Showing posts with label Mills and Swoon. Show all posts

Sunday, November 16, 2025

💋 Tara The Time Tourist A Futuristic Mills & Swoon Short by Sarnia de la Maré Daily Flash #4

Welcome to Mills & Swoon, my new series of droll, risqué romance shorts designed for modern readers who want quick escapism with plenty of spice.

Today’s releases include The Velvet Listener and Tara the Time Tourist, two standalone tales spanning contemporary seduction and futuristic time-slipping passion. Both stories are now live in Mills & Swoon Volume 1, with podcast readings available on the Immersion Static channel. This marks the beginning of a playful new series that blends romance, humour, sensuality, and a touch of the unexpected.

A Futuristic Mills & Swoon Short by Sarnia de la Maré

In 2125, dating had become a clinically miserable experience involving algorithms, psych-screening, and compatibility contracts so invasive they made old-fashioned marriage vows look casual.

Tara Summers was sick of it.

So she booked the only holiday left that required zero algorithmic compatibility data harvesting, sort of. Look, they didn’t send you if you were likely to cause trouble. But on the surface this looked like something that might be right up her futuristic highway. Time Tourism: escape the fake, find the real. This was an undeniably tempting promise.

She didn’t care which era they sent her to. She just wanted two days without predictive emotional analytics shadowing her every sigh. She wanted privacy. Mystery. Maybe even sex without a contract, and with real skin, as in not an android.

The operator grinned as she sealed the chrono-capsule.
“You’re headed to 1812, Miss Summers. Regency period. Very romantic.”

“Romantic?” Tara scoffed. “They didn’t even have plumbing. But I am keeping an open mind, as I am forever hopeful and in my prime.”

“Trust me,” the operator said. “People found ways to entertain themselves.”

The capsule flashed and made a ping-pong noise, whirled a bit, and spat her into a world of rickety transport carriages, mist, and air that smelled like horse poop.

Her landing spot was unfortunate, or fortunate, depending on one’s take on such matters: directly into a man’s arms.

He caught her easily, his grip firm. His chest solid beneath a breeched shirt and his expression equally confused and intrigued. Her buttocks were a perfect fit in the crook of his elbow as he looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

“What in God’s name…” he murmured. “You fell from the hedgerow.”

Tara blinked up at him. He looked carved from the sort of genetics that would, in 2125, cost a fortune to replicate. Wide shoulders. Dark hair. A mouth made for trouble… you know, those plump, soft yet manly lips, we all know what I am talking about here.

“I’m on holiday,” she blurted.

He stared at her attire — a futuristic jumpsuit that shimmered faintly. “From where?”

“Far away.” She offered her hand. “Tara.”

He gently released his manly grip and placed her on the ground. He shook her hand politely. “James Ashbury. And you are… not from Hampshire.”

She laughed. “Not even close.”

The next thing Tara knew, she was in an elegant 1812 mansion where candlelight played beautifully across his jawline. He fetched her warm clothes, fed her a recuperating drink named cider, and insisted she rest by the fire.

Tara tried, but James kept looking at her in that way men in her century no longer did, as though she were astonishing simply for existing.

“You’re very bold for a lady,” he said, watching her examine the fire-poker with curiosity.

“Where I’m from,” she replied, “women can own property, run companies, and delete men with a swipe.”

“Delete…?”

“Not permanently,” she said with a grin. “Just from our lives.”

His laugh was rich and slow, vibrating through her in a way no compatibility app had ever managed. This was even better than the Pleasure Pulse Machine her best friend had bought her for Christmas.

“I am grateful,” he said, stepping closer, “that you haven’t deleted me yet.”

The air hummed. Was that a choir, she wondered?

She felt his breath before she felt his mouth.

The kiss was expertly delivered, exploratory, reverent, but with a hungry undercurrent that threatened the structural integrity of her self-control. James kissed like a man on the brink of something divine.

Her hands slipped into his hair. His palms travelled the curve of her waist, gentle but firm. If Regency etiquette frowned upon such intimacy, James was wholeheartedly ignoring it.

“Tara,” he whispered, lips grazing her throat, “tell me you want this.”

“I’m on holiday,” she breathed. “I want everything.”

