Showing posts with label shorts. Show all posts

Jul 1, 2025

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

📘 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:

Keep the villa.
I’ll keep the guesthouse.
We’ll share the rest.
—L

She sipped the coffee, watching him prune a fig tree shirtless. Again.

Cass smiled.

The inheritance wasn’t the only thing that needed handling delicately.

The End.

💋
#MillsAndSwoon #RomanticShortStories #OneSittingRomance #SteamyReads

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#FrenchVillaRomance #InheritanceTrouble #OppositesAttract #HotChefsOfInstagram

🔥
#RisquéReads #WittyRomance #EnemiesToLovers #FlirtyFiction #DrollAndDirty

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#RomanceReaders #BookTokRomance #ShortStoryOfTheDay #IndieRomance

Plus-One Problems by Mills and Swoon Comedy Romance Short Story

📘 She needed a fake boyfriend for 48 hours. What she got was robes, rooftop kisses, and something suspiciously close to feelings.

Plus-One Problems by Mills and Swoon

Lydia March didn’t believe in weddings, commitment, or eating gluten before noon. But she did believe in being a very good friend, which is how she found herself at a country spa hotel in the Cotswolds surrounded by 12 women named things like Ashleigh and Gabs, clutching a Prosecco flute, and pretending not to panic.

“You didn’t bring a plus one?” Gabs asked, faux-concerned, eyelash extensions fluttering like a threatened peacock.

“I did,” Lydia said smoothly, even though she absolutely hadn’t. “He’s just—parking.”

“Oh. He drove you?” Gabs’ tone suggested this was code for something deeply erotic.

“Mmm,” Lydia replied, sipping her drink. “Manual.”

The problem was, this was a lie. A big, juicy one. And now she had roughly twenty minutes to produce a man from thin air, or spend the weekend as that girl—the one still “focusing on her career” while everyone else was comparing ring sizes.

She was mid-strategy (Plan A: fake gastroenteritis, Plan B: fake Buddhism) when the hotel door swung open and salvation walked in wearing motorcycle boots and an expression like he’d rather be hit by traffic.

He was tall. Rugged. Slightly damp. And holding a helmet.

Lydia moved fast.

“Sweetheart!” she called, with confidence born of too many gin tonics and not enough therapy. “There you are.”

He blinked. “I’m sorry?”

She leaned in, touched his arm. “Listen, I’ll explain later, but I need you to be my boyfriend for 48 hours or I’m going to be matched with someone called Callum who runs a beard oil company.”

He paused. Looked her up and down. Nodded once.

“I’m in,” he said. “But I get full spa access.”

He introduced himself as Nico. She had no idea if that was real. She didn’t care. He said things like “Shall we?” and held doors open and made Gabs visibly sweat. It was glorious.

By the time the bridal brunch began, Lydia and Nico had a whole backstory. They’d “met on a train.” He was “in sustainable architecture.” She was “softening.”

They spent the afternoon in matching robes, pretending to argue about houseplants and then accidentally winning the couple’s yoga class with an improvised pose called The Distracted Otter.

In the sauna, he leaned close. “You’re enjoying this.”

She smirked. “Fake love is so much better than the real kind. No heartbreak, no laundry.”

“Plenty of steam, though,” he said, eyes not quite innocent.

That evening, after the hen games (Pin the Tail on the Fireman, emotional damage edition), Lydia found herself in Nico’s suite, half in her dress, half on his lap, all tension.

“Tell me something true,” she whispered, fingers in his hair.

He kissed her like it was his job.

“Okay,” he said against her mouth. “I hate weddings.”

She smiled. “I think I love you.”

“Don’t,” he warned.

“Too late,” she said, and pulled him down with her.

By Sunday afternoon, they were both sunburnt, sore, and suspiciously quiet.

As the girls piled into taxis, Gabs cornered her. “So. Nico. Will we see him again?”

Lydia shrugged. “Maybe. He’s got a thing in Finland. Or Bristol. Or… something.”

Nico walked by, winked, and disappeared behind the check-out desk. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever see him again.

But she’d never look at a spa robe—or a man holding a motorcycle helmet—the same way again.

The End.

