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Trading Places
Ruth Jean Dale
The best, plan of all…Alice Wynn has nothing to lose–and only fun and adventure to gain. So she agrees to impersonate her glamorous boss, Sharlayne Kenyon, who needs solitude to finish her scandalous memoirs.Jed Kilby is the bodyguard hired to protect Alice, since somebody out there will do anything to stop Sharlayne, and for the moment that's who Alice is.But Alice starts to fall in love with her unsuspecting bodyguard. And despite strict orders not to mix business and pleasure, he's falling for her, too….This is definitely not part of the original plan–but maybe it's the best part of all!
“What are you trying to do, drown me?”
“I’m trying to save you.” He caught her wrists and held her arms wide in self-defense.
She stumbled to her feet, water streaming down her body—her body, because the tight black stuff she had on was virtually transparent. She was like an angry goddess rising from the sea, full breasted and glorious in her rage.
“Are you trying to save me or just make me crazy?” she shouted at him.
“I’m trying to—”
And then he forgot what he was trying to do, because she surged forward and he surged forward, and they came together in an explosion of pent-up desire. Right there in the middle of the bathtub in the penthouse of the Beverly Pacific Hotel.
“Damn,” he gasped, shocked by her slick hands on his bare back. “I never intended—”
“Shut up and kiss me,” she ordered in her throaty voice, “because I did intend.”
So much for that lousy commandment from the boss about clients and bodyguards not getting involved.…
Dear Reader,
I love stories about people trading lives. I like to think, read and write about living in somebody else’s shoes. I’ve never done it, but the concept fascinates me.
That’s what drew me to Trading Places. What would happen if a deserving but everyday woman had a chance to live the life of her boss and exact opposite, a beautiful and notorious adventuress? Would it turn out to be a dream come true or would it be a disaster—perhaps even a dangerous disaster?
Alice gets the opportunity, whereupon things go wrong in bunches: car bombs, threatening phone calls, bullets, ex-husbands she’s never met—you name it. Fortunately, she has Jed by her side; unfortunately, he has no idea who she really is. How will he react when he finds out?
I hope you enjoy reading Trading Places as much as I enjoyed writing it. And I suggest that the next time someone you know well acts…just a little off…you take a closer look.
We see what we expect to see, as Alice learned.
What do you expect?
Ruth Jean Dale
Trading Places
Ruth Jean Dale
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE (#u0b317e08-b79d-539e-b82c-ad131cff9bfa)
CHAPTER ONE (#ue75665d5-043b-5be1-abd8-bcfe74d14a8f)
CHAPTER TWO (#u577a3e58-4cd8-564f-a71d-00866efec73f)
CHAPTER THREE (#u610f9f7b-2658-5fd2-8eb9-61f0a4312a08)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE
SHARLAYNE KENYON threw back her head and let loose her trademark laugh, deep and sexy and somehow bawdy. “That’s what you want to call my book?” she asked when she could speak again.
Linden Wilbert, fifty-two-year-old head of the small and eccentric New York publishing house that bore his name, regarded this magical creature with a mix of disapproval and fascination. He could well understand the power she wielded over the men in her life and those who wanted to be in her life. Much married adventuress, occasional actress, sometime model and internationally popular personality, Sharlayne was, quite simply, dazzling. She had traveled furtively to Linden’s Long Island estate to discuss her latest incarnation: author.
The book deal, also furtive, had been struck more than a year ago after they’d happened to meet at a cocktail party.
To this day Linden, scion of old money and the ideals of another century, could not fathom why she’d chosen him to pilot her autobiography through the literary shoals. He understood even less his own willingness to publish a tome so at odds with his usual list, which tended to be long on quality and woefully short on sales. All he knew was that he’d surprised himself by leaping at the opportunity.
His only excuse was that publishing the memoirs of one of the most famous—perhaps the proper word was notorious—women in the world appealed to his sense of the absurd.
Now Sharlayne turned her enormous blue-gray eyes in his direction and he melted. She was even more beautiful in person than in photographs or on film. Her face was a flawless oval, the skin creamy and unmarred by lines or dullness. Long lashes framed those incredible eyes, also accented by impeccably arched brows. The straight nose was as perfect as the rest. Full lips glistened pink and tempting.
But her hair—that glorious soft blond mane that was her signature style—had been chopped into a short, curvy cap. It bared dainty ears and gave her an innocence he wouldn’t have imagined possible in a mature woman of her background and age, which he guessed to be early forties, although she didn’t look near it. She herself would only say she was “twenty-nine and holding.” Gazing at her, he could almost believe it.
He refused to let himself think about her famous body. At least, he tried valiantly.
She leaned forward, her expression one of mild alarm. “That’s a very funny title, really,” she said in her throaty voice. “But I like mine better—The Story of My Life by Sharlayne Kenyon.” She lifted graceful hands as if framing a movie shot.
Linden gave her an indulgent smile. “Old hat, Sharlayne. You’ve led an exciting life. You deserve an exciting title.”
She pouted prettily. “Isn’t there any way I can convince you?”
He could think of many, but he’d vowed from the offset not to fall into this woman’s clutches. She’d never have any sincere interest in an aging, balding, boring, widowed publisher. “No way whatsoever,” he said firmly. “Shall we move on to more immediate concerns?”
