A Win-Win Proposition and The S Before Ex Heroes and Heroines dish on each other

Let's start off with the guys.

SEBASTIAN:  You and Clair were apart for a lot of years apart, what was it like to see her again?

RYAN:  She took me by surprise all right. I mean, I’d thought it was over. Thought I was over what we’d had and what we’d lost. And then there she was, and I just couldn’t wrap my head around it…

She’d been sitting there in that legs-crossed, half-turned pose of feminine recline that extended all the right lines of a woman’s body—hands moving animatedly with her chatter, smiling beneath the warm sun. Smiling. Bursting with life. So different from the fragile thing she’d been the last time he’d laid eyes on her. He’d never expected it. Hadn’t been prepared for the sight of a woman he’d thought lost along with his marriage in a Boston emergency room almost nine years before. But there she was, radiant. Smiling while some lothario gave her his best go. 

SEBASTIAN:  Was she different from when you first met?
RYAN:  In almost too many ways to count. But the first thing I figured out… she’s independent as hell now. Successful and strong and so damn stubborn. The girl I married didn’t know who she was yet. Back then, she’d been more than content to let me take the reins in everything. But not anymore. I didn’t know how to deal with this woman who was tying me up in knots and turning everything I thought I knew up-side-down. And it almost cost me my second shot with her

RYAN:  You were Missy's boss for four years and never once noticed she was attractive?  What changed?
SEBASTIAN:  I never really looked at her that way.  And she did a pretty good job hiding her assets.  What changed?  She put on that dress...

His gaze traveled downward. She'd traded her amorphous pantsuits for a figure-hugging dress that framed and flaunted the creamy curves of her breasts. Had her skin always been this pale, this flawless? Or did it just appear that way in contrast to the black of the dress?



And speaking of skin. Had he ever seen her bare this much?



The Missy he knew was modest and reserved. The woman occupying the stool beside him reveled in her sensuality.

RYAN:   How long did it take you to figure out you weren't going to let her go, no matter what it took?
SEBASTIAN:   Too long.  In fact, if my dad hadn't intervened and got my brother to offer her a job, she might have left the company before I came to my senses.


And now the girls get to dish on their guys.


CLAIRE:   What were you thinking when you made that wager with Sebastian?
MISSY:   I'm pretty sure I wasn't really thinking.  I'd had a thing for him for years, but he never saw me as anything but an efficient employee.  Then suddenly he was looking at me like I was something delicious he couldn't wait to taste.  What woman wouldn't go for it?

“Tell you what,” she began, feeling audacious and desirable beneath Sebastian’s keen appraisal.  Mad impulses had been driving her all day.  Maybe turning thirty wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to her.  Start a new decade with a new attitude.  “I’ll make you a bet.”

Sebastian set his hands on his hips and looked resigned.  “What sort of a bet?”

“Last call,” the dealer announced.

Missy heard the wheel begin to spin and the ball start its journey around and around.  From reading up on roulette, she knew she had a forty-seven percent chance of winning.  Those weren’t such bad odds.

“If the ball lands on black and I lose, I’ll keep working for you.”  She gave a rueful smile.  “I’ll have to, won’t I, because I’ll be five thousand dollars poorer.”

Sebastian’s eyes locked with hers.  The winds of change had begun to blow.  Storm clouds loomed.  Dangerous for the unwary.

“And if the ball lands on red?”

MISSY:  Clair, you and Ryan had a pretty intense relationship before things went wrong, how was it seeing Ryan again?

CLAIRE:  Brutal. Shocking. You have to understand, I’d spent years trying to get over our past. The only way I was able to rebuild my life was by putting everything I’d lost completely behind me. Refusing to look back or let myself think about what might have been. And then suddenly, the biggest loss of all was right there in front of me…

She didn’t like being this close to Ryan. She hadn’t wanted to meet with him at all. Hadn’t wanted to know what changes so many years had wrought in the man she’d once loved beyond measure. She’d seen the headlines. Heard the rumors. Hated the idea that he could be so different. And yet, here and now, a part of her was hoping everything she’d read was true. That the man he’d been was gone and the all that remained was a body vaguely reminiscent of the one she’d known. It would be so much easier to defend this heart she’d painstakingly pieced back together against a body alone.

The pity of it was, she wouldn’t even have to try.

MISSY:  I'm curious, with those obstacles, how were you two able to come together at all?

CLAIRE:  While most everything about and between us had changed, some things were simply too much the same too ignore…

The things she forgot. Like his admiration for lingerie… and high heels. Together.

Wear this for me…

A frisson of nerves rippled through her, spurring an odd clench low in her belly. The seductive echo from another time teased through her mind, spurring a hundred memories to life. Each flash of skin and heat more vivid, more dangerous than the one before—

Ryan taking her in the hall when they hadn’t been able to make it to the bedroom three feet away… In the kitchen… the closet… the car…

Our couples--Sebastian/Missy and Ryan/Claire--hope you enjoyed the interview.