💋
#MillsAndSwoon #ModernRomanceShorts #QuickSteamyRead #OneSittingRomance

🎉
#FakeDating #HenDoDisaster #SpaWeekend #RomanticComedy #PlusOneProblems

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#DrollAndDirty #RisquéReads #WittyRomance #FlirtyFiction #SassyAndSingle

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#RomanceReaders #IndieRomance #RomanceShortStories #DailyRomanceRead #BookTokRomance

Beneath the Amber Moon: A Droll and Steamy Seaside Love Triangle – A Mills and Swoon Short #romance

Beneath the Amber Moon: A Droll and Steamy Seaside Love Triangle – A Mills and Swoon Short

(A modern romantic short with heat, humour, and one woman caught deliciously between her past and a pair of very persuasive arms)

Beneath the Amber Moon

Marina Vale had precisely three rules for her new seaside life:

No high heels before noon.
No men named anything.
And absolutely no falling in love with anyone who owns a boat.

By Tuesday, she’d broken two of them. By Wednesday, the third was looking dangerously shaky.

Marina had returned to her family’s crumbling clifftop manor in Dorset with grand intentions of solitude and home-grown tomatoes. After a spectacularly public London divorce involving a hedge fund, a Hungarian model, and a poorly aimed breadstick, she was determined to become the kind of woman who wore linen without creasing and talked to plants. Instead, she found herself staring far too long at the new dockhand's biceps.

Aeron Maddox. With a name like that, he was contractually obliged to be hot. And he was. The kind of hot that made you reconsider feminism, underwear, and your grocery list all at once.

She spotted him on her morning walk to the bay—shirt clinging, jeans low, working a coil of rope like he was in a very niche exercise video titled Knots and Thighs.

“New?” she asked, casually clutching her water bottle like it might burst into flames.

He glanced up. Dark hair. Sharp jaw. Smile like he knew what she dreamt about.

“Temporary,” he replied, eyes dragging slowly from her sandals to her sunhat. “You?”

“Divorced,” she said brightly. “And drying out.”

Aeron laughed. A deep, quiet kind of laugh that suggested he didn’t take much seriously—except maybe the way he was currently not taking his eyes off her.

Enter: Theo Ellison.

Theo was her past dressed in corduroy and good decisions. He’d been her almost-fiancé back when she still thought brunch was a personality. Tall, charming, and entirely too nice, Theo turned up at her door three days later, holding a bouquet of ethically sourced wildflowers and the sort of hopeful expression that made her deeply suspicious.

“I heard you were back,” he said, rain dripping from his hair. “I thought… I might come and ruin your peace.”

“Oh, thank God,” Marina said. “I was starting to make sourdough.”

He kissed her cheek and smelled of bergamot and poor timing.

Things escalated, as they tend to do, over a dinner party.

Marina had invited them both without thinking. Or rather, without admitting she was thinking. Theo brought wine. Aeron brought a crab. There was jazz. There was risotto. There was tension so thick it could be spooned into ramekins and served with a sprig of regret.

When Theo leaned in to whisper something undoubtedly poetic, Aeron raised a brow and cracked a claw.

“Everything all right, Marina?” he asked, voice low and infuriatingly amused.

She cleared her throat and tried not to explode. “Peachy. Just two old flames and one highly flammable woman.”

After dessert, Theo offered to help with the dishes. Aeron stayed behind to dry. Marina, foolishly, stood in the middle like a Regency heroine on a hen night.

“I remember the sound you made when I touched your neck,” Aeron murmured, not looking at her. “Wonder if you still do.”

She dropped a spoon.

From the kitchen, Theo called, “Still like chamomile, Rina? I made a pot.”

And that’s when she knew she was absolutely, completely, and spectacularly doomed.

Later that week, Marina stood on the cliff path, barefoot and wine-glossed, watching the moon spill amber across the water.

Two men. One heart. Zero bloody clue.

But for now? She was exactly where she wanted to be. Between chapters. Between kisses. Between one delicious mistake and another.

She grinned, tilted her face to the wind, and whispered to no one in particular:

“Tomorrow, I’m buying a boat.”

The End.

#MillsAndSwoon #RomanticShortStory #ModernRomance #SteamyReads #QuickRomanceFix

#SeasideRomance #LoveTriangleDrama #SummerRomance #CoastalLoveStory

#DrollAndDelicious #RisquéReads #WittyRomance #SpicyFiction #FlirtyAndFeminist

#RomanceReaders #ShortStoryOfTheDay #IndieAuthor #DailyRomance #AmReadingRomance

Jun 30, 2025

Ginny Greaves, Private Eye Episode 2: “The Case of the Crimson Cravat” A comedy noir by Sarnia de la Mare

Ginny Greaves, Private Eye

Episode 2: “The Case of the Crimson Cravat”

A comedy noir by Sarnia de la Mare

It was the kind of Thursday that started with a hangover and ended with a body, standard fare in Ginny Greaves’ line of work. The city lay in heat like a drunk under a sunlamp, sweating secrets through its alleys and air vents. From her office on the fifth floor of the Wilcox Building, Ginny had a decent view of nothing and better company with her .38, which she was cleaning with an intimacy usually reserved for lovers or stolen jewelry.

