Introduction

AMAZON TOP 100 CHART-TOPPER!!!

-Billionaire playboy
- Fiery virgin
- Kidnapping
- Steamy romance
- Former Navy SEALs
- Stay-up-late page-turner

“What an amazingly riveting book! The storyline is fantastic! I have read many romantic suspense books and this one is at the very top of the list! I can see Debbie Baldwin's books becoming as popular as Marie Force's Fatal series!” - Victoria (Amazon Review)

“Wow, that lust! Baldwin's characters are multi layered, that reveal themselves bit by bit. Making you want to devour the entire book in one sitting, which I did.”- Dive into a Good Book (GR Review)

“Outstanding! A Must Read! I stayed up most of night finishing the book. Be prepared to bite all your nails off.” - PLP (GR Review)

Emma Porter is not real. She is an accomplished young woman, living a fulfilling life in New York City, working for an online news agency, and striving toward normalcy. The truth, however, is something else. She was once Emily Webster, a child of privilege, and the twenty-first-century Lindbergh Baby. Her high-profile, unexplained abduction and subsequent rescue led to a childhood of paranoia and preparedness, as her kidnapper remained at large and still on the hunt. With her father's guidance and resources, Emily became Emma Porter, living each day in her new identity, vigilant and unattached. Unattached but for the seemingly unbreakable tether that connects her to the man who, as a young boy, lived next door.

Like Emma, Nathan Bishop is not what he seems. Preparing to helm his family's defense contracting company, Nathan is better known for his womanizing and reckless behavior than his business acumen. His striking image peppers the pages of society tabloids and police blotters, but beneath the facade of a rake lurks a warrior. When an arms dealer procures a lethal bioweapon and is rumored to be selling it on U.S. soil, Nathan and his team must use every resource at their disposal to stop the threat.

With danger closing in, fate, once again, puts Emma in Nathan's path, and the two must determine if the weathered bond between them is enough to find the truth behind their false fronts.

Fans of Nora Roberts and Jayne Ann Krentz will love False Front.

