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Her Best Laid Plans
Eve Devon
Love is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans…The Totally Perfect Life Plan of Amanda GrayStep 1 – Take total control of own destiny and avoid getting too wrapped up in the details.Step 2 – Definitely do NOT kiss gorgeous bad-boy businessman who doesn't know how to live life without scheduling it six months in advance, even if he is absolutely irresistible.Step 3 – Don't even THINK of accompanying him to London as his PA to enjoy steamy encounters in a metropolitan paradise.Step 4 – Absolutely, positively, whatever you do- do NOT fall in love with him…
Her Best Laid Plans
Eve Devon
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Contents
Eve Devon (#u61812317-f185-5d33-be3d-c77e1040e7e6)
Dedication (#u798d13d1-b90a-5cde-bc0c-413f0455f1b3)
Chapter One (#u55050cce-db19-504c-b1f9-38c1b1793c24)
Chapter Two (#ue95cac21-f9d8-5134-bd78-af8dbf4bbedf)
Chapter Three (#u77329518-2981-5832-a9b6-32be04cfc606)
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)
About HarperImpulse (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Eve Devon (#u781c5384-007a-569a-8ec3-aa140e6420a3)
I write sexy heroes, sassy heroines & happy ever afters …
Growing up in locations like Botswana and Venezuela gave me quite the taste for adventure and my love for romances began when my mother shoved one into my hands in a desperate attempt to keep me quiet during TV coverage of the Wimbledon tennis finals!
When I wasn't consuming books by the bucketload, I could be found pretending to be a damsel in distress or running around solving mysteries and writing down my adventures. As a teenager, I wrote countless episodes of TV detective dramas so the hero and heroine would end up together every week. As an adult, I worked in a library to conveniently continue consuming books by the bucketload, until realising I was destined to write contemporary romance and romantic suspense myself. I live in leafy Surrey in the UK, a book-devouring, slightly melodramatic, romance-writing sassy heroine with my very own sexy hero husband!
You can visit my website at: www.EveDevon.com/
This book is dedicated to my Husband—thank you for believing in me and for being the one I dance in the rain with and to my Mother—thank you for teaching me to love all the words and encouraging me to write from the moment I could put pen to paper.
Chapter One (#u781c5384-007a-569a-8ec3-aa140e6420a3)
Amanda Gray slipped into the busy New York street, her hand quite unwilling to relinquish its death-grip on a medicinal macchiato. Breathing in its sweet, reassuring aroma she pondered her next move. So much for her New Year’s resolution—she was seriously out of practice at this whole taking-control-of-your-own-destiny caper.
The plan had been to ace the job interview, not babble excessively or give the impression that she couldn’t organise her way out of a paper bag. But big-time nerves, combined with rusty interview skills, had shaken her, rendering her embarrassingly ineffectual, so that now some perfectly qualified and properly experienced personal assistant would get the position at the gallery instead of her.
Jostled from behind, she managed to save both her coffee and her natty new interview suit from an unfortunate coming together. Picking up her pace she fought valiantly against a case of serious pedestrian envy—everyone appeared to know exactly where they were going. She knew where she needed to get to … a job that paid enough for her to move out of the house she shared with her brother Mikey. It was the least that he deserved after he’d worked so hard to win back his independence after the accident. Seeing his progress and his capacity to fearlessly embrace life again had forced Amanda to take a look at her own.
So here she was. Absolutely, totally, one hundred per cent ready to kick-start her life again.
The fire-blanket of butterflies that settled in her stomach was amazingly effective at dousing any melancholy she felt over her interview. Her breath hitched. She was nearly used to the butterflies trumping any feelings of confidence in her ability to make changes in her life. But since coming up with “The Plan” she reminded herself life was now all about feeling the fear and doing it anyway.
Of course, she could always take the easy option and accept Jared’s job offer. Except she was fairly sure the question she needed to be asking herself was “why” her brother’s best friend had offered her a job. Things between them were—she quaffed back a healthy dose of macchiato to eliminate the lick of heat she felt rush to her cheeks—weird enough as it was. Or not, she hastily corrected. There wasn’t any one thing about her and Jared King that needed to be complicated.
Stepping from the stream of traffic, she rooted around in her bag for her phone. Dragging it to the surface, she clicked on the memo function to bring up ‘The Plan’. She’d written it six weeks ago at brand-spanking-ly-New-Year’s-Day o’clock, boosted by several large cocktails in celebration of her brother’s new job with a firm of lawyers. That Mikey had challenged the hand he’d been dealt, and secured himself a fulfilling future had filled her with pride. But celebrating Mikey’s success as they welcomed in the New Year with all of their friends, it had suddenly dawned on her that if she didn’t make some changes to her own life, she was going to be left behind. While everyone had started counting down the seconds, she’d started thinking.
