Bestselling author Rochelle Alers welcomes readers back to romantic New Orleans in her warm and sexy series about four very different women embarking on a new adventure . . . Sometimes you go in search of a new beginning. Other times, it finds you. Tonya Martin enjoys her job as a professional chef for a Wall Street bank, her East Harlem walk-up, and the freedom to live and love by her own rules—right up until the day she finds herself suddenly downsized. But a spontaneous trip to New Orleans opens up a new opportunity. With time on her hands and her daughter soon graduating college, Tonya has the chance to reach for her own long-cherished dream—opening a restaurant on her friend Hannah’s beautiful Garden District estate. While Hannah and her new husband work on transforming the DuPont House into a luxury inn, Tonya explores local cuisine, taking an apprentice role at famed restaurant Chez Toussaints. Gage Toussaint’s mix of Creole, Cajun, and African ancestry is deeply attractive, and the sexy chef clearly wants their friendship to become much more. Drawn to him yet hesitant given their previous unhappy marriages, Tonya wonders if it’s too late to leap into love again. Could Gage be just the ingredient she needs to make this delicious new life complete? Includes New Orleans Cuisine Recipes! Rochelle Alers , the bestselling author of over eighty novels with nearly two million copies in print, has been hailed by readers and booksellers alike as one of today’s most prolific and popular African American authors of romance and women’s fiction. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Emma Award, the Vivian Stephens Award for Excellence in Romance Writing, the RT Career Achievement Award and the Zora Neale Hurston Literary Award. She is a member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., Iota Theta Zeta chapter and her interests include gourmet cooking and traveling. A full-time writer, Ms. Alers lives in a charming hamlet on Long Island and can be found online at RochelleAlers.org. Breakfast in Bed By Rochelle Alers KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP. Copyright © 2017 Rochelle Alers All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4967-0732-1 CHAPTER 1 Sprawled on a chintz-covered recliner in the sitting area in one of DuPont House's suites, Tonya Martin crossed her bare feet at the ankles, while her friends claimed matching chairs with cushioned footstools. She had spent the past half hour talking to them when she should have retired for bed. Earlier that morning, Tonya, Jasmine Washington, and Nydia Santiago had flown into the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and then crowded into a taxi for the drive to the Garden District. They had come to New Orleans for Hannah DuPont-Lowell's wedding to college professor St. John McNair. Boarding the same aircraft with her friends helped Tonya to overcome some of her anxiety about flying. Her fear had come from a return flight to the States from France during which the jet's landing gear failed and the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing at New York's JFK airport. Several hundred passengers and crew used the chute to exit the aircraft, and Tonya wound up with a severely sprained ankle that kept her off her feet for several weeks. Fortunately, the mid-October weather was much more tolerable than it had been during her first visit to the Big Easy. Then the late-June record-high New Orleans temperatures and humidity had sapped all of her energy. At that time Hannah outlined her intent to transform her historic ancestral home into an inn and convert the two guesthouses on the estate into a café and supper club. The corporate attorney wanted Tonya to invest in the venture, while offering her a twenty-five percent share in the new business as the executive chef. "I still can't believe you're going to move down here." Tonya stared at Nydia for several seconds, and then a hint of a smile tilted the corners of her generous mouth. When she worked as assistant chef for Wakefield Hamilton, a private international investment bank, she was familiar with all personnel on sight or by name, but it was not until she and dozens of other employees were unexpectedly let go, with generous severance packages, after the bank merged with another institution and she, Jasmine, the assistant director of personnel, and accountant Nydia spent several hours at Hannah's high-rise apartment that the four bonded over omelets and brunch cocktails. They had talked for hours about what they wanted for their futures, and once Tonya revealed she was going to wait until after Labor Day to look for another position, the others also agreed to do the same. "I also can't believe it," Tonya said. "In less than four months I'll become a Louisianan and I'll eventually run my own restaurant for the first time in my life." Nydia ran her fingers through the wealth of thick, black, shiny curls falling over her forehead as a smile crinkled the skin around her large hazel eyes. "I believe ever