They spent the evening discovering exactly how compatible two people from opposite centuries could be. Tara, accustomed to a world of digital intimacy, found the rawness of him intoxicating. No haptics. No neural filters. Just touch, breath, skin, and need.

And James, dear, earnest, devastating James, explored her with the quiet awe of a man unwrapping the future.

When dawn crept across the room, Tara realised her chrono-capsule would recall her in minutes.

James dressed slowly, watching her with a softness that made her chest ache.

“You came from a world I cannot imagine,” he said. “But I hope… perhaps… you’ll return. If this is a dream, I hope to dream of you again, for I fear I have fallen under your spell, darling Tara. I want only to never dream of others, only you.”

Tara stepped close, traced his lower lip with her thumb, remembering his savage, delectable ravishing throughout the night. “Time travel isn’t supposed to form attachments.”

“So you will forget me?”

She kissed him, deep, lingering — the kind of kiss people travelled centuries for.

“No,” she whispered. “I’ll remember you in every century.”

The capsule shimmered into existence, humming impatiently.

James caught her hand as she stepped inside. “Then I shall wait. However long,” he said.

Tara smiled, knowing the sad truth about the fantasy they were both invested in.

In the capsule en route home, Tara filled in the questionnaire, giving her trip a full 10/10, James a top recommend, and a big yes, she would definitely visit this fantasy again.

©2025 Sarnia de la Maré Published by Tale Teller Club.

sarniadelamare.com

About the Author

The Velvet Listener A Contemporary Mills & Swoon Short by Sarnia de la Maré

About the author SARNIA. DE LA MARE https://share.google/Aw3KqzHkoM9CGcHLQ

💋 The Velvet Listener.

A Contemporary Mills & Swoon Short by Sarnia de la Maré.

Mara Lane had been the late-night voice of Heartline FM for three years, dispensing warm advice to strangers while living a private life that was anything but romantic.

The truth was that Mara had become rather accomplished at helping other people fall in love precisely because she had stopped trying it herself. She had stopped dressing up and going out. She avoided dinner parties with friends who were forever trying to matchmake her with basically any man who happened to be single.

The studio lights were low enough to be flattering in the way dim lamps flatter tired women. Her producer, Jay, waved through the glass: Caller on line four.

“Heartline FM,” she purred. “You’re live with Mara.” She had perfected a sexy sultry voice that her fans loved. Little did they know, privately she had long given up any ideas of falling in love again.

A man’s velvet voice slid into her earphones.

“Good evening, Mara. I have a problem only you can solve.”

Mara straightened. Most late callers were drunk, lovelorn, or boring. This one sounded… dangerous in the way good chocolate is dangerous, smooth and tempting.

“What seems to be troubling you?”

A low chuckle. “You, Mara, it’s you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I listen to you every night. I know when you’re smiling. I know when you’re tired. And tonight…” A pause. “You’re pretending to understand love.”

Her pulse hopped. No one ever read her that quickly, not even Jay, who had been her producer for years.

“Well,” she said carefully, “I’m flattered you’re so observant, but the show is all about you, caller. Not me.”

“Then here’s my question.” His voice dropped a register. “What does a woman like you do when the advice she gives everyone else stops working for her?”

Mara camouflaged a little gasp. It was ridiculous, he was a voice on a telephone, how could he be so disarming? But there was something in the way he spoke… intimate, focused, as if he was in the room making love to her.

“I suppose,” she murmured, “she keeps talking until she finds someone who listens properly.”

“I’m listening,” he said softly. “More than you know.”

Jay gave her the wind-up signal, they were due an advert. Besides, who was this weirdo? She reluctantly guided the call to break, but before she could cut him off, the man added:

“I’ll call again tomorrow. Same time.”

And just like that, he was gone, leaving Mara oddly flushed.

For a month, he called at exactly 12:07 a.m. The production unit had cleared a separate call line for him.

He never gave his name.
He never flirted outright.
He simply… learned more about her with his innocent and slightly abstract questions.

His insight was unnerving and intoxicating in equal measure. Was he a stalker? Should she be worried?

Jay began calling the mysterious man “The Velvet Listener” as though he were a character in a novel.

