One Night With the Sheik (Friends Forever Book 4) Read online

  He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay, so the town gets art snobs and foodies coming through occasionally. What’s your point?”

  She rolled her eyes. “We don’t just get art snobs and foodies coming through, but those people make special trips out here for the experience. With the help of another foundation, the other shops in town have been refurbished and are filling up with artisans and artists. LowPoint is becoming known as a quaint enclave for artists and dealers. Plus, there’s the warehouse district on the west side of town and the shipping industry is starting to realize that LowPoint is a good midway point for transitioning products.”

  Daisy watched the giant man carefully and she realized that the last point really got to him. Rocco Barnes might not understand art and gourmet food, but he grasped the financial implications of easy highway access and storage facilities, distribution hubs and transition points for getting products from one place to another. He dropped his arms and started looking around the house with more interest.

  “Okay, so LowPoint is going to eventually become a thriving metropolis,” he said but she heard the sarcasm in his voice.

  “I don’t think anyone in town wants a huge metropolis, Mr. Barnes. The goal is for LowPoint to retain its small town flair, but in order for people to come back and live here, these houses need to be renovated and cleaned up. That’s where you come in.”

  “Your company wants me to renovate this house?”

  She grinned, suspecting that he was starting to understand her dream. “No. Not just this house. My company has been hired to renovate all of the houses here in town. There’s a financial team that has worked with the owners of the mortgages on many of the houses. We’ve bought up most of them,” she explained.

  His eyes widened slightly as he took in this new piece of information. “How many?” he asked, stopping his tour through the dingy house to stare down at her.

  She laughed, almost clapping her hands with excitement now that she could detect interest in his eyes. “Well, my company bought up about two hundred houses. Originally, the idea was to tear them all down and build new ones, but we discovered that these houses were made back in the fifties and are surprisingly solid. They just need to be updated, fixed, cleaned and…well, decorated.”

  He stopped and turned back to her, his hands fisting on his hips. “I don’t decorate.”

  She grinned, trying to avoid another chuckle because he just turned to give her an odd look whenever it happened. In a “tough-guy” way, his disdain was charming. “You don’t need to decorate. That’s my job. You and I will work together to make each house unique. The inside and outside have to be as different as possible, while still buying materials and furniture in bulk to cut down on costs.”

  There was a long silence as he continued to look down at her. It took all of her self-discipline to not squirm or fidget with those intense, blue eyes looking at her like that. “Two hundred houses, each looking different?”

  “Yep,” she confirmed, smiling again at his astounded expression.

  Note about The Lottery Winners

  Originally, this series had only four stories – Daisy, Ivy, Marilee and Tony. But as I wrote each of the stories, I loved the characters in the town too much to let them go. Eventually, they all had to have their own romance. So now, there are 8 books to the whole series and three of them are free. By the end of Tony’s story, Daisy, Ivy and Marilee all have kids and Tony is their unofficial uncle. They are a family in the truest sense of the word even though they aren’t related in any way.

  All of the characters show up in each the other’s stories, so you get to know about Daisy’s quirky need to organize EVERYTHING, Marilee’s need to adopt all living things and love them, Tony’s intense protection of his friends and Ivy’s transition from a world traveler to someone who craves a home. Scarlett also shows up in everyone’s romance, causing mischief and being a good friend. In her story, she’s initially in her early 20s but by the time it concludes, she’s in her 40s – something I’ve never done before. By the time Daisy’s story comes around, Scarlett is in her 80s and she has learned to embrace life to the fullest – translation: she gets everyone at the senior center to help her with her mischievous pranks.

  Here is a list of All the Books in The Lottery Winners Series:

  Ms. Scarlett – At this point, this book has not been named. It will be e-mailed to subscribers at some point in March, 2018 or you can find it on my website after that date: http://www.elizabethlennox.com/blog/

  Beginning of Jane’s Story – Also unnamed at this point. Timeline appropriate parts of this story will be e-mailed out to subscribers in March as well – and it will be posted on my website. This story starts before Daisy’s romance and finishes just before Tony’s. If I send it to you all at once, it won’t make sense – and will reveal too much about the other stories. 

  The Lottery Winners, A Free Introduction – April 13, 2018 – Click HERE for Details and links.

  Tempted – Daisy’s story – April 20, 2018 – Click HERE for Details and links.

  More of Jane’s Story – April and May

  Rescued – Ivy’s story – May 2018 – Click HERE for details and links.

  More of Jane’s Story – May and June

  Caught – Marilee’s Story – June 2018 - Click HERE for details and links.

  More of Jane’s story – June and July

  Charmed – Mark’s Story – July 2018 – I don’t have a landing page built yet for this one – but will have it soon and I’ll make sure to connect it to the others.

  Ending of Jane’s story – July and August

  Seduced – Tony’s story – August 2018 - Click HERE for details and links.

  You’ll also meet Jake who is their lawyer and confidant. He’s a bit older than his clients, who become his friends, and he MIGHT have his own story, but it will be a Gabriella Rossi story (my other pen name!). I started this one but haven’t finished it quite yet so I don’t want to promise you ladies something I can’t later deliver. But I’m trying! My fingers are flying fast.

  I hope that you enjoy reading this series as much as I loved writing it!

  Elizabeth