She lit a cigarette and stared at the blinking neon of the "Hotel Splendide" sign opposite, where someone was either being seduced or blackmailed, possibly both.

Then came the knock. Taps like an SOS morse code, the kind that spelled drama in heels.

"Door’s open," Ginny called without looking up. "Unless you’re selling religion. Then it’s closed until the afterlife."

The door swung in, and in walked Lola Love, a vision in red silk and poor judgment. She had lips like war crimes and a perfume that should have been classified as a controlled substance.

"You Ginny Greaves?" she asked, voice dripping with the kind of trouble they usually bury in a shallow grave.

"That’s what it says on the frosted glass," Ginny said. "Who wants to know?"

"I’ve got a cravat," Lola said. "And a corpse. And not necessarily in that order."

The body was lying in the morgue like it was waiting for a second opinion. Doc McSwain lifted the sheet with theatrical flair.

"Strangled," he said. "With this."

He held up a red silk cravat, still knotted like it meant business.

"Imported," he added. "Very upscale. If you’re going to get murdered, might as well do it in style."

Ginny took it from him, sniffed it. "Perfume. Chanel No. 5 and… something else. Guilt."

"Know the guy?"

"Only by reputation. Barry Lionel Love. Rich, unpleasant, and possessed of a wardrobe that could strangle a small town."

Doc raised an eyebrow. "Wife brought you in?"

Ginny nodded. "Lola Love. Silk dress, loose morals, tight alibi."

The trail, as always, started lukewarm and went cold fast. Ginny followed it anyway, through a fencing academy in the East End, a florist with suspiciously blood-red roses, and a burlesque club called The Velvet Glove, where she slapped a toothy saxophonist until he coughed up a name and an address.

At one point, a mime artist tried to block her path in a silent protest.

“Outta the way, Marcel,” Ginny said, brandishing her self confidence like a judge’s gavel. “I’ve had coffee, cigarettes, and a retainer. Don’t push your luck.”

The mime dude yielded just in time.

By midnight, Ginny was standing in the marble foyer of the Love mansion. Lola met her on the stairs, red lips trembling just enough to win an Oscar.

"You’re early," she said.

"You’re guilty," Ginny replied. "Let’s not pretend either of us came here to flirt."

Lola laughed, but it cracked halfway. "You think I did it?"

"I know you did. What I don’t know is whether it was premeditated or just a spirited bit of scarf-play gone wrong."

"You’ve got no proof."

Ginny reached into her pocket and pulled out a soggy monogrammed tag, retrieved earlier from the gut of the family’s overfed Pekingese.

"L.L., nice embroidery Lola Love, and a nice clue. My guess is, he was drunk and touchy feely, maybe took a liberty. Husbands should know their place, right? Shame about the dog’s taste for accessories, but very helpful in the forensics department."

Lola stepped back, hand reaching behind her for something.

“Don’t,” Ginny said, pulling her .38 like it was muscle memory. “Guns don’t make you innocent, Lola. They just make your trial more interesting.”

There was a long pause, the kind in movies where music swells and someone dies. But no music came. Lola dropped the derringer into a crystal ashtray and sighed like a woman giving up a dream.

"Fine," she said. "He was going to cut me off. Said I spent too much for a broad who'd stopped putting out. Said I embarrassed him. That everyone knew."

"You embarrassed him? The man wore capes to brunch."

"Exactly," she said. "He had it coming."

Ginny shrugged. "Most people do in the in the end."

The sun was coming up as Ginny walked the long stretch back to her office. The sky was painted in hope but the wind the wind promised more trouble by lunchtime. She lit a cigarette and pulled her collar up against the breeze.

Another job done. Another sociopath in silk heading for a date with the justice system.

She didn’t smile. She never did. Smiling was for the innocent and people who didn’t carry brass knuckles in their handbags.

I don’t do happy endings, she thought. I do invoices.

Other Episodes

The Duke of Dunstable’s Seduction A Mills and Swoon™ Short by Sarnia de la Mare

29 JUN 2025 · Mills and Swoon: “The Duke of Dunstable’s Seduction” by Sarnia de la Mare , for Tale Teller Club Publishing. Lady Antonia Bellweather had three secrets, well a lot more than three but I will break readers in gently. She couldn’t ride side-saddle without swearing. Her French maid was actually ....