“Oh, you.” She sat upright, throwing him an exasperated glance. “I’ve almost finished the manuscript, if that’s what you want to know.”
“Really.” He carefully concealed his astonishment. He’d expected it would take her years to write her life story without professional help. He’d offered her any number of collaborators, but she refused to even consider an “as told to” book. She insisted that this was her life and she’d write about it her way or not at all.
She smiled, all sunshine again. “I knew you’d be surprised.” The smile faded. “But there’s a tiny problem.”
“Such as?”
“The media frenzy that awful woman has whipped up.”
“What awful woman?”
Her mobile face registered surprise. “You don’t know? Gina Godfrey, of course. That witch refuses to leave me alone. The other barracudas of the press I can take or leave, but Gina’s out to get me.”
“Ah. Then Gina Godfrey is a journalist?”
“God forbid! She’s head entertainment muckraker for the U.S. Eye. And she’s devoted to making my life a living hell.”
He regarded her kindly. “That sounds almost paranoid, Sharlayne.”
“Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean nobody’s out to get me.” Her brilliant smile flashed again. How did she do that? “The problem is, I’m beginning to think I’ll never finish the book if I don’t find a little peace and quiet. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know how I got this much done.”
“Frankly,” he said, thinking about all the times he’d read her name in newspapers and seen her image on magazine covers in the past year, “neither do I. But peace and quiet aren’t your only problems.”
Her eyes widened. “They’re not?”
“You have several ex-husbands who may not want you to finish the book.”
“Oh, them.” She waved dismissively. “Every single one adores me. At least, the live ones do.”
“Even the senator?”
“Him, especially. He cried like a baby when I divorced him.”
“At his age, he could have been crying from relief. What was he, eighty?”
“Oh, you.” She tossed back her head. “Age is nothing more than a state of mind.”
“Then what’s the state of mind of those near and dear to your most recent husband?”
She somehow managed to frown without marring the perfect smoothness of her forehead. “Oh!” Understanding dawned. “You mean because to John, family had a whole different meaning. But…John’s dead. I didn’t divorce him—he died. I’m a widow. “
“Did it ever occur to you that with him gone, there’s no one to keep his family in check?”
She laughed. “Family? You make him sound like some Mafioso. John was a very classy man.”
“He was also head of one of the biggest crime families in New York. Might you not be in considerable danger, my dear? After all, you promised to reveal the unvarnished truth in your book. That could conceivably make certain parties very nervous.”
“I’ll tell the truth or not publish the book at all,” she said with dignity. “Besides, once it’s out, what can anyone do?”
“Plenty,” Linden said darkly, “but there may be those who’d prefer to stop it from being published at all…as in seeing you get cement overshoes and a quick trip to the nearest deep body of water.”
“Really, Linden.” She leaned back into the overstuffed flower-patterned chair in his library, her body graceful in simple black.
Simple clinging black.
She tapped perfect fingernails on the chair arm. “On the outside chance that I’ve overestimated my charms, I’ve come up with a scheme—oh, dear, let’s call it a plan. A plan to give me time and space to write while lulling everybody into a false sense of security, you know?”
He felt the first stirrings of concern. “I’m almost afraid to hear this.”
“Don’t be. It’s very simple. I’m going to pay someone to move into my new house in Beverly Hills. Did you know about it?”
“Everybody knows about it. You did take a television crew from a national show on a tour.”
“I did, didn’t I.” She looked pleased. “Anyway, I’m going to pay someone to move in there to impersonate me while I hole up somewhere far away and work in blissful solitude. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of months to finish if I don’t have to fight off the vultures of the press and deal with all life’s other interruptions.”
“Let me get this straight. You think you can find someone to impersonate you, one of the most famous and distinctive women in the world?”
She looked delighted. “Well, aren’t you sweet,” she said, traces of her Arkansas beginnings showing through. “I know it’s a long shot, but with proper prior planning—you’re familiar with the seven P’s?”
“I don’t have the first idea what you’re talking about.” Most of the time, in fact.
“Proper prior planning prevents piss-poor performance. My first husband used to say that. A lot, actually.” She rolled those fabulous eyes. “He said it. He didn’t live by it.”
“Are you telling me you’ve already found someone who can pass as you?”
She nodded, suddenly very serious. “Not a perfect match, of course—that would be asking too much. But she doesn’t have to be a clone or anything. With a haircut, a makeover, a little careful instruction, she can pass for me.” She frowned. “At least from a distance. I’m sure of it.”
“Never.” He shook his head decisively. “You’ll never get away with it.”
She looked hurt. “Why not?”
“Well…people know you.”
“So?”
“So they’ll see right through her, whoever she is.”
“Not necessarily.” All business, she began ticking points off on long, slender fingers. “Number one, I’ll move her into my new house with a new staff. None of them will have a clue.
“Number two, I’ll put out the word that she’s—I mean, that I’m—not feeling well. What’s a disease I can have that isn’t disfiguring or fatal?”
“Why…I don’t know. Mononucleosis?”
“No, that’s catching. Don’t they call that the kissing disease?” She shuddered. “I definitely don’t want anything like that.”
