Beneath the Amber Moon by Sarnia de la Mare a Mills and Swoon short stor

📘 The Olive Grove Agreement: A Hot and Hilarious French Villa Romance – A Mills and Swoon One reluctant heiress. One infuriatingly hot ex-chef. And one very firm agreement made over figs and fornication.Title: The Olive Grove AgreementA Mills and Swoon ShortWhere inheritance meets innuendo and everything smells faintly of rosemary and bad decisions.Cass Winter was not in the mood for a French villa.She had deadlines, a dodgy knee, and the last time she tried to drive on the right side of the road she’d accidentally parked in a fountain. But apparently, her great-aunt Iris had passed away and left her La Maison du Hérisson, a once-grand property in the hills of Provence. And so, armed with nothing but SPF 50 and mild resentment, Cass arrived.It was hotter than she expected. And louder. Especially in the garden, where someone was swearing in French and violently attacking an olive tree.She squinted.He was shirtless. Tanned. And wielding garden shears like they owed him money.“You’re not supposed to be here,” he barked, in the polished English of someone who’d once dated a model named Saskia.Cass raised a brow. “And you are?”“I live here,” he snapped. “Who the hell are you?”Meet Luc Brousseau, disgruntled former chef, current squatter, and all-round beautifully difficult man.It turned out Iris had taken him in after he “quit” (read: was fired from) a Michelin-starred kitchen in Lyon for seducing a critic and flambéing her handbag. She let him stay in the guesthouse in exchange for cooking and grumpiness.And now? Now the guesthouse had no formal deed. And Luc had no intention of leaving.“I’m not going anywhere,” he said over dinner that night, ladling cassoulet into bowls like a man who knew exactly what he was worth. “Unless you drag me out in handcuffs.”Cass smiled sweetly. “Don’t tempt me.”The first week was war. Passive-aggressive Post-it notes on the fridge. Loud music at strategic times. He cooked at midnight. She reorganised the pantry just to upset him.But then… something shifted.It began with wine. Then a storm. Then her power went out and he “reluctantly” invited her to sleep on his sofa. One glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape became two. Then his hand was on her thigh. Then her dress was on the floor.He kissed like he argued—deliberately, intensely, and with far too much tongue.“Still want me gone?” he growled, half-naked, pinning her against the ancient stone wall.“Ask me again tomorrow,” she gasped.In the morning, she found a croissant, a perfectly brewed coffee, and a note:Keep the villa.I’ll keep the guesthouse.We’ll share the rest.—LShe sipped the coffee, watching him prune a fig tree shirtless. Again.Cass smiled.The inheritance wasn’t the only thing that needed handling delicately.The End.www.taletellerclub.com💋 Mills & Swoon is a Tale Teller Club production. Evergreen stories of love, wit, and human alchemy.Follow for new bites every day and support independent audio art at Tale Teller Club PressMills and Swoon is a romantic fiction series created by Sarnia de la Maré FRSA under Tale Teller Club Press, featuring droll, risqué short stories for modern women.

26 Jun 2min

Plus-One Problems: A Risqué Fake Dating Romance at a Hen Do – A Mills and Swoon Short Subtitle (optional for blog or preview):She needed a fake boyfriend for 48 hours. What she got was robes, rooftop kisses, and something suspiciously close to feelings.www.taletellerclub.com💋 Mills & Swoon is a Tale Teller Club production. Evergreen stories of love, wit, and human alchemy.Follow for new bites every day and support independent audio art at Tale Teller Club PressMills and Swoon is a romantic fiction series created by Sarnia de la Maré FRSA under Tale Teller Club Press, featuring droll, risqué short stories for modern women.

