to the stranger was the fact he hadn’t smiled once the entire time I surreptitiously eyed him up. I was into happy, funny guys. Not brooding, surly types. Usually, they were a hard pass. A frown marred his strong brow, and his full lips flattened into a grim line. That face. Boy, was that a face that could launch a thousand ships. All chiseled angles. I couldn’t discern his eye color from across the room, but it didn’t matter. He was just . . . sexier than a night in with hot chocolate and Netflix’s The Witcher.
Yeah, I said it.
While, like Merida, I might not want to play arm candy to some man intent on being “my king,” I wouldn’t mind banging a headboard with a burly warrior in a kilt.
I imagined the stranger in a kilt and what I would do to him if we were alone.
Oh my.
That imagery was a keeper.
By the look of things, I wasn’t the only person in the room affected by the gorgeous stranger. Three women currently surrounded him and he appeared rudely bored by them, while others eyed him from across the room.
“Are you hot, Merida?” Charmaine asked innocently. “Your cheeks are all red.”
Wow, I was having sexual fantasies about a stranger at a children’s birthday party dressed as a Disney character. There was nothing right about that sentence.
Forcing myself to ignore this shockingly strong physical reaction to a man I didn’t know, I focused on the kids.
A little while later, when Philippa Whitman, the mom who’d hired me, appeared to lead the kids away for snacks, she told me I could take a break. I beamed gratefully and ignored the amused stares of the attending adults before I slipped out onto the balcony. It wasn’t every day I got to visit swanky New York apartments with balconies overlooking Central Park. While I held little stock in material things, I could appreciate a superb view.
“This balcony is occupied,” a gruff and pissed-off masculine voice sounded from my left.
Glancing that way, I was delighted to discover Mr. Sexual Fantasy leaning on the railing of the narrow balcony. He glowered at me so ferociously, I wondered for a second if he’d mistaken me for someone else. Though it was pretty difficult to mistake me for anything other than a children’s entertainer.
Intrigued by my outrageous and unusual attraction to him, I drifted toward him despite his less-than-welcoming comment. My bow got caught on the balcony door as it shut and I snort-laughed as I freed myself. The stranger didn’t even so much as break a smile. I badly wanted to see him turn up the corners of his mouth, so I closed the distance between us. “I just needed some air. This is some view, huh?” I gestured with a grin over the city and the park.
Before his eyes narrowed on me, I noted they were a lovely denim-blue color. “So that’s what you sound like when you’re not butchering a Scottish accent.”
My smile wavered, not sure if he was being mean or just bantering. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and responded in my awesome brogue, “Ah’ll have ye ken that ah am the daughter of a Scottish king, dinnae ye ken.”
“That sentence made little sense in English or fake Scottish.” The stranger searched my face and then dragged his gaze down my body. He was studying me like I was a bug he’d never seen before. Inwardly, I bristled, but outwardly, my smile stayed in place. I’d adopted a “kill ’em with kindness” approach to mean people since I was a teenager. Some people couldn’t help but melt under my niceness, and others got even more pissed at me. I found both reactions satisfying. “So, this is a job?” He didn’t attempt to hide his disdain. “You actually do this for a living?”
Yes, you arrogant snob. I grinned. “Yeah. Isn’t it great?”
He stared at me like I was babbling nonsense. “You think dressing up as Disney characters to entertain children is great? As a career?”
I shrugged. “I’m a costume character actor, so I dress up like lots of characters in pop culture to make other people smile on their special days. And, yeah, I think making people happy is a worthy endeavor. Don’t you?”
He glowered harder at my bubbliness. “Are you acting right now? No one is this happy.”
“Then you must surround yourself with a lot of miserable people.”
He turned more fully toward me and the breeze caught his scent. Something citrusy with a hint of spicy earthiness. He smelled delicious. And very expensive. Who was he to Philippa Whitman? He wasn’t her husband. She’d already told me her husband couldn’t make their daughter’s birthday party because he was on a business trip. “How old are you?”
His question took me aback. “Why?”
“Because you look old enough to know better than to goad a man who is clearly in a foul mood and certainly old enough to have moved on to more appropriate career paths by now. Disney princessing is for college students and failing college graduates.”
Oh wow. I felt my attraction to him wilt rapidly. Refusing to let him see that his words bothered me, I tutted. “Oh, come on, surely you’re old enough to know that we’re responsible for our own dark moods and that expecting people, least of all a stranger, to rearrange their mood to accommodate yours is the height of arrogance and self-indulgence. It’s the expectation of a toddler.”
His lips might have pressed tightly together, but his eyes flared with surprise.
Before he could speak, I continued, “And many college students find it difficult to secure a job once they graduate, so I really don’t think it’s nice to speak of them in that tone.” I grinned at him. “But since you’re in a bad mood, I won’t hold it against you. As for me, I’m genuinely happy in life. I don’t know if many people can say the same, so I feel pretty awesome about the fact that I’m standing here rocking a Merida costume and a Scottish accent. I mean, of the two of us, which of us is in a good mood?”
“A good mood?” He pushed off the balcony railing and crossed his arms over his wide chest. “This isn’t a good mood. This is passive aggressiveness. No one is in this good a mood after someone disparages their ‘career.’ ”
He air-quoted the word “career” and I couldn’t help it. My smile died.
Something flickered in his countenance as he studied me, but, thankfully, before I lost my grip on my usually easily accessed “kill ’em with kindness” attitude, a door opened behind us.