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

26 JUN 2025 · 📘 The Olive Grove Agreement: A Hot and Hilarious French Villa Romance – A Mills and Swoon 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 ....

Plus-One Problems by Mills and Swoon A Short Love Story for Romance Lovers #sarniadelamare

24 JUN 2025 · Plus-One Problems: A Risqué Fake Dating Romance at a Hen Do – A Mills and Swoon Short Subtitle (optional for blog or preview): She needed a fake boyfriend for 48 hours. What she got was robes, rooftop kisses, and something suspiciously close to feelings.
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Beneath the Amber Moon by Sarnia de la Mare a Mills and Swoon short stor

23 JUN 2025 · Beneath the Amber Moon by Sarnia de la Maré FRSA Marina Vale had precisely three rules for her new seaside life: - No high heels before noon. - No men named anything. - And absolutely no falling in love with anyone who owns a boat. By Tuesday, she’d broken two of them. By Wednesday, the third was looking dangerously

Love in the Time of Goo Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror/Romance (B-Movie Style) by Tale Teller Club

15 MAY 2025 · Love in the Time of Goo Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror/Romance (B-Movie Style) Tagline: "It oozed from the swamp… and straight into her heart." ACT I: The Swamp, the Scientist, and the Soda Jerk It’s 1959 ...

May 15, 2025

Love in the Time of Goo Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror/Romance (B-Movie Style) by Tale Teller Club Audiobooks

Love in the Time of Goo

Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror/Romance (B-Movie Style)
Tagline: "It oozed from the swamp… and straight into her heart."

ACT I: The Swamp, the Scientist, and the Soda Jerk

It’s 1959 in the steamy backwoods of Cypress Hollow, a nowhere town where nothing ever happens—until Dr. Veronica Flame, a chain-smoking exobiologist with a tragic past and a PhD from "a European university that definitely exists," crash-lands her government jeep in the middle of Swamp Sector Z. She’s investigating strange seismic readings and rumors of glowing frogs.

Meanwhile, Johnny Rocket, a square-jawed soda jerk with a leather jacket and a motorcycle named Freedom, dreams of rock 'n' roll stardom and escaping his dead-end job at Big Bob’s Milkshake Haven.

They meet when Johnny finds Veronica passed out next to a steaming crater, cradling a glass vial of neon green goo. He takes her to town, ignoring the throbbing, ominous hum from the swamp that makes dogs howl and milk curdle.

ACT II: The Ooze Awakens

That night, while Veronica recovers in Johnny’s retro-futuristic trailer (decorated with pin-up posters, rayguns, and Elvis records), the vial begins to pulsate. Unbeknownst to them, the goo is sentient… and lonely. It escapes.

The next morning, townsfolk start acting strange—romantic, even. Sheriff Buck’s hound falls in love with a fencepost. Old Widow Dangle dances in the street with a mailbox. Everyone is infected with hyper-emotion, driven by an alien need to love.

Veronica deduces that the goo is extraterrestrial pheromone concentrate from Planet Zarnok-7, engineered to end war by making beings fall in uncontrollable love. It’s a weaponized cuddle-bomb.

Johnny wants to destroy it. Veronica, torn between science and her feelings, argues they should study it.

Meanwhile, the goo, now an eight-foot-tall translucent blob named Merv, forms a crush on Johnny. It tries to gift him a bouquet made from car bumpers and live possums.

ACT III: The Heart That Ate Cypress Hollow

As Merv’s emotional instability grows, he kidnaps Johnny and constructs a wedding altar out of rusted shopping carts and jukebox parts in the center of the swamp. Veronica must choose: save Johnny, or join Merv’s polyblobule hive-mind of intergalactic affection.

Veronica confronts Merv with a flamethrower and a love poem. Her words confuse the creature, forcing it to experience heartbreak. The goo begins to dissolve, but not before releasing a final burst of psychic pheromone gas.

Johnny and Veronica wake up in each other’s arms, covered in slime but deeply in love. The townsfolk recover, dazed but happy.

EPILOGUE:

Back at Big Bob’s Milkshake Haven, now renamed Merv’s Café of Love, Johnny strums his guitar while Veronica serves cherry phosphates. A tiny blob watches from a petri dish in the corner—pulsing… waiting…

Roll credits over doo-wop ballad: "Love Is a Gooey Thing."