MORE COUNTERPOINT....

Earlier this week, I broke the news about Counterpoint, my upcoming original, family saga series that I will write based on reader input (ala Another World Today).

I offered Part #1 of my exclusive sneak peek, here.

Now please enjoy Part #2, below:

She heard the water turn off in the bathroom, the mirror-door open and close, the swish of a towel sliding off the rack. Her sham poise of a moment earlier slipped away.

Victoria glanced around the room, wondering where she should stand. She didn't want to startle Robin when he first came out, but, then again, she didn't want it to look like she was hiding and spying on him, either. Frankly, if her early morning mission weren't such a matter of life and death, she might have seriously considered obeying her instincts, and getting the hell out of there. But, either way, it was too late now.

When Robin Cooper sauntered into his hotel suite's main room, he was still rubbing his dripping hair with an extra-thick, ivory towel, the ends obscuring his face and his line of vision. He wore a maroon bathrobe tied casually around the waist, so that the upper folds fell apart, revealing a slender, yet muscular frame heralding untold hours spent on such gentlemanly pursuits as squash and polo, then supplemented by the industrious, yet never acknowledged, efforts of a personal trainer. Even in bare feet, Victoria guessed Robin stood over six feet tall.

He slipped the towel from his head, and, in spite of herself, Victoria couldn't help swallowing hard. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting. Presumably somebody like Douglas Cooper, Robin's father, the man who'd hired her. Someone dignified, stately, proper. Someone who looked like the heir to an international empire like Cooper Shipping. What she hadn't been expecting, was someone who looked like Robin Cooper.

Aesthetically, classically, logically, his facial features had no right fitting together as well as they did. For one thing, his eyes refused to commit to staying either emerald-green or bronzed-brown for any period of time, teasingly shimmering between the alternatives. For another, the two sides of his face weren't even precisely symmetrical. They resembled two distinct pictures of the same person, sliced down the middle, then forced into a fresh whole. His smile diverged further up the right side of his cheek than it did his left, leaving the cleft in his chin jutting somehow off-center. And yet, in spite of what should have been visible flaws, the asymmetry granted Robin's face character, adding charisma, a sort of devilish roguery. The parallel that was only enhanced by his freshly scrubbed, sable hair horning up in a series of still-damp curls. As a result, there was something vaguely unnerving about his entire countenance. But, for the life of her, Victoria couldn't look away.

Robin spotted her as soon as he'd turned to toss his towel onto the bed, next to the discarded tuxedo. Rather than being startled, he only raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "I say, do you come with the Continental breakfast?"

His accent intrigued Victoria. From Douglas, she knew that his only son had been born in Maine, educated in Switzerland, then, reluctantly, subsidized to explore every decadent pleasure-dome in Europe. What Victoria didn't know was how he'd managed to absorb and retain only the most charming aspects of each region's dialect.

She swallowed again in order to revive her voice. "I - no."

"Pity." Robin padded over to the breakfast tray, critically lifting several of the silver lids and wrinkling his nose at their contents. He reached for the bottle of vodka tactfully positioned in ice behind the water pitcher, peered at its label, unscrewed the cap, and splashed two fingers’ worth into a crystal tumbler. He offered the glass to Victoria. "Drink?"

"No. Thank-you. It's a bit early in the day for me."

He nodded understandingly, and briefly perused the remaining staples along his tray. Spotting a container of orange juice, he expertly mixed it with the vodka and re-introduced as, "Breakfast?"

Counterpoint: An Interactive Family Saga (Volume One) will be released this Spring.

In the meantime, please check out my 2000 romance novel from DELL, When a Man Loves a Woman, now re-released as an enhanced e-book and available on Amazon and BN.com!