Other fans of the show adored the segment. Ratings soared. Heartline FM executives sent Mara congratulatory emails and mentioned a pay rise.

But Mara wanted only one thing: to see the man behind the velvet voice.

On the twenty-eighth night, The Velvet Listener asked quietly, “Would you want to meet me?”

She hesitated, not wanting to sound keen and aware of possible dangers. But she had been thinking about him, late at night as she showered. In bed when she couldn’t sleep, when she touched her wanton body.

“That depends,” she whispered. “Are you even real?”

The internet was awash with comments. Mara’s Instagram and X accounts were filled with speculations, warnings, guesses as to the Velvet Listener’s identity, suggestions of marriage and happy-ever-afters, conspiracy theories that were creating spinoffs on TikTok. Several fans had even offered themselves to Velvet Listener should Mara decline his advances.

Jay wrapped up the show and handed Mara a note.

“Come to the rooftop after your shift,” it said. “If I’m not real, you’ll know immediately.”

At 1:38 a.m., Mara stepped out onto the roof. The city lay below in wet neon streaks. Wind tugged her coat open, revealing her satin pencil skirt, stockings and high heels that she had been wearing in the hope that he would see her.

And he was there.

Tall, dark and divine, just as she had dreamed he would be. The same velvet voice:

“Hello, Mara.”

She moved toward him before she realised she was doing it.

He came closer and revealed his face in the light.

He commanded a formidable and yet unassuming presence.

“Let’s write your story now.”

He drew her body towards his and kissed her, gently then hard. Passionate and driven. Urgent and focused.

Mara’s loins were alive with lust and feelings she had not experienced in years, and this, all of this, from a stranger. Could it be true? There was no time to worry now.

When he finally broke away, his breath warm against her lips, he said:

“You know I hear you. I will always listen, Mara, that is my oath to you.”

And Mara, who had spent years being everybody else’s confidante, let herself fall into the loving arms of the man who had learned her voice before ever seeing her face.

www.taletellerclub.com

Tuesday, October 28, 2025

The Judge and the Model a 💋 Mills and Swoon Romance Short by Sarnia de la Maré

Penelope Fairlie had never faltered. 'Faltering is for amateurs and the mentally ill', she would say.

At fifty-two, she was the embodiment of composure. That rare breed of Englishwoman who moved through life as if time itself obeyed her schedule. She was a beacon of virtue and as disappointing as a soggy digestive, though no one would ever tell her due to her ability to petrify anyone within her orbit, even other people's dogs in Hyde Park.

She lived in a tall, ordered house in Belgravia with her husband, Charles, a respected tax barrister, and their Pomeranian, Bertie, whose coiffure was definitely worse than his bark, styled by an expensive personal dog groomer from Hampstead. There were no children, a fate that had become a new normal many years before.

If one dared to asked Judge Penelope Fairlie when she last felt the surge of a carnal wave, she would probably tell you it was when she saw Julio Iglesias in concert for her twenty-first birthday

Charles Fairlie was a man of professional eloquence and personal grooming.
He had spent their thirty years of marriage perfecting the art of absence while being perpetually present, a skill much admired in the legal profession.

Their relationship had long ago settled into the comfortable civility of two people who shared mortgage statements, mutual respect, and an occasional bout of influenza. They dined well, travelled seasonally, and never raised their voices.

Their lives read like an "at Home on Sunday" newspaper spread fused with Pomeranian Monthly.

But one Tuesday Penelope returned home early, having adjourned court for a witness who had fainted theatrically in the dock.
She let herself in, hung up her Burberry coat, popped her golfing umbrella in the stand, and followed a peculiar, yet vaguely familiar sound. It was somewhere between a gasp and a whimper and reminded her of the 80s.

As a woman of the world, well familiar with the peculiarities of human behaviour in her court, the vision before her was of something more unique in her own personal catalogue of 'seen it all befores'.

Charles was on all fours in a gimp mask making woof sounds, and Barry, the groomer from Hampstead, was saying something along the lines of, "you are a very naughty boy," dragging him along with Bertie's best Chanel dog lead.

A long pause preceded the events that unfolded. Bertie himself had been sitting on his velvet cushion watching things in a confused state, just glad that now Mummy was home. He had always hated the groomer and would regularly bite him.

