Jami was kind enough to share an excerpt from her book with us. I think she didn’t want me to bitch about her website needing to be updated.

I know! Like I would do such a thing? So for now at least this is a JUST duckie exclusive excerpt.

If you haven’t read it yet, check out the summary for Private Party and don’t forget to give Jami an idea for her upcoming Brava title. And you get a chance to win an unsigned copy of Private Party and one uber special person will get a signed copy of a book from Jami’s backlist.

AND NOW…. the excerpt

Private Party by Jami Alden

“Where in the world is he? I’s time to cut the cake.”

“I’m sure he’ll be here any minute,” Julie Driscoll Dennison attempted to soothe the frazzled wedding planner. “Why don’t you have one of the ushers check the bathroom, and I’ll see if he’s out in the lobby.”

Honestly, you’d think Brian would know better than to disappear in the middle of the reception.

“Everything okay?” Wendy, Julie’s maid of honor sidled up alongside her.

“I can’t find Brian. He probably needed a moment to himself.”

Wendy quirked a brow. “Right…”

Okay, so Brian wasn’t exactly the introspective type, but still, it was his wedding day. God knew Julie was all but overwhelmed by it all. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen him.”

Wendy shook her head. “Where’s his brother? I thought it was the best man’s job to keep tabs on the groom.”

“He left right after he did his toast,” Julie said. She smiled a little when she thought of Chris’ toast. So practiced, so polite. So unlike him. Chris wasn’t the kind of guy who worried about what people thought of him, especially not the stuffy overly self important crowd attending her wedding. His easygoing, casual style made him stick out in this crowd, even as he tried to fit in.

Unlike Brian, who could have been a GQ Cover model, Chris’s dark brown hair was always a little shaggy, his big, muscular body always looking a little too big for his clothes. But he had looked absolutely delectable in his tux, the white shirt a seductive contrast to his skin, burnished from the strong Caribbean sun. Chris had always been gorgeous in a rough around the edges kind of way, and he’d only improved in the five years since she’d seen him last.

She closed her eyes, trying not to imagine the acres of tanned muscularity he had hidden under that tux. She’d thought she’d gotten over her silly teenage crush on Chris a long time ago, and her wedding day to his half brother was no time her to resurrect it.

She mentally slapped herself. Today was her wedding day, for goodness sake. All of her months of hard work and planning had finally come to fruition, and now was not the time to revisit her long-dead infatuation with her fabulous groom’s black sheep of a younger brother.

She exited the ballroom and made her way down a hall, stopping to chat politely with guests along the way. As she neared a utility closed a thump sounded from behind the door. Then a giggle. Then a moan.

A decidedly masculine moan.

Stomach somewhere around her knees, Julie had an awful premonition of what she would find behind that door.

“You son of a bitch.” Her voice sounded very far away, like it came from the end of a long, echoing tunnel.

She squeezed her eyes so tight her eyelids cramped. This could not be happening. It simply couldn’t.

But there was no mistaking Brian, frozen mid-thrust as he nailed another woman against the wall, gaping over his shoulder at her in a way that would have been comical under other circumstances.

She spared the other woman a quick glance. Ah, of course, the lovely Vanessa, Brian’s newest assistant. She had suspected Vanessa’s employment had more to do with her mile high legs and over sized chest than her secretarial skills, and kicked herself for stupidly giving Brian the benefit of the doubt. But the last time she’d caught him cheating he’d sworn to God, on his grandmother’s grave, and the title of his prized Ferrari, that it would never, ever happen again. He’d promised that the next time he would have sex would be with Julie, on their wedding night. And with their wedding plans forcefully in motion, it had seemed easier to believe him than to admit she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life.

“Julie, it’s nothing. It doesn’t mean anything.” Brian fumbled with his tuxedo pants, grabbing at his cummerbund as the trousers slid back down around his ankles. Vanessa had pulled her skirt back down and made a dive to retrieve her underpants. The action sent Brian stumbling backwards over a mop and bucket, and he landed on his ass in the middle of Vanessa’s chest.

Julie had never been sucker punched, but she imagined this was what it might feel like. A sharp hit to the middle of her chest, a sensation of all the air leaving her chest, leaving her gasping like a dying trout. Pain radiated through her, accompanied by the icy burn of humiliation. Still, she grasped for control, trying not to let Brian see that she was blowing apart from the inside out, into a thousand tiny fragments. Her mind worked frantically, searching for the appropriate thing to do or say in a situation like this. But there was no sweeping this under the rug with social niceties.

Taking a mop handle and shoving it somewhere extremely painful was probably not the best response, however appealing it was at the moment. “We’re supposed to cut the cake now.”

Copyright © 2007 Jami Alden. All rights reserved.