Free No Strings Attached by Nicolette Day

Chapter One
    “It’s a sign.”
    Hayden Summers tugged at her heel stuck in the drainage grate outside of the Orchid Lounge. The music vibrated the walls and pulsed out into the parking lot, making her heart thump in time with the song. Apparently the universe wasn’t on board with this whole one-wild-night plan. First, her car refused to start, and then she dropped her phone in a puddle in the parking lot. Okay, so she threw it into a puddle in the parking lot. To be fair, she hadn’t meant for it to land in the puddle. And her ex had just texted her that he was getting married. To her cousin. As if breaking her heart into a thousand pieces hadn’t been enough. He felt the need to move on to her family members now. Freaking parasite . Now her shoe was being held captive by this bitch of a drainage grate. She was starting to think the universe wanted her to be celibate forever. Overhead, a clap of thunder rumbled across the pitch-dark sky, as if to drive home the point. Oh yeah, definitely a sign.
    Her assistant grunted and helped her pull on the sleek black pump. “It’s not a sign. It’s a shoe. A. Very. Stuck—” It jerked free, and they both fell back onto the pavement with an umph . Lilly blew a twist of blond hair out of her eyes. “Shoe.”
    Hayden grabbed the shoe and frowned. The heel to her Jimmy Choo was…missing. She looked around and spotted it still stuck in the grate. Well, that was fan-freaking-tastic. They might have killed her feet, but they had also cost half of what she’d made on her last freelance job, and this was going to be her only chance to wear them for the next year. She wasn’t exactly up with the fashion scene in Sudan, but she was guessing shoes like these wouldn’t suffice when she was trekking across the war-torn country to get shots that would land her a coveted spot in Time magazine.
    Hayden stood up, brushing her dress off, and helped Lilly to her feet. “It’s okay. I have a pair of flats in your car.”
    Lilly laughed. “You are such a Girl Scout. I’ll bet if I stepped on a rusty nail, you’d have a round of antibiotics in your purse for me. I wouldn’t even have to go to the ER.”
    Hayden headed for Lilly’s Honda and popped the trunk. So she might be a tad obsessive-compulsive. She stared into her emergency bag. Perfectly folded T-shirt and jeans. Flats. Toiletries. Aspirin and a bottle of water. A box of condoms. Okay, maybe more than a tad.
    Lilly held up the box and grinned.
    “What? You told me to be open-minded.”
    “I said be open-minded. I did not say to pack for a weekend trip to the Poconos. You’ve got enough rubber here to last you a month.”
    Hayden grabbed the box and threw it back in the bag, then slammed the trunk shut. “What if I end up going home with someone? Or staying the night?”
    “You’re kind of missing the point of a one-night stand.” Lilly checked her hair in the side mirror while Hayden slipped on her sparkly black flats.
    “I don’t like to be unprepared.”
    “I don’t think you have to worry about that. A zombie apocalypse couldn’t catch you off guard.”
    Hayden stared up at the buzzing blue orchid hanging above the black double doors. A strange mixture of excitement and determination overwhelmed her. She’d never done anything like this. But saying the past year had been a dry spell would be an understatement. She hadn’t even had a date in eleven months, let alone a good roll in the sack. And she’d be damned if Shane “the cheating bastard” Peterson would be her last sexual experience before she went off and risked her life. She wasn’t stupid. The job she’d landed with Time might have been a photojournalist’s wet dream—the kind Hayden had built her résumé for years to get a shot at—but it didn’t come with any guarantees. People didn’t always come back from a job like this. Not in one piece anyway.
    So she’d made up her mind. She wasn’t getting on that plane tomorrow with regrets. It was