"Your toupee has slipped, Barry." Penelope said curtly, "along with your reputation as a my dog groomer. Get out of my house. " And you, Charles, you can leave too, I never want to see either of you again. You belong in a kennel, and I hope you get fleas."

The following weeks were tortuous. Deep pain and menopause slushed up Penelope's brain to such a degree that she had taken some time off work and visited and old school friend in Bath.

Unbeknown to Penelope, a deep current of change was about to take her to new shores.

"You will Love Bath," said Cecilia. "Stay as long as you need. Take up some classes, you can come to mine! Paletes, ballet barre, aerobics, and hot yoga."

Cecilia was optimistic and gleeful. Penelope was tired just thinking about it.

"Art then," said Cecilia."

"Art." answered Penelope for no good reason, the word fell out like a sigh.

"YES!" Cecilia was being gleeful again. "You were so good at school."

It was on the third afternoon and Penelope meandered through the town whilst Cecilia was doing something sweaty. At the Assembly Rooms, she was drawn by the sign: Life Drawing Class – All Welcome. Knowing it would get Cecelia off her back, she popped in to find out more.

Within two minutes of enquiring she was shuffled into a room and guided towards an easel with rudimentary materials.

An artist next to her passed her something.

"Here, it's my spare."

Now fashioned in a smock and still wearing the beret she had left the house in, Penelope was not unaware of the fact that she had become a slightly ridiculous stereotype.

She picked up a pencil and looked behind the easel wondering if anyone heard her mumbled expletive.

The artist next to her giggled and whispered, "it's a schlong and a half isn't it?"

The model stood on the platform with the unselfconscious ease of youth.
Broad-shouldered, wiry, beautiful in that careless, provisional way some men are before life edits them down.
His name, she later learned as he did polite rounds to view each insult to art, was Leo. He was twenty-six, recently moved from Brighton, “a performer, mostly.”

She assumed “performer” meant actor and imagined him performing Shakespeare, glad he had robed up.

"Oh how lovely." She said, smiling and avoiding eye contact, as well as nether region staring.

When their eyes met, something ancient sent a small electric shock downward. Penelope's body remembered it still existed.

After the class, he approached her.

"I really liked your drawings of me," he said. "They are precise and ordered. You should see some of the artworks I see," he laughed.

"Would you like them? Honestly, I won't keep them. I am only here on holiday, killing time really."

Leo was ecstatic and handed her a leaflet. Performance Art Showcase — The Velvet Room, Friday 8pm.

"I know it's short notice," he said...."

“Come,” he begged. “It’s experimental. It will be very inspiring, freeing, and give you a real sense of the place. Please say you will come, it would be an honour to have you in the audience."

Leo seemed so sweet so eager that Penelope agreed. After all, she needed to get used to going out alone now that was old, free, and single.

The Velvet Room was tucked down a narrow lane, unmarked but for a faint boom of thumping bass and the smell of incense and beer. Inside, the lighting was so intimate Penelope couldn't see a thing. People were arriving dressed in clothes she had never seen, with body parts on show that should not be seen.

A woman with green hair was throwing questions into the air. “You here for the showcase?”

Penelope nodded. “I believe so.”

The girl was holding something, "where dya wan' it?"

Penelope looked confused, "wrist or hand?" The green haired girl blew a pink bubble from her black lips and Penelope reminded herself to be....more artistic.

"Oh, hand I think," she said, still confused.

"Take yer glove off then," demanded the girl.

Before Penelope knew it there was a black smudgy tattoo inked on her well manicured hand and the girl was blowing another pink bubble and saying 'NEXT!"

The stage was a shallow platform backed by velvet curtains that had known better centuries. She found a seat near the back, removed her other glove, and tried to look as though she attended avant-garde happenings regularly.

The music began, low, slow, and full of promise. There was a pulsating boom and African rhythms emanating from all around then a tall figure stepped into the light.

It was Leo.

Dressed in nothing but metaphors.

Penelope froze. She recognised at once the calm, unhurried posture, the deliberate movements, this was not theatre, nor dance. It was… a naked exhibition. A performance of skin and hair that began to move under strobes and beats.

