There was a certain history to this. While heavily pregnant with Amelia, she had asked him if she was radiant or if she just looked like a waddling duck. He told her she’d looked like a radiant duck. This had not been the correct answer.

Anthony Bridgerton leaned back in his leather chair,and then announced, "I'm thinking about getting married." Benedict Bridgerton, who had been indulging in a habit his mother detested—tipping his chair drunkenly on the back two legs—fell over. Colin Bridgerton started to choke. Luckily for Colin, Benedict regained his seat with enough time to smack him soundly on the back, sending a green olive sailing across the table. It narrowly missed Anthony's ear.

She'd met Colin on a Monday. She'd kissed him on a Friday. Twelve years later. She sighed. It seemed fairly pathetic.

She needed him to be him. Even if he could not be hers.

Because if he looked like he was unaffected by her smile, then she would not realize that, in actuality, he was in an utter panic because somewhere deep down inside he’d realized that his life had just changed forever.

The biggest challenge of my career, which is something that authors of genre fiction face all the time, is writing something fresh and new and at the same time meeting reader expectations.

No one knows as well as I how much nonsense is printed in books.