Today we are revealing chapter 1 from FATAL BEAUTY by author Nazarea Andrews. This book will be released October 13th and it is an Adult Thriller.
FATAL BEAUTY BOOK BLURB
Charlotte was a good girl. Sweet and innocent, a debutante with her Daddy’s credit card and a fiancée who doted on her.
She was destined for a perfect picture life in Charleston.
Until everything goes wrong.
EJ grew up with everything she could ever want, and bored as hell. Nothing surprises her and nothing ever changes, and she wants out—whatever it takes.
Getting involved with Anthony Jacobs is probably the worst idea she’s ever had—and that makes it irresistible.
Until Charlie needs her.
New Orleans. Los Angles. Vegas.
Beautiful girls who know just how to get exactly what they want.
It’s all fun and games, sexy nights and wild parties.
But you can only manipulate your way out of so much, and when their past catches up, not even a pretty fucking smile will get them out of trouble this time.
EXCERPT
Las Vegas Police Department,
Interrogation Room B.
Detective Blackmon: State your name for
the record.
Charlotte Brooks: (clears throat)
Charlie Brooks.
Detective Blackmon: Your legal name,
ma’am.
Brooks: Charlotte Suzanne Brooks.
Detective Blackmon: Have you been advised
of your rights, ma’am?
Brooks: (soft laugh) you advised me of them. So
yes.
Detective Blackmon: Do you want to tell us how you came to know
Ms Ella Jane Munro?
Brooks: Where is she?
Detective Blackmon: Ma’am, I need you to
calm down and give your statement.
Brooks: Where the fuck is EJ?
Detective Blackmon: At night fifty pm the
LVPD were called to a hotel room secured with a credit card in your name. Upon
searching it, we found drugs, weapons and almost two hundred in cash. Do you want
to say anything about that?
Brooks: I wasn’t in that room, and neither were my
belongings. You verified that. My wallet was stolen. And I want EJ.
Brooks: Why the hell are you looking at me like
that?
Detective Blackmon: Ma’am…
Brooks: (screaming) where the hell is EJ?
Chapter 1
If she could look at it, with the hindsight of everything
that had happened, she would say that it all began six months before Wallace
Bryce Talbert went missing. The day Ella Jane Munro sold Llewellyn Koonts a hit
of blow in the locker room of her father's country club.
Of course, if she had the luxury of hindsight, she might
have changed everything by simply going to lunch at the Greenhouse instead of
tennis at the club.
Then again. Charlotte had never had much use for hindsight
and even less for regrets.
*******
Charlie Brooks was an institution at the Buringtree Country
Club. She had grown up in the halls, played tennis early and well, swam in the
summer and pranced around the greens in tiny shorts, her blonde hair bobbing in
her signature braid.
She was a perfect debutant. Sweet as sugar when it suited
her, and an utter bitch when it didn't. The staff at the club lived in fear of
her temper. HR had to step in when she was in high school and they
couldn't keep a staff--Charlie either terrorized them into quitting or
demanded they were fired over minor infractions.
And because she was Travis Brooks only daughter, she usually
got her way.
Ella Jane Munro was different from Charlie. Just as bitchy,
just as demanding. Filthy fucking rich. But Charlie revealed in who and what
she was born to. She never wanted anything but to be the queen bee at her
private school, at the club, and Vanderbilt. Everything she did was carefully
calculated for how it would reflect on her and how people viewed her.
It’s why she and Ella Jane had never gotten along,
despite being in the same circles.
From the outside, they would have made the perfect
frenemies. Self-destructive, the kind of too close back-stabbing that would
fuel the wet dreams of high school boys with visions of love hate sexcapdes.
Ella Jane and Charlie didn't cooperate. Ella was bored to
death with country club life and everything expected of a deb. And she might be
an it girl, in her blasé way, but she never aspired to steal Charlie's crown.
They existed for most of their life, in a kind of live and
let live détente.
No one could explain why that changed. It was whispered
about, of course. Two of Charleston's favorite daughters, suddenly
inseparable? Everyone had a theory. No one knew the truth, though.
No one would have ever believed the truth.
*******
The door to her office opened and closed again, in the kind
of way that was an announcement. She swallowed a smirk and layered another coat
of pale pink on her nails.
Most girls would pay for a manicure, but she had always
found the ritual of her nail care to be soothing.
The cash slapped down on her desk and she blinked at it
slowly before letting her gaze slide lazily up to the woman across from her.
Sharp green eyes, long jet black hair with a single streak
of magenta in bangs cut across her forehead. A pair of designer skinny jeans
and a loose, sheer black tank top scattered with polka dot skull and cross
bones, lace edged cami under it showing off her amazing tits.
Only Ella Jane could stalk into her office in designer jeans
and a Walmart clearance top and look perfect instead of ridiculous.
“Your half.” She says.
Charlie finishes her last finger, admiring it briefly before
screwing the lid on her nail polish and giving the other woman her attention.
“When are you meeting with Jacobs?”
“Tomorrow. Don’t be impatient, greedy girl.”
She bites down on the acidic response that wants to rise,
and arches an eyebrow silently. EJ stares at her for a long moment, before she
huffs a sigh and drops into the high back leather chair across from her.
“You can’t do anything until Monday anyway. Isn’t your
engagement thing tonight.”
It’s posed as a question, but she knows damn well when it
is. Charlie goes still and her gaze clouds for a heartbeat.