Editorial Review

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Excerpt

P R O L O G U E
Two Years Ago ...
Emma Porter looked bored. No surprise there. It was her standard
expression—her failsafe. She, with some effort, avoided the imposing
lighted mirror in front of her and kept her gaze on the screen of her
phone. Her violet eyes, masked by colored contacts that turned them
an unremarkable blue, glazed. It didn’t help that the stylist was working
his way around her head in a hypnotic rhythm, pulling long strands
of honey-colored hair through his enormous round brush. He would
have put her to sleep but for the incessant chatter. Sister, do you model?
How has no one approached you before? Oh, they’d approached her.
She gave her standard reply.
“Nope, just in school.”
She checked her phone again. A text.
We’re good for Jane Hotel. I talked to my buddy. Bouncer’s name is
Fernand. See you at 9!
The exclamation point annoyed her. You’re a guy, she thought. Guys
shouldn’t use exclamation points when they text. She’d probably end up
dumping him over it. She’d done it for less.
“Big night tonight? It’s a crazy Thursday. Are you going to that thing
at Tau?”
“No. Just meeting a friend for a drink.”
A friend? She guessed he was a friend. She’d met him twice, no three
times; he’d kissed her on 58th Street before she got into a cab three
nights ago: hence the big date.
“A friend, huh? Sounds like a date.”
“Yeah,” Emma sighed, “it’s kind of a date.”
“So, no one special? No BF?”
“Nope. No boyfriend. Just a date.”
“Well, I imagine the boys are climbing through your window, gorgeous
girl.”
She wanted to say the last time a boy tried to climb in my window, security
guards tackled him on the front lawn as a leashed German shepherd
bared his teeth at his neck while Teddy Prescott cried that he was in my
seventh-grade ceramics class, and he just wanted to ask me to a school
dance. Instead, she buttoned her lip and checked her phone. Again.
“No, not so much.”
“Well, my work here is done. What do you think?”
He ran his fingers up her scalp from her nape and pushed the mass of
hair forward over her shoulders, admiring his handiwork. She managed
as much enthusiasm as she could muster.
“Looks great. Thanks.”
She grabbed her bag, left the cash and a generous tip—partly for the
blowout, mostly for enduring her mood—and headed out.
The walk home was a short-ish hike. While Broadway up ahead was
always jam-packed, the little Tribeca side street was surprisingly desolate.
Scaffolds stood sentry, and crumpled newspapers blew across the
road like urban tumbleweeds. Emma’s footsteps clacked on the pavement,
and her shopping bags swished against her legs. In the waning
daylight, the long shadows reached out. Emma moved with purpose but
not haste, running through the plan for the evening in her head. Across
the street, a pair of lurking teens stopped talking to watch her. The jarring
slam of a dumpster lid and the beep, beep, beep of a reversing trash
truck echoed across the pavement. Near the end of the block, a homeless
man in a recessed doorway muttered about a coming plague and God
setting the world to rights. Emma forced herself to keep her pace even
but couldn’t stifle her sigh of relief as she rounded the corner and joined
the hoards. A businessman let out a noise of irritation as Emma forced
him to slow his pace when she merged into the foot traffic. Yes, this was
better. She hurried up Broadway and headed for home.
Spring Street was insane. The stores ran the gamut from A-list designer
shops to dive bars and bodegas. Beneath the display window of
Alexander Woo, a ratty hipster strummed a guitar. In front of Balthazar,
there was a hotdog vendor. The street was dotted with musicians and
addicts and homeless and shoppers and tourists and construction
crews and commuters and students. There was a French crepe stand
next to Emma’s favorite Thai place that was next to an organic vegan
cafe. It was like somebody took everything that made New York New
York—the art, the diversity, the music, the food, the bustle, the noise—
and jammed it all onto one street. The street Emma called home.
Outside her building, a group of guys from her Abnormal Psychology class
was coming out of the corner bodega.
“Hey IQ, what’s up tonight? Heading downtown?”
“Maybe.”
“Martin’s parent’s brownstone is on Waverly. Party’s on!”
“Okay, I’ll try to stop by.”
“Cool.”
The guys in her class started calling her “IQ” freshman year. She was
flattered at first, thinking it bore some reference to her intellect. A few
months in, she discovered it was short for “Ice Queen.” That was fine
with her too. Whatever.
Her elegant but inconspicuous building sat just down from Mother’s
Ruin, her favorite pub, and next to a heavily graffitied retail space for
rent. She waved to her doorman, who rushed to help her with her bags.
“Hey, Miss Porter. Shopping I see.”
“Hey, Jimmy. Yeah, just a few odds and ends.”
He glanced at the orange Hermes shopping bag, raised an eyebrow but
didn’t comment.
“You want me to take these up?”
“Yes, please, Jimmy.” She handed over the bags and pushed through the
the heavy door to the stairs, while Jimmy summoned the elevator.
As she climbed the seven flights, Emma felt pretty calm. It was just
a date. People have them all the time. Normal people have them all
the time. She was normal. Well, she was getting there, and this outing