Mikey had already spent his late teenage years practically raising her. On the cusp of starting his new life, there was no way she wanted to be responsible for holding him back. With alcohol making her brave she’d whipped out her phone and set about typing a three-point plan.
1) Get a better, more challenging, job that could turn into a career.
2) Move out into own place.
3) Do something with your photography.
The next day, faced with a familiar fear of change, she’d gone to delete her fledgling plan, only to thankfully remember that Mikey didn’t deserve to start worrying that his sister was in danger of turning into a bit of a flake.
So, okay, she was a novice at changing the course of her life. And maybe the plan read a bit like a list. But for Amanda it was more of a resolution anyway. A New Year’s resolution to participate in her own life story. Scary as that felt. Unsafe as that felt. Tempting fate as that felt. She had to try.
Now, scanning her eyes over the plan’s contents it was as she’d suspected. Nowhere on her new life plan did it say anything about Jared King. Or acknowledging rushes of heat brought about by Jared King.
Her eyes flicked to the last entry: Do something with your photography. There was a reason it was at the bottom of the list, she conceded, noticing a text had come through whilst she’d been in the interview.
Pacing to keep warm she opened it and read: CODE RED. WHERE R U? J
The clack, clack, clacks of her heels slowed against the sidewalk even as her heart rate sped up. Jared’s SOS text meant he needed help ousting his Latest Limpet back to The Real World, where it was clearly understood her time with the millionaire corporate property investor was up.
She should ignore it. Concentrate on ‘The Plan’ instead and fill out a few more job applications.
Still. He was a friend in need …
Sending a quick response, she hailed a cab. Destination: The Thai Lounge. Jared’s preferred venue for dealing with ‘Code Reds’. Not that there were many. Mostly women knew the score and enjoyed their time with him. for what it was: a mutually enjoyable interlude. It was only occasionally a woman morphed into full-on Limpet mode.
That was where she came in. An arranged ‘chance meeting’ between her and Jared with some subtle flirting was usually enough to leave the impression that he had effectively moved on.
Leaning back against the cab’s fading leather, Amanda admitted to a tiny, miniscule really, loss of perspective where Jared and their sporadic role-playing Limpet-dispensing exercises were concerned. Because for all that was up-front, solid, responsible and in-control about Jared—there was, lurking just beneath the surface, a hint of danger and a dark sensuousness that any woman would be inclined to want to try and entice out to play. Add in the six-feet-two, exquisitely muscled, chiselled cheek-boned, full-lipped, green-eyed, raven-haired wrapping and well …
Amanda squirmed. Darn it, was she going to have to get out “The Plan” again?
She chewed on her bottom lip. Maybe these days the camaraderie between them had been replaced with something far less easy to label—he still needed her help didn’t he?
The light on Jared King’s phone flashed and he shot a glance to his companion before picking it up to read his message.
‘I’ll be there in fifteen. You owe me ;-) Amanda xx’
He breathed out silently, though his shoulders relaxed maybe a millimetre and switched off the device before replacing it on the table. Briefly he lamented not having time to make the text more explicit, but he’d sort it out with her when she arrived.
Glancing back down at the familiar menu before him, he frowned, unable to concentrate. Of their own accord, his eyes glanced at the woman sat opposite him.
Ostensibly, she too was looking at the menu, but every time his eyes lowered he could feel her silently assessing him.
He’d tried telling himself she had to be feeling as shot-to-pieces uncomfortable as he was. But all evidence pointed to the contrary. The long flight and lengthy wait in his office must have given her all the time she needed to compose herself.
He, on the other hand, had returned from a property acquisition meeting to find his PA Janey close to carrying out a discreet security check on his very non-scheduled visitor.
That had been twenty minutes ago.
Normal state of play—twenty minutes was nineteen minutes longer than he needed to bounce back after a shock.
But then he hadn’t planned to be meeting a sister he hadn’t set eyes on for ten years.
He tried unobtrusively to check his watch. Surely fifteen minutes had come and gone. Where was Amanda? He needed her particular brand of easy-flow, relaxed small-talk to soothe his shock and cover the awkward silences while he figured the angles.
Instead, he sat, waiting for his sister, Nora, to speak whilst silently processing a thousand questions and their myriad answers as to why she was here.