Around her, the audience applauded softly, reverently, as if this were Mass and he the officiant.

He spoke — low, assured, words that might once have been poetry before they undressed.

“We are bodies before we are names,” he said. “We perform to be believed.”

Penelope felt the strangest vertigo. She was blushing with embarrassment. But she took a few deep breaths and focused on the art message which to this day, she has no understanding of.

When the lights came up, she remained seated to compose herself and get over the shock.

There was a five minute break until the next performance. Time to make a subtle exit.

But Leo was running over.

“Thank you for coming,” he said.

"Thank you for getting dressed," she said. He laughed and she noticed for the first time his beautiful face as it lit the room.

"Let's get out of here...Let me buy you a drink." Leo said in a convincing tone.

She almost declined. But politeness, that old reflex, and possibly some other old reflexes, betrayed her.

That was the start, she would muse when looking back. The time his skin and presence was so charged she could feel it in her stomach.

“You don’t talk like my usual audience,” he said, over red wine.

“Your normal audience has piercings.”

He laughed, and it broke something in her.
The laughter, the wine, the gentle disarray of being unobserved, each loosened a burden she hadn’t realised she carried. The coat of propriety was left at the door.

He spoke about leaving Brighton, about performing to survive, about wanting to write.
She listened, surprised by how much it mattered that he wanted to be understood.

When they finally stepped back into the night, the rain had softened to mist.

"I'd like to make love to you." Leo declared.

"Let's get a hotel room," said Penelope, excited and sexually awakened in a single afternoon.

The walk to her hotel was brief, almost quiet. Neither of them suggested what would happen next; neither pretended not to know.

Leo was considerate and both domineering and submissive in passionate waves as they explored each others bodies in the finest detail. They made love four times, and then once again, before breakfast in the shower. It was more than she had made love to her husband in twenty years.

As they parted at the taxi rank Leo kissed Penelope's cheek. "I will never forget you." he whispered.

"Thank you dearest, charming boy," she answered.

For the first time in years, Penelope had faltered and tiptoed into the dark side.

But, more importantly, she discovered hat it would not kill her.

Judge Penelope Fairlie returned to London as if she were the heroine of her own parole.
Bath had washed her clean of stigma, expectations, and an imaginary birdcage.

Her hair was shorter, deliberately so, an unspoken rebellion against the helmet she had worn for thirty years. She had bought dresses that kissed her figure in linen and silks. Men would look longingly at this beautiful modern woman who knew herself. Women would watch in disgust.

"Who does she think she is, a woman of her age wearing that?"

Penelope was a Belgravia scandal, albeit, a small one.

Even Bertie seemed confused by her new scent of freedom.

Within weeks, she was back on the bench, a leaner, luminous, version of herself, possessed of an unnerving calm. Courtroom 7 had missed her efficiency, if not her warmth. The clerks whispered that she smiled now, occasionally, which was far more disconcerting than her old froideur.

But fate, like a malicious court usher, was waiting to file an unexpected motion.

The case was Regina versus Leontius Ryder.

Penelope glanced at the list and thought the name familiar, but it wasn’t until he entered the dock, hands folded, curls tamed, that her heart performed a most un-judicial leap.

Leo.

The naked philosopher of The Velvet Room now stood before her in a borrowed suit, accused of public indecency and the destruction of a civic sculpture valued at £100,000.

“Your Honour,” said the prosecution, “the defendant’s so-called performance involved squirting cream over the marble bust of Sir Robert Peel while entirely unclothed.”

Penelope inhaled sharply through her nose. The vision of cream was inconveniently vivid.

Leo looked up. Recognition was hard as a lightening streak. His eyes widened, then softened, as if to say forgive me, muse.

Penelope composed herself, rearranging her face into its most neutral expression, the mask of a woman who could sentence her own libido if required.

“The court,” she began, “is not a theatre.”
A pause.
“Though I appreciate some of you may find the acoustics similar.”

A ripple of laughter broke the tension.

The trial, inevitably, was adjourned. She could not preside; conflict of interest, emotional and otherwise.

Outside, the press had gathered.

Judge Sees Defendant Naked! shouted one speculative headline the next day. It's the Naked Truth Your Honour! said another.