tonight was proof of that. She had met a cute guy. She liked him well
enough, and he was taking her out. She was excited about it, well, the
progress more than the date. Another box to check on the list. She could
crow about it to her therapist next week. The guy, Tom, seemed excited
too, based on the aforementioned errant exclamation point. That, and
the fact that she had actually heard him high-five a guy over the phone
when she’d said yes.
Her bags were waiting by the door when she emerged from the seventhfloor
landing. She fumbled with her key and pushed the door
open with her butt as she scooped her purchases from the hallway
floor. As she walked into the small but tasteful apartment—well, huge
and elegant by college standards but certainly low-key for Emma—
she was greeted by a squeal and then the vaguely familiar strains of
Rod Stewart’s classic, “Tonight’s the Night,” so off-key it was barely
recognizable.
“Jeez, Caroline, could you take it down a notch?”
“Nope. Can’t. Sorry.”
Caroline Fitzhugh had been Emma’s best friend since before they were
born. That’s not an exaggeration. Their mothers had grown up together,
had married men who were themselves best friends, and were neighbors
in Georgetown as newlyweds. The women were inseparable until
Emma’s mother crossed the line separating “life-of-the-party” from
“addict.” Their pregnancies were well-timed. It gave the two women a
chance to rekindle their friendship, and it gave Emma’s mother a fleeting
chance at sobriety. Their moms spent their pregnancies together,
nearly every day for the nine months leading up to the girls’ arrival.
Well, seven months and three weeks—Caroline was always in a rush to
get places. After that, Emma’s family moved to Connecticut, Caroline’s
to Georgia, and the girls saw each other on holidays and trips. Caroline
knew Emma before. Before what one of her shrinks had euphemistically
referred to as “the event.” Before she was Emma Porter. Before
she was from a small town near Atlanta. Before. Caroline was one of a
handful of people with that knowledge. She knew Emma, and she protected
her with a ferocity that rivaled Emma’s father. Tonight, however,
was a different story. Tonight, Caroline was pushing her out of the nest.
It’s time, she had said.
Caroline popped a bottle of Veuve Clicquot way too expensive for
pre-gaming, declaring a dispensation on Emma’s father’s strict alcohol
ban, and poured them each a glass.
“One glass, Em, to loosen up.”
Emma answered her with a sip.
“Go get dressed. The LBD awaits.”
The “little black dress” to which she referred was the Versace black
crepe safety pin dress. It was the sexiest thing either of them had ever
seen. The sleeveless dress hit Emma mid-thigh and was accented with
mismatched gold safety pins at the waist and hip. Caroline bought it
for Emma on her credit card to avoid any questions from her father.
He was generous to a fault, but anything remotely provocative was
frowned upon. Emma garnered enough attention as it was, a sexy dress
only upped the ante. Now the dress was laying on her bed next to a pair
of strappy sky-high heels and a small box holding a pair of diamond
hoops. The outfit for the virgin sacrifice. She laughed to herself, then
stopped abruptly, surprised by the term her thoughts had conjured:
virgin. It was a word she never used because it had no meaning for
her. She hated the word because the status of one’s virginity was inextricably
linked to one’s past, and she couldn’t dwell on what she didn’t
know. Therapists encouraged her to embrace a term that expressed her
“emotional virginity,” but Emma never could think of one. Her shrink
was not amused when she suggested “vaginal beginner” and “hymenal
newbie,” so they let it slide. She could be an actual virgin, after all. The
point was it shouldn’t matter, and if everything went according to plan
after tonight, it wouldn’t. She could pop her emotional and/or physical
cherry and move on. At this point, she just wanted to get the damn
thing over with.
They had hours before she had to meet Tom. JT, her driver and bodyguard,
usually accompanied her out in the evening, but Caroline told
him they were heading to a study group at a friend’s in the same building,
so he had the night off. She was on her own, and she was thrilled.
Caroline pulled up the zipper on the dress and bounced around to Katy
Perry, while Emma sipped tentatively on the same glass of bubbly.
“Oh Jeez, Em, just drink it. One glass won’t have you cross-eyed. It’ll
calm your nerves.”
She was right. Emma was nervous. For obvious reasons.
Emma left Caroline at Mother’s, their local bar, with some friends
and ordered an Uber to head to the Jane Hotel. As Tom had said, the
bouncer, Fernand, was expecting her. Not that she would have had any
trouble getting in anyway, she never did, but that dress was like a VIP
pass. The group of people waiting gave a resigned sigh almost collectively
as Emma deftly moved past them and entered the elegant bar.
Tom had a table he was guarding with his life, and she made a beeline
for him. When a guy at the bar grabbed her arm as she passed, not
hard, just enough to stop her, Emma paused, stared at the hand on
her bicep, and then slowly looked up at him with a perfected impassive
glare. Ice Queen, indeed. He released her without a word, and she
