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    Going Up
    Going Up
    Going Up
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    Going Up

    By Amy Lane

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    About this ebook

    Every dreary day, Zach Driscoll takes the elevator from the penthouse apartment of his father's building to his coldly charmed life where being a union lawyer instead of a corporate lawyer is an act of rebellion. Every day, that is, until the day the elevator breaks and Sean Mallory practically runs into his arms.

    Substitute teacher Sean Mallory is everything Zach is not—poor, happy, and goofily charming. With a disarming smile and a penchant for drama, Sean laughs his way into Zach's heart one elevator ride at a time. Zach would love to get to know Sean better, but first he needs the courage to leave his ivory tower and face a relationship that doesn't end at the "Ding!"

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamspinner Press
    Release dateDec 25, 2013
    ISBN9781627984775
    Going Up
    Author

    Amy Lane

    Award winning author Amy Lane lives in a crumbling crapmansion with a couple of teenagers, a passel of furbabies, and a bemused spouse. She has too damned much yarn, a penchant for action-adventure movies, and a need to know that somewhere in all the pain is a story of Wuv, Twu Wuv, which she continues to believe in to this day! She writes contemporary romance, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and romantic suspense, teaches the occasional writing class, and likes to pretend her very simple life is as exciting as the lives of the people who live in her head. She’ll also tell you that sacrifices, large and small, are worth the urge to write. Website: www.greenshill.com Blog: www.writerslane.blogspot.com Email: amylane@greenshill.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/amy.lane.167 Twitter: @amymaclane

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    • 3/5
      Not my favorite Amy lane story, but cute for the Holidays. 2.75 stars.

    Book preview

    Going Up - Amy Lane

    To anyone who has ever watched an old movie, and wanted to live in it. And to Mate, who watches old movies.

    Ground Floor

    ONCE UPON a time, there was a prince who lived in a tower. He had been born to a king and a queen in the kingdom of San Francisco, and he was raised by nannies and boarding schools. He was a good child. He did everything he was told. He never questioned his world, and his rebellions, on the whole, were very, very small.

    He worked hard, earned his law degree, and made a life defending the weak and downtrodden, while he enjoyed a privileged life atop the tallest tower of the kingdom.

    But although there was no snow in his kingdom, there were chilly bay breezes, and they left his heart cold, oh, so very cold….

    ZACH DRISCOLL sipped his champagne and looked around him. His parents’ annual Christmas party seemed to be in full swing: the chandelier was dusted, the galleria ballroom glittered with tasteful silver decorations, and his secretary, Leah, was flirting with the up-and-coming young president of the local chamber of commerce.

    Fortunately for Leah’s fun, she didn’t know he was gay.

    Zach knew Angelo Fitzsimmons was gay—but Angelo didn’t know Zach knew. It was a sad fact that Zach owed pretty much every decent sexual encounter he’d ever had to a flier on escort services that Angelo had left in a bathroom stall when Zach was still in college.

    Zach figured that if the firm was discreet enough for Angelo with his budding political career, it was discreet enough for a union lawyer who only showed up to these things for his parents.

    Oh, and speaking of….

    She’s charming, Zach. It’s about time you settled down and brought a date to one of our parties.

    Hi, Mother, he said, pursing his lips in a really horrible approximation of a smile. We’re not dating. She’s my secretary—she does a really good job. I figured she deserved a perk.

    So you brought your secretary to a fundraiser? His mother…. God. She looked forty, was closer to sixty-five, and could ooze disdain with a few choice words. Right now, she needed a little sponging off at the edges.

    Zach looked over at Leah, who was wearing a red crushed-velveteen dress that left one shoulder bare and sported gold spangles up the split sides. Her dusky skin and sturdy, wide-hipped body looked lush and sensual under that textured fabric, and he only wished he could appreciate that. She’d dyed her hair Christmas red to match, worn gold bangles in her updo, and was currently trying to teach Angelo the Harlem shuffle.

    Yes, he said, smiling a little. He didn’t joke with Leah, or get too personal with her, but he sure did admire the hell out of her. She’d started off the job wearing black suits and black shoes, and had kept her normally straight black hair cut short and practical. In the past three years since he’d started the firm and hired five more lawyers and three more paralegals, she had, one tiny bit at a time, let little bits of the real Leah shine through.

    First it was fuchsia or lime-colored shirts under her business suit. Then it was fantastic shoes to match the shirts.

    Then it was suits to match the shoes.

    Then it was hair to match the whole shebang.

    And while her wardrobe expanded, her sarcasm also began to expand in depth, breadth, and sheer breathtaking scope. What, you didn’t finish that file before it’s due, Mr. Driscoll? I’m suspecting you stopped to take a crap sometime this weekend—shame on you!

    Zach hadn’t known how to respond at first. He’d never been proficient in sarcasm, or in any of the more salient social skills such as conversation, eye contact, or generally wanting to get to know his fellow human beings. He’d simply grunted and walked into his office, wondering what to say.

    But over the last six months, that sarcasm had started to feel like overtures of friendship. When he’d gotten the invitation to the party stressing the need for a plus-one, he told Leah he’d spring for the dress, and, well, there they were.

    Do you think that’s appropriate? his mother asked, not smiling at all, and Zach watched Angelo actually grace Leah with a real smile, one that didn’t seem as constipated and as cramped as Zach felt most of the time.

    I think something needed to happen, he said quietly. And she’s having a lovely time.

    Some flashes went off, and Zach figured that moment exhausted his family time for the rest of the year as his mother stood up and left. Zach watched Leah dance like she was Cinderfuckingella (her word, when he’d given her the credit card) and then he looked up into the windows that surrounded the high ceiling of the ballroom. It was raining, and in the cutting silver light from the galleria, the rain looked like slivers of crystal. Like wishing stars.

    I wish a prince would rescue me, he thought, half in whimsy and half in despair. Silly wish, right? His parents were rich, and he was a lawyer. Wasn’t he the prince? Okay, then. I wish a knight would rescue the prince in the tower.

    In the distance he heard Leah laugh like a kid in a playground, and he went to tell her that he’d leave her the town car and take a cab home. He knew enough about fairy tales to know that the knight in shining armor never really did show up at the ball.

    ZACH LIVED in the penthouse because his dad owned the building. It was that easy.

    Of course, law school at Stanford hadn’t been that easy, establishing his own practice hadn’t been easy, and keeping his relationships to the guys from the escort service wasn’t particularly easy on him either.

    But Zach had always been good at putting a slick face on things.

    He got up in the morning and put on his wool suit—and in San Francisco, it was always a wool suit—with his bright patent leather shoes and his crispy starched collars and hundred-dollar ties. He shaved and slicked back his dark hair, made sure his eyebrows were tweezed and his face was moisturized, and generally ensured he looked and smelled like a man who could protect your future.

    He’d been the same way as a kid, except he hadn’t had to tweeze his eyebrows.

    When he was a kid, his father and mother had insisted on hygiene, and so had his nannies, but the resulting behaviors

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