24 Jun 4min

Love in the Time of GooGenre: Sci-Fi/Horror/Romance (B-Movie Style)Tagline: "It oozed from the swamp… and straight into her heart."ACT I: The Swamp, the Scientist, and the Soda JerkIt’s 1959 in the steamy backwoods of Cypress Hollow, a nowhere town where nothing ever happens—until Dr. Veronica Flame, a chain-smoking exobiologist with a tragic past and a PhD from "a European university that definitely exists," crash-lands her government jeep in the middle of Swamp Sector Z. She’s investigating strange seismic readings and rumors of glowing frogs.Meanwhile, Johnny Rocket, a square-jawed soda jerk with a leather jacket and a motorcycle named Freedom, dreams of rock 'n' roll stardom and escaping his dead-end job at Big Bob’s Milkshake Haven.They meet when Johnny finds Veronica passed out next to a steaming crater, cradling a glass vial of neon green goo. He takes her to town, ignoring the throbbing, ominous hum from the swamp that makes dogs howl and milk curdle.ACT II: The Ooze AwakensThat night, while Veronica recovers in Johnny’s retro-futuristic trailer (decorated with pin-up posters, rayguns, and Elvis records), the vial begins to pulsate. Unbeknownst to them, the goo is sentient… and lonely. It escapes.The next morning, townsfolk start acting strange—romantic, even. Sheriff Buck’s hound falls in love with a fencepost. Old Widow Dangle dances in the street with a mailbox. Everyone is infected with hyper-emotion, driven by an alien need to love.Veronica deduces that the goo is extraterrestrial pheromone concentrate from Planet Zarnok-7, engineered to end war by making beings fall in uncontrollable love. It’s a weaponized cuddle-bomb.Johnny wants to destroy it. Veronica, torn between science and her feelings, argues they should study it.Meanwhile, the goo, now an eight-foot-tall translucent blob named Merv, forms a crush on Johnny. It tries to gift him a bouquet made from car bumpers and live possums.ACT III: The Heart That Ate Cypress HollowAs Merv’s emotional instability grows, he kidnaps Johnny and constructs a wedding altar out of rusted shopping carts and jukebox parts in the center of the swamp. Veronica must choose: save Johnny, or join Merv’s polyblobule hive-mind of intergalactic affection.Veronica confronts Merv with a flamethrower and a love poem. Her words confuse the creature, forcing it to experience heartbreak. The goo begins to dissolve, but not before releasing a final burst of psychic pheromone gas.Johnny and Veronica wake up in each other’s arms, covered in slime but deeply in love. The townsfolk recover, dazed but happy.EPILOGUE:Back at Big Bob’s Milkshake Haven, now renamed Merv’s Café of Love, Johnny strums his guitar while Veronica serves cherry phosphates. A tiny blob watches from a petri dish in the corner—pulsing… waiting…Roll credits over doo-wop ballad: "Love Is a Gooey Thing."www.taletellerclub.com💋 Mills & Swoon is a Tale Teller Club production. Evergreen stories of love, wit, and human alchemy.Follow for new bites every day and support independent audio art at Tale Teller Club PressMills and Swoon is a romantic fiction series created by Sarnia de la Maré FRSA under Tale Teller Club Press, featuring droll, risqué short stories for modern women.

15 Mai 3min

Part comedy, part love!Read our stories on our blog or listen here and enjoy.www.taletellerclub.comwww.taletellerclub.com💋 Mills & Swoon is a Tale Teller Club production. Evergreen stories of love, wit, and human alchemy.Follow for new bites every day and support independent audio art at Tale Teller Club PressMills and Swoon is a romantic fiction series created by Sarnia de la Maré FRSA under Tale Teller Club Press, featuring droll, risqué short stories for modern women.

14 Mai 2min

www.taletellerlove.blogspot.comwww.taletellerclub.com💋 Mills & Swoon is a Tale Teller Club production. Evergreen stories of love, wit, and human alchemy.Follow for new bites every day and support independent audio art at Tale Teller Club PressMills and Swoon is a romantic fiction series created by Sarnia de la Maré FRSA under Tale Teller Club Press, featuring droll, risqué short stories for modern women.

13 Mai 5min

www.taletellerclub.com💋 Mills & Swoon is a Tale Teller Club production. Evergreen stories of love, wit, and human alchemy.Follow for new bites every day and support independent audio art at Tale Teller Club PressMills and Swoon is a romantic fiction series created by Sarnia de la Maré FRSA under Tale Teller Club Press, featuring droll, risqué short stories for modern women.

10 Sep 202411min

https://www.taletellerclub.comhttps://www.iservalan.comwww.taletellerclub.com💋 Mills & Swoon is a Tale Teller Club production. Evergreen stories of love, wit, and human alchemy.Follow for new bites every day and support independent audio art at Tale Teller Club PressMills and Swoon is a romantic fiction series created by Sarnia de la Maré FRSA under Tale Teller Club Press, featuring droll, risqué short stories for modern women.

12 Aug 20241min