FRAMED is the book: an all-new, story in the world of Lawyers in Love, book 8 in my series known as Courthouse Connections. Set in and around Tampa, Florida, FRAMED brings readers a different look—lawyers caught up in an accidentally illicit relationship that turns treacherous when Lanie, the heroine, is accused of doing in her estranged husband who just happened to be a state senator into some shady dealings.
Here’s the first meeting between Lanie and JD Ackerman, a rainmaker for his firm who has been alone and lonely too long…and the beginning of a forbidden love that won’t be denied in spite of all that follows:
Everybody seemed to have paired off after the morning session, most of the lawyers combining a weekend of continuing education at this luxurious beach resort on Key West with a mini-vacation with their families or significant others.
Lanie Winstead sighed. She still had a husband, legally speaking, even though they’d been separated for over a year. That didn’t mean, though, that she’d come down here looking for a new significant other.
The marriage that had begun with her foolish hope that it might grow into a love match had been over long before she’d moved out of Wayne’s house and into her own apartment. Adrift, on the cusp of hitting thirty, she had no immediately pending cases at the Tampa satellite office of Wayne’s firm. She’d signed up for this continuing education seminar primarily to occupy time while fulfilling the Florida Bar’s continuing education requirements.
Over a year ago, Wayne had given his blessing for her to go her own way while he went his, but she hadn’t taken him up on the invitation. Lonely in this subtropical paradise, she envied the couples around her, whose happiness they seemed to take for granted.
Alone. That’s how she felt now, but it wasn’t all that much different from the way she’d been before the separation, envied for being married to the popular state senator. All the time she’d felt trapped, forced to take care that no one would guess they lived separate lives except for the public moments they shared in the limelight of political rallies and other media events.
Restless, she finished the fruity drink she’d been sipping and headed out for a walk along the beach. Unlike some of the unescorted women she’d talked with during breaks in the seminar schedule, she hadn’t come alone to troll for a bedmate. Not that she couldn’t, of course. Even before she’d moved out and asked Wayne for a divorce, they’d both been free to enjoy sex whenever, however and, wherever they chose—as long as they did it discreetly.
When she stepped onto the long pier that jutted out into the Gulf of Mexico, she spotted another solitary soul who’d escaped temporarily from the seminars. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was that had attracted her attention to the big, dark-haired lawyer who looked more like an NFL player than the successful attorney he was. For whatever reason, though, he attracted her. Not only had JD Ackerman just given the lecture on torts she’d attended earlier in the day, Lanie had met the partner in the prestigious Tampa firm of Winston, Roe and Associates when they’d been introduced a couple of years ago during a fundraiser for one of Wayne’s reelection campaigns.
Wayne had mentioned the guy being a rainmaker—a torts specialist whose claim to fame was a recent multi-billion-dollar class action settlement he’d exacted from a tire company whose executives had cut too many corners and sold defective products to unfortunate drivers.
She couldn’t deny that an aura of power surrounded Ackerman. He even looked the part— very tall and muscular, like a guy nobody would mess with. No one could miss picking him out of a crowd, because he had to be at least six-six, a head taller than most men—and almost all women.
The man exuded competence, but he also had way more than his share of sex appeal. The overall package—dark-brown hair, chiseled features, and the way he’d filled out his obviously custom-tailored suit at the lecture she’d attended earlier—made him a bona fide chick magnet. Lanie had been tempted to walk up to him and run her fingers through that slightly mussed, wavy hair, but of course she hadn’t done it.
Releasing 1/3/17, an original story for readers’ pleasure!
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Buy FRAMED:
https://www.amazon.com/Framed-Courthouse-Connections-Book-8- ebook/dp/B01MSWYKLP/
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/framed-ann-jacobs/1125304684?ean=2940153553177
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/framed/id1184696357?mt=11
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/framed-38