“Do you want me to come?” EJ asks, quietly.
The offer startles a laugh from Charlie and she grins, a
dry, mocking thing. “And how the hell would I explain that? No. Stay on your
side of the club, and I’ll stay on mine. I’ll be fine.”
There’ a tense moment, as they stare at each other, and
Charlie wonders just how much EJ suspects.
They weren’t supposed to become friends—it was a business
arrangement. One that benefited them both and made EJ’s supplier happy. But it
had evolved.
It made her nervous, and nothing made her nervous. She
didn’t like it.
“Don’t be a bitch, Charlie,” EJ says coldly.
“Then don’t fucking hover.” Charlie snaps.
Anger flares in EJ’s eyes, for a moment, and then it
vanished, and she stands. “Fine. Have fun with your boy.”
Her tone is mocking and knowing and it stings a little as
she watches EJ leave.
For a moment, it occurs to her that she should apologize.
She dismisses it just as quickly and grabs the stack of cash, standing and
moving to the wall where her safe is.
It’s crammed with cash and a small black revolver. As she
adds the new stack to the others, she touches the gun.
It’s soothing, and her unease and nerves settle at the touch
of the cool metal.
It’ a standard black Glock. Most of her girlfriends carry a
tiny pink pistols they can tuck into their Coach bags with equally ridiculous
sized dogs. But Travis Brooks always said that if she wanted to be man enough
to carry a gun, she’d damn well carry a man’s gun.
“Charlotte? We have a meeting with the partners.”
She snaps the safe shut, keying the lock and spins to smile
at her fiancée.
Wallace Bryce Talbert the Third. Tre to his friends and
enemies alike. A golden boy in her father’s law firm, and the man she had
promised to spend her entire life with.
He’s grinning at her, holding a hand out and she swallows
her nerves and fear as she places her hand in his and follows him out of the
office.
*******
EJ pads out of her bedroom, her naked
body wrapped in moonlight. A bottle of spumante sits discarded in a silver wine
chiller, and she grabs it as she moves to her purse and pull out a pack of
cigarettes. She smokes almost pensively, staring out the window. Behind her,
she can hear him moving and she keeps her gaze trained on the window as smoke
curls around her, dissipating slowly.
“You should come back to bed,” he
says, and she can hear the tease in his tone. She barely manages to keep from
rolling her eyes as she wraps her lips around the cigarette again, pulling one
last time before dropping it into a forgotten champagne flute.
“You should go. I’ve got an early
morning tomorrow.”
Surprise and anger chase across his
face, and she waits to see if he’ll follow through.
Clayton Poole was the heir of an
ancient oil tycoon, and would be much more interesting if he would lose his
temper every once in a while.
He was a fun fuck, always took care to
get her off, and he opened doors even she couldn’t walk though. But he was
boring as fuck when they weren’t naked.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says,
lamely, and she flick a look at him as she pours a glass of spumante.
“Don’t. I’ll call you soon.” She gives
him a smile and kisses his cheek before returning to her bedroom.
She lets out a sigh when the door
shuts behind him, and settles on her bed. It smells of sex still, but she’s too
drunk and lazy just now to strip the sheets.
Besides, she likes the smell of sex,
even if Clayton isn’t her favorite fuck buddy.
There is a joint in her bedside table
and she fishes it out and lights it, pulling on it deeply as she thumbs through
her social media.
The entire newsfeed is abuzz with the
engagement party of the year, and she grits her teeth. She should have been
there. Clayton had been invited—Charlie will be pissed he didn’t show, a
thought that strings a smirk across her lips—and she could have crashed it.
Nothing to be done once she was there.
Once upon a time, it would have been
amusing just to get a rise from Charlie.
When the fuck had that changed? When
she realized that Charlie was just as unhappy in their fucking perfect life as
she was?
Or was it when Charlie blackmailed EJ
into sharing her distribution, earning her respect as more than another empty
headed social climber.
She huffs, and takes another pull on
the joint. The smell of weed fill the bedroom, covering the scent of sex. Her
muscles are loose and relaxed against the bed and she let’s her phone drop
beside her, drifting on her high, drunk and post-orgasmic relaxation combining
to pull her down into sleep.
The room is pitch black, her body hot
and sweating against the rough duvet when she wakes. Her mouth is dry and for a
disorienting moment, she wonders where the hell she is, and what happened.
Her phone buzzes against her thigh
again, and she fumbles for it.
“Charlie?” she croaks, and swallows.
Reaches for the spumante on the bedside table.
“I need you.”
The whisper from the other end of the
line chills her, and she shudders, rubbing away the goosebumps that trace along
her arms.
That’s it—those three words and
nothing more.
Sleep is forgotten completely as she
sits up and nods. “I’ll be right there.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nazarea Andrews (N to almost everyone) is an avid reader and tends to write the stories she wants to read. Which means she writes everything from zombies and dystopia to contemporary love stories. When not writing, she can most often be found driving her kids to practice and burning dinner while she reads, or binging watching TV shows on Netflix. N loves chocolate, wine, and coffee almost as much as she loves books, but not quite as much as she loves her kids. She lives in south Georgia with her husband, daughters, spoiled cat and overgrown dog. She is the author of World Without End series, Neverland Found, Edge of the Falls, and The University of Branton Series. Stop by her twitter (@NazareaAndrews) and tell her what fantastic book she should read next.
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