As much as I wanted to get the new Gwen Michaels book out by December, I don't think it's going to happen.  However, to push myself and give Gwen's fans a little taste of what's to come, I am posting the first Chapter.  Enjoy!  And feel free to comment and tweet your desire for me to work faster :)

“Pull over to that little cafe, would you Jack?” I asked.
“I thought we were going to eat at home, after the grocery store.”
“Change of plans.”
“Why?”
A perfectly reasonable question that I didn’t want to answer but he caught me watching the car behind us in the vanity mirror.  I had no choice.  
“Gwen?  You said no more secrets.  Isn’t that what this whole trip to Hawaii was about?  No more secrets.”
He was right.  The whole trip was a clearing of the air.  After being forced to confess my secret past life as government assassin, the trip had been a chance for Jack to know everything about me.  About my past.  No more secrets.  The forced part came when an assassin showed up at my house to kill me.  And yes, I see the irony.  
The vacation had gone well.  Snorkeling, surfing, warm sun and hot sand.  And most important, no distractions.  We left our phones at home.  Jack asked me a thousand questions about my past, and I answered as honestly as I could.  When he first found out, he handled it alright, but it’s not like he had much of a choice.  We were hiding out, trying to figure out who wanted me dead.  But the fact is I didn’t tell him when we first started getting serious and I promised no more secrets from now on.  
“You’re right.  You’re right,” I said. “So? Why do you want to stop?”
“Because someone is following us.”
“What?” he laughed.  “We left home five minutes ago.  How could someone possibly...Why would you even be looking?”
“Someone tried to break in while we were gone.”
“Now how do you know that?”
“Because the alarm system I had installed before we left records any tampering.”
Jack’s shoulders sagged and he let out a loud sigh.  “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I could hear it in his voice.  That exhausted frustration of someone who is starting to give up on you.
“It’s not like that Jack.  I figured it was just some run of the mill burglar who noticed we were gone.  Who knows how long it took for Peter to come by.  Or how often he made it.”  Jack’s friend Peter was supposed to stop by the house to pick up the mail and the paper.  Make the place look lived in.  I didn’t fault him if he didn’t make it very often.  He had a life too.  Besides, the system I had installed was state of the art.  No one but a real pro was getting past it, and even then there were redundancies.  
“I swear if I’d thought it was more I would have told you.”
He smiled and nodded as he turned his attention back to the road, but I knew I’d undone some of the progress we’d made in Hawaii.  I’d have to think about that later.    
“So just pull into that diner on the right.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to talk to whoever is in that car.”
“Should I even bother asking why you can’t just call the police.”
“And tell them what?”
“But if they are following us, isn’t it dangerous to just go talk to whoever it is?”  
“Whoever it is wants to talk or they wouldn’t have been so obvious.”
“Then why not just come up and knock on the door?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
We parked and waited.  The blue Chrysler pulled in and around the side of the diner.  
“Gwen,” Jack said grabbing my arm as I got out of the car, “be careful.”
“Always,” I smiled.
When I was close enough to make out a face I felt a wave of shock. I couldn't have been more surprised if it had been my own parents. And they had been dead for fourteen years.