Paso Doble

Tales of Dunham: LaMontagne #1 © 2014 by Moriah Jovan 140,000 words (540 pages)

Emilio Bautista is bored with his job as a matador and has a PhD in chemistry he’s not using. Cube-farm chemistry is out of the question, but the universities in Andalusia are well staffed—except Covarrubias University. They’re desperate, but he still can’t get hired. Further, for the last six years, he’s been obsessed with a woman he can’t manage to meet, much less seduce.

Victoria LaMontagne is worried about her job as an English professor at Covarrubias University. After six years of being on tenure track, her new department chair is pressuring her to change her teaching style—or else. Further, she learns that one of Spain’s star matadors has a crush on her and threatens her hobby job for a chance to chat with her over tapas and flamenco.

Though they have never met, when Dr. LaMontagne and Dr. Bautista crash into each other in the administration offices, they fall into conversation as if they were long-time friends who’d had a spat. He finds her charming in spite of her tactlessness, vanity, and demanding personality. She finds him intriguing in spite of his obsession with her, his legendary promiscuity, and his boring bullfighting.

She makes him laugh. He solves her problems. They’re just friends—

—right up to the first kiss …