‘Aren’t you even going to ask how he is?’ Nora asked with the succinct and confident tone provided by years of the best education money could buy.
Without looking up from the menu, Jared, careful to absent all inflection from his words, asked, ‘How is he?’
She sighed, ‘Do you really want to know or are you just being polite?’
‘I could tell you I really want to know but after ten years in New York maybe I’m no longer as polite.’
‘Wow. I thought it would be easier than this. I must have been mad. I guess I thought when I saw you I’d be able to cut to the chase.’
Jared felt his chest tighten. ‘I’d say getting on a plane, travelling thousands of miles, and coming to my office pretty much equates with cutting to the chase. How’d you know where I worked anyway?’
‘I asked everyone’s faithful friend, Google.’
Her sarcasm slammed into him and he knew he deserved every bit of it. He hadn’t exactly made himself invisible in New York, but he hadn’t made it especially easy to find him either.
But then, never for one moment had he assumed any of them would want to.
He thought back to the last time he’d seen her. It had been her nineteenth birthday party. He had known then that he was leaving; his bag already stowed next to his beloved motorbike at the foot of the sprawling King estate.
Guilt worked its way up from his gut.
For want of a sense of order he did what was expected of one in a restaurant and signalled a waiter.
As soon as the waiter left, Nora leant forward. ‘Look, I’m just going to come right out and say this before I totally lose my nerve. I, that is—’
Jared picked up his imported beer and drank to coat the swirling emotion he now felt in his stomach. The Kings didn’t do hesitation. It was educated out of them. Decide upon what to say. Then say it. Leave no room for misinterpretation.
He watched as Nora swept her hand over her sleek black bob. Her hand was trembling. Damn it, where was Amanda?
And then Nora found her voice and Jared heard only the first sentence before the anger gathered and threatened to spew from his solar plexus like a scene out of Alien.
Locking his jaw, he breathed in, forcing himself to acknowledge the fullness of what she was saying. His eyes dropped to his sister’s delicate hand resting on top of his clenched fist, offering comfort; something he wasn’t entitled to—making it the last thing he wanted.
‘You’re sure of this?’ he ground out.
She nodded and he was left reeling. Until he remembered he was a King. ‘Well I can give you my answer now. It’s a resounding “no”.’
‘And since when has a King ever taken “no” for an answer?’
The question hung in the air, and Jared realised that his little sister had grown up, inheriting a few of the old man’s traits along the way. He breathed out slowly. ‘I don’t care if you take it or not. My answer won’t change.’
He felt himself being assessed once more and wasn’t at all comfortable it was his baby sister doing it.
‘Look, I realise this must have come as a bit of a shock, but aren’t you a bit old to still be cultivating the tortured, bad-boy image?’
Jared withdrew his fist from the table and stretched it out on his thigh. Image? He’d always assumed he’d sealed his reputation when he’d left, without a backwards glance for the sisters who’d once looked up to him, who’d once believed in him.
As the waiter arrived to place piping-hot dishes on the rotating glass plate at the table’s centre Jared kept his expression deliberately blank.
He needed a moment to adjust, that was all.
Shock could do strange things to a person.
Something he knew for a fact when he turned his head slightly to the woman doing the siren-like slow-mo walk through the maze of tables towards him, and briefly imagined that it was Amanda.
Cataloguing sexy high heels, black pencil skirt and form-fitting black sweater, long chestnut hair and flawless creamy skin… all his thoughts lurched to a stop when he zeroed in on the pair of twinkly, button-brown eyes.
Alright. Okay. There had to be a really good explanation as to why Amanda Gray had walked in wearing something so far removed from her usual garb. He couldn’t help but look at her in a thoroughly off-limits way and if he didn’t stop staring in the next ten seconds, all hell was going to break loose.
Nobody blind-sided him twice in one day.
‘On your way somewhere special?’ he asked, inwardly cursing the gravel-like quality to his voice as he rose automatically from his chair to greet her.
She shrugged her shoulders as if it wasn’t important and yet a part of him, the part which had sat up to take notice as soon as she’d entered the room, wanted to beg to differ. Shock had got a hold of him. Simple as that, he cautioned, as displacement therapy played dirty with his mind, telling him it was perfectly okay to respond to the sweet temptation of Amanda leaning into him.
He felt some of his famous constraint shake loose. Felt the devil-may-care attitude he’d stamped so forcefully from his personality ten years before resurface with a thud to beat a rhythm over his consciousness and awaken the Jared of old.