Charles sent a curt text: You’ve become quite the spectacle, Penny. I am suing for custody of Bertie.
She deleted it and ordered another martini.

When Leo appeared again, weeks later, she attended discreetly, a mere spectator in civilian clothes. He was represented by a nervous young barrister who clearly adored him.

When the verdict came — guilty, with mitigating artistic intent — Penelope almost smiled. A small fine, community service, and an interview on Channel 4.

When the fuss had died down, and it didn't take long, Leo waited in the rain outside chambers.

"I am so glad you messaged," he said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” He was looking down like a schoolboy, but then he looked up and was the man she had longed for all these weeks.

“You didn’t,” she lied. “You reminded me I’m still flammable.”

He grinned. “That’s not a bad epitaph.”

They walked together through the wet London streets until decorum dissolved again. But this time it was bigger than passion. It was a longing that both needed to satiate in the knowledge that however long it lasted it would be time treasured with the lust and companionship of two people who could escape their scripts. And that it was nobody’s business but their own.

“Perhaps I’ll paint you next,” he said.

“Don’t,” she replied, “you’d only end up in court again.”

But her smile, that new, dangerous smile, said otherwise.

Thursday, July 31, 2025

The First-Class Affair A Mills and Swoon Short by Sarnia de la Maré

Lady Eliza Weatherford had always believed emotions were like sauces, best served on the side, and never allowed to stain the table linen. This ethos had been maintained throughout a long and highly successful career that was celebrated with business awards, international attention and way too many friends for any one human.

Eliza was 52, a legendary hospitality consultant and cold-blooded perfectionist. She had money, a beautiful home, rather too many nieces and nephews whose names she had memorised, and doting parents who had remained in great health despite advancing age.

Eliza boarded another private jet in Neice after salvaging a failing three-star restaurant in Monaco. Wearing an immaculate cream trouser suit, Prada sunglasses, and the smirk of someone who has fired a Michelin chef before breakfast, this was another ordinary day in the life of a happy milionairess.

Then came Sebastian Knox, 29, tousled, charming, rumpled in that rich-boy-on-his-third-startup way. He is the co-owner’s son, sent to "observe excellence" under Eliza’s no-nonsense regime. Eliza had agreed to Sebastian shadowing her, under duress it had to be said. He was an Eton boy, all very pleasant but nervous around her and this, Eliza knew well, would prove to be an irritant.

Sebastian spilled champagne on her files almost immediately. He had no idea how to mop the table down as his butler wasn't around and his flies were undone after his last trip to the small room.

“I’d suggest you stay out of my way,” she murmured, blotting her paperwork with disdain.

“But then I’d miss all the chances to impress you,” he replied, trying to be amusing and lounging across from her like a particularly well-designed sofa.

In Tokyo they visited a restaurant, another part-work part-pleasure trip.

It was a twelve-seat sushi temple in Shinjuku. Eliza gave each grain of rice a critique. Her surgical precision in these matters was legendary. Sebastian, undeterred, ate with his fingers after breaking a chopstick on the water bowl. Eliza was forced to listen to stories of boarding school scandal and tech-failure-millions.

“I once caused a blackout across three data centres,” he says, watching her lips as she sipped Sake.

“And I once made Gordon Ramsay cry,” she replies.

“I bet you did.”

“In a good way.”

“Even better.”

Seb (yes she had finally come around) had been energised with extreme confidence by the Sake. It quite took Eliza by storm. She was laughing at his jokes and became absent minded with her guard. Before she knew it there was a massive public school boy snog in the taxi. He never made it to his room.

In the morning, Seb brought the breakfast tray to the bed. He was wearing her silk robe and it had fallen open. He looked luscious and brought knew meaning to the words, 'full English'.

On the flight to São Paulo, Sebastian was explaining Merlot terroir in the most unconvincing way imaginable. “If you’re going to seduce me mid-flight, at least understand the difference between Bordeaux and Burgundy,” she whispers, licking red from his lower lip.

“Teach me everything,” he grinned.

The affair, if two nights in different countries count as such a thing, was an ongoing secret.