dropped into the seat across from Tom.
“Hey, Gorgeous. You look amazing.”
“Thanks.”
“I didn’t know what you like, so I ordered you a white wine.”
She didn’t drink. Ever. Well, that’s not entirely true. She drank in one of
her self-defense classes. Jay, her instructor, insisted that she know how
to do some of the moves “impaired,” as he put it, so he fed her three
beers and then had her train on the mat. She threw up all over him.
The wine did relax her, and they chatted effortlessly. It took Emma
nearly an hour to polish off the drink, and when she returned from the
ladies’ room with a fresh coat of lip gloss, a second glass sat waiting.
What the hell? It was a big night.
It took her exactly four sips and ten minutes to realize what was
happening.
Emma wasn’t normal. Her father, in an extreme effort to get control of
their world, made sure of that, and at this moment, she was thankful for
it. Most girls would think the subtle blur of vision and the slight wave
of nausea were due to nerves or too many drinks. She knew exactly
what was happening. She reached into her purse and texted her panic
word, “lighthouse,” to JT, but he was off duty. It could take him hours.
She took a calming breath, keeping her heart rate as low as she could
in her panic.
“I’ll be right back. I think I left my lip gloss in the bathroom.”
“I’ll go with you. You look pale.”
“No, no, I’m fine. Just dizzy from the wine, I guess. I’m a lightweight.”
She forced a giggle. That appeased him. He didn’t know she knew.
“Okay, I’ll be waiting.”
“Be right back,” she repeated.
Emma took deliberate steps. When she glanced over her shoulder,
she saw Tom throw some cash on the table and pull a key card from
his breast pocket. She needed to focus on making her way down the
hall. She couldn’t get help in the bar; a stumbling, slurring girl in a bar
would only bolster Tom’s ruse. There was an elevator at the end, but as
she made her way toward it, she stumbled and realized the elevator was
exactly where Tom wanted her. She needed help or a hiding place, and
she needed it fast. Whatever he had slipped in her drink was strong.
The symptoms were hitting her fast. She moved down to a janitor’s
closet. Locked. She started moving frantically hand over hand, keeping
her balance on the wall, avoiding looking at the nauseating pattern of
the wallpaper as it started to blur. Tom’s footsteps were heavy behind
her as he closed in. She got to another door, pushed it open, and stumbled
into the room. A group of surprised suits looked up as she blinked
at them with terrified eyes. The man at the head of the table stood.
“Jesus, are you all right?”
“No. Help.”
She heard the man closest to her mutter, “she’s wasted.” The man at the
head of the table moved like a flash. He was coming toward her, and
she was losing her ability to discern whether she had put herself in
more danger by stumbling into this room. He seemed to float toward
her, and Emma started to shake.
“Not drunk. Drunk,” she slurred. “Drugged,” she amended. “Help.”
“Jesus.” He put his hands on her shoulders, and she instantly calmed.
Emma tried to shake the fog out of her head, but it only got worse.
When she looked up, she saw three of him. So, she looked straight
ahead at his tie. A cornflower blue tie that hung between the open sides
of his dark suit jacket. She grabbed it with both hands, crunching it in
her fists. She tried to remember her training, but all that came out was
a plea.
“Please.”
He put his arm around her protectively and calmly spoke.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
And with that soothing notion, she passed out in his arms, still clutching
his cornflower blue tie.
Emma woke up nineteen hours later in a hospital room that looked
like a suite at the Ritz. JT was standing at the side of the bed like a
royal guard, a pissed-off royal guard. He felt responsible for her indiscretion;
she could feel his anger and guilt. Her father dozed, ashen,
in an upholstered leather armchair. The night was a bit of a blur, and
she ran through a timeline in her head to catch up. She had as much
of it recalled as she probably ever would. Other than the mother of all
headaches, she was otherwise uninjured. When she lifted her arm, the
one without the IV, to move an itchy strand of hair from her face, the
final few moments before she blacked out came flooding back. There,
in her hand, was the cornflower blue tie, still knotted, with the length
of it dangling down her forearm. It was wrapped around her palm and
knuckles. JT informed her with a perplexed smirk that the nurses gave
up trying to pry it from her, and the man, who had not given anyone
his name, had ended up pulling it over his head and wrapping it
around her hand as they wheeled her away on a gurney.
Completely unconscious, she had refused to let the thing go.
... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

From the author:

1.) Is “romance” as a genre a dated concept?

2.) How does False Front make the tradition tropes of a romance novel more accessible for a modern reader?

3.) In the story there are obvious parallels between the villain (Dario Saga) and the MMC (Nathan Bishop). What makes one man a hero and the other a villain.

4.) In the story Nathan and Emily both wear masks. How does this concept of hiding your true self drive the story?

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