And a Happy New York — Bettye Griffin

Experience the charm and beauty of New York during the holidays in this new novella from Bettye Griffin, featuring a hero first introduced in her Gen/Liv/Cesca series (Save the Best For Last, Something Real, Man of Her Heart).

Eliáne Lara is happily settled in the rental unit inside a New York luxury high-rise condo that she acquired through a housing lottery. She doesn't even mind having to use the special entrance -- dubbed the “poor door” -- that keeps low and middle-income renters away from the wealthy condo owners who reside on the upper floors. After she prevents a preschooler resident of the rich part of the building from running into the street, she accepts an invitation from the boy's grateful father to join them for lunch, and before the meal is over she's totally charmed.

Reese de Vries feels an immediate attraction to the gorgeous woman who saved his son, Christian, from injury. It doesn't concern him that she's black…so was his ex-wife. Regardless, he decides against asking to see her again, because he's conquered his urges to pursue every pretty face he encounters -- a bad habit that did in his marriage. But when he spots Eliáne teaching an aerobics class in his building's gym, he feels it's fated. With a little help from Christian, he invites her to dine with him Thanksgiving Day and proceeds to sweep her off her feet.

Eliáne is too embarrassed to tell him she lives in the “poor” section of the building and concocts an elaborate ruse to conceal the truth. She's fallen for the dashing Reese in a big way, but there are more than twenty-odd floors and a special entrance between them. Can an Afro-Latina loan officer from a lower middle class background really find happiness with a globe-trotting multi-millionaire from an old Dutch family?