Sebastian was besotted and Eliza became suspicious of her own pulse. She’s not built for this: giggles, texts, jealousy over Instagram likes. What ever was she doing? Summer madness would have to end come autumn.

But a good secret always rises to the top.

It leaked to the press. Paparazzi, whispers in private clubs, rumours she’d lost her edge, Nastiness on Instagram about Sebastian's mummy issues, Criticism about her botox, cheeks, lips, eyebrows, forehead.....It was endless.

The board of directors suggested she take a leave. Eliza was furious, but also felt ridiculous. A silly old lady getting sidetracked by a ridiculous notion of self worth and vanity, a desperate obsession over a hot youth. So she ghosted Sebastian. It was somewhat unprofessional but affairs of the heart were not in her superpower box.

Eliza had blocked his number and thrown herself into work, and she also left the country.

Then this....a hand written letter delivered via her PA...

Dearest Eliza,

How I miss you. My days stretch endlessly into a chasm of deep sorrow and it sucks me in. I am not sleeping. I haven't had a hard on in three weeks and I am bereft in your absence.

I don't care if I am half your age, and it is nobody’s business. We were enriched by one another, we helped each other grow. My breakfast does not taste the same without you.

I am slowly dying,

Yours forever,

Seb. x

It was heartfelt but Eliza was adamant not to rekindle things.

That evening was the hardest. She sat at the hotel bar drinking coffee after a martini made her depressed. There was a stack of new properties to peruse for her investment portfolio.

She had successfully eradicated the memory of Seb for three whole hours when she returned to her room. But as she opened her door even the smell of his aftershave returned.

And that, dear readers, is because Seb was lounging like a greek God across her bed. He was wearing her silk robe, slightly open, and irresistibly ready to give new meaning to Eliza's favourite bedtime story.

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Thursday, June 26, 2025

The Olive Grove by Mills & Swoon™ Daily Romance Short Audiobook and Text #mill&swoon

📘 The Olive Grove Agreement: A Hot and Hilarious French Villa Romance – A Mills and Swoon Short

Subtitle (optional):
One reluctant heiress. One infuriatingly hot ex-chef. And one very firm agreement made over figs and fornication.

Title: The Olive Grove Agreement
A Mills and Swoon Short
Where inheritance meets innuendo and everything smells faintly of rosemary and bad decisions.

Cass Winter was not in the mood for a French villa.

She had deadlines, a dodgy knee, and the last time she tried to drive on the right side of the road she’d accidentally parked in a fountain. But apparently, her great-aunt Iris had passed away and left her La Maison du Hérisson, a once-grand property in the hills of Provence. And so, armed with nothing but SPF 50 and mild resentment, Cass arrived.

It was hotter than she expected. And louder. Especially in the garden, where someone was swearing in French and violently attacking an olive tree.

She squinted.

He was shirtless. Tanned. And wielding garden shears like they owed him money.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he barked, in the polished English of someone who’d once dated a model named Saskia.

Cass raised a brow. “And you are?”

“I live here,” he snapped. “Who the hell are you?”

Meet Luc Brousseau, disgruntled former chef, current squatter, and all-round beautifully difficult man.

It turned out Iris had taken him in after he “quit” (read: was fired from) a Michelin-starred kitchen in Lyon for seducing a critic and flambéing her handbag. She let him stay in the guesthouse in exchange for cooking and grumpiness.

And now? Now the guesthouse had no formal deed. And Luc had no intention of leaving.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said over dinner that night, ladling cassoulet into bowls like a man who knew exactly what he was worth. “Unless you drag me out in handcuffs.”

Cass smiled sweetly. “Don’t tempt me.”

The first week was war. Passive-aggressive Post-it notes on the fridge. Loud music at strategic times. He cooked at midnight. She reorganised the pantry just to upset him.

But then… something shifted.

It began with wine. Then a storm. Then her power went out and he “reluctantly” invited her to sleep on his sofa. One glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape became two. Then his hand was on her thigh. Then her dress was on the floor.

He kissed like he argued—deliberately, intensely, and with far too much tongue.

“Still want me gone?” he growled, half-naked, pinning her against the ancient stone wall.

“Ask me again tomorrow,” she gasped.

In the morning, she found a croissant, a perfectly brewed coffee, and a note: