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Night After Night...
Kristin Gabriel
Talk about chemistry!Subjects: Mia Maldonado, Nate CaffertyExperiment: To study the effects of sleeping with a strangerObservations: Vital signs of both subjects are off the charts– and they aren't doing any sleeping!When Mia agrees to take her friend's place in a sleep study, she never dreams she'll be sharing a bed with Nate Cafferty– a very fine specimen, if she does say so herself. Still, her life is too complicated right now to start messing around with a guy so hot he could make her forget her own name. And that would be a fatal mistake….Private investigator Nate hopes that posing as a research subject will allow him to get close to this mysterious woman who isn't who she claims to be. But he can't seem to focus on anything but the seductress he's sleeping with! How can he uncover all her secrets…when all he wants to do is play under the covers with her instead?
A stranger lay next to her
Mia bolted upright in the bed and screamed.
The man sat up, too, causing the comforter to fall and reveal a snug gray T-shirt that outlined the impressive width of his shoulders. His gaze dropped to her breasts, which were visible through her pink nightshirt. A wickedly sexy smile kicked up one side of his mouth.
She grabbed the comforter, pulling it up to her neck, then jabbed the call button on the headboard several times.
The door to the suite swung open and Dr. Harlan Longo hurried into the room. “Is there a problem?”
She pointed to the intruder. “I just found this man in my bed!”
The man leaned against the headboard. “I don’t think she was expecting me, Harlan.”
“Nate Cafferty is part of the sleep experiment I’m conducting,” the scientist explained. “This experiment tests the effects of sleeping with a stranger.”
Mia looked over at Nate. Ruggedly handsome, he far surpassed any dream lover she’d ever imagined. And at that moment she half feared, and half hoped, she wouldn’t be doing any sleeping at all….
Dear Reader,
I love to hear stories about how couples first met. What fascinates me is how one seemingly insignificant decision can change your life forever. Like when I chose to attend a college fraternity party instead of going home for the weekend. That’s how I met my future husband. Or when a friend of mine decided to take a later airplane flight and found himself seated next to his future wife. Fate or coincidence?
When Mia Maldonado decides to take her friend’s place in a sleep study, she has no idea that a sexy stranger named Nate Cafferty will be sleeping beside her. Fate or coincidence? You decide….
I love to hear from readers. You can reach me through my Web site at www.KristinGabriel.com or write to P.O. Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162.
Enjoy!
Kristin Gabriel
Books by Kristin Gabriel
HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION
834—DANGEROUSLY IRRESISTIBLE
868—SEDUCED IN SEATTLE
896—SHEERLY IRRESISTIBLE
909—PROPOSITIONED?
932—ENGAGING ALEX
966—STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT
HARLEQUIN DUETS
7—ANNIE, GET YOUR GROOM
25—THE BACHELOR TRAP
27—BACHELOR BY DESIGN
29—BEAUTY AND THE BACHELOR
61—OPERATION BABE-MAGNET OPERATION BEAUTY
Night After Night…
Kristin Gabriel
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Jean Louise
Contents
Chapter 1 (#u38364821-f597-5ba9-835e-2cca72a5adfd)
Chapter 2 (#u106676c3-f7fc-5da7-9771-a2779e722b12)
Chapter 3 (#u1f57e9b8-8740-5da9-a27e-9c9da7c362ef)
Chapter 4 (#ua23c9d6f-21ec-560c-bd98-cce359125b99)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
1
MIA MALDONADO knew there was trouble the moment she heard “Blue Suede Shoes” blaring from the stereo speakers. Elvis always meant a crisis was brewing, so she proceeded warily through the front hall of the house, ready for anything.
The living room, which doubled as an office for her interior design business, was empty. Another bad sign. She’d leased the Tudor-style home a year ago, hoping the affluent Philadelphia neighborhood would bring wealthy, decorating-impaired clients to her door.
It had worked, too—until she’d started dating her design firm’s best carpenter. She had a bad habit of falling too hard and too fast for men like Ian Brock. Men who looked so good in a pair of tight jeans that she overlooked their other genes—the ones that made them lie, cheat…and steal her sanity.
When she’d lived in Chicago, her heart had been broken so many times that she’d made a donation to the new cardiac wing at one of the city’s hospitals in the name of all her mistakes. Mistakes like Bryan, Andrew, Jeff, Wyatt and Justin. Then she’d moved from Chicago to Philadelphia, ready for a fresh start.
But Ian was proof that she still hadn’t learned her lesson. He’d dumped Mia three months ago, taking her heart and most of her clients along with him. Now she was determined that he’d be the last romantic mistake she ever made. From here on, Mia was going to follow her head instead of her hormones.
At least her best friend hadn’t abandoned her yet. She’d met Carleen Wimmer a year ago, when they were the only two people at a matinee screening of Gone With The Wind. By intermission, they’d been sharing a large tub of buttered popcorn and commiserating over the fact that men like Clark Gable didn’t exist anymore. By the end of the movie, Mia had offered Carleen a job as her office assistant.
Soon after, they decided to pool their limited resources by having Carleen move into the house. Kindred spirits, they shared a love of old movies, Thai cuisine and expeditions to flea markets. Carleen’s gentle, cautious nature was the perfect complement to Mia’s leap-before-you-look approach to life.
But Mia would lose her roommate next month when Carleen married Tobias Hamilton, a Philadelphia blue blood who could trace his family back to the Mayflower. He didn’t seem to care that his fiancée had grown up in a trailer park instead of on Park Avenue.
Mia was happy for Carleen, even if Tobias was a little…bland. Maybe bland was good. Bland didn’t run off with the first teenage bimbo to come along. Bland didn’t break your heart. She was certainly in no position to criticize anyone else’s love life. Not when her own had so recently ended in disaster.
She just hoped it wasn’t contagious.
Mia turned down the sound on the stereo, then noticed the empty candy bar wrappers on the desk in the corner. Chocolate and Elvis. That meant it was serious. Carleen was on a strict diet so she could fit into the vintage wedding dress worn by all the Hamilton brides.
She shed her coat and purse, shoving her latest dating debacle to the back of her mind so she could tackle whatever awaited her. She found Carleen seated at the kitchen table, hunched over a carton of chocolate almond ice cream. Half of it was already gone.
“What’s wrong?” Mia asked without preamble.
Carleen looked up at her, black mascara smudges beneath her green eyes. “I’ve ruined everything.”
Mia grabbed a spoon from the drawer, then sat down across from her. “It can’t be that bad.”
“Oh, yes it can.” Carleen dipped her spoon into the ice cream. “It’s all over.”
“What’s all over?”
Carleen sucked in a shaky breath. “The wedding. Your business. My life.”
Mia pulled the ice cream carton toward her, telling herself not to panic. “All right, let’s start from the beginning. What happened?”
Carleen brushed back a wisp of blond hair stuck to her tear-stained cheek. “Toby left the country today. He’s on an airplane right now, headed for Germany.”
“Why?”
“Because his mother hates me.” Her lower lip quivered. “She’s only met me once, but she hates me all the same. Beatrice Hamilton thinks I’m not good enough to marry her only son.”
“Hold on,” Mia said. “Are you telling me his mother sent him off to Germany?”
Carleen shook her head. “No, but she’s behind it. Toby has always been fascinated by show business. Recently, his mother arranged for him to meet a screenwriter at one of her fancy parties and now Toby’s going to produce his movie. They’re filming on location in Frankfurt for the next three weeks and he says he has to be there.”
“But he’ll be back in time for the wedding, won’t he?”
“I hope so.” Carleen pulled the ice cream carton back to her side of the table. “I’m telling you, Mia, that woman is determined to drive us apart. I tried to talk to Toby about it today when I took him to the airport, but we just got into a huge fight. He wouldn’t even listen to me. He’s more upset about Harlan than his mother.”
“Whoa, back up a step,” Mia said. “Who’s Harlan?”
She heaved a long sigh. “I should have mentioned him first. Harlan Longo. You know, that millionaire who likes to play scientist?”
“Yes,” Mia replied, more confused than ever, “what about him?”
“Well, I signed up for his three-week sleep study to save Mia’s Makeovers. He’s offering a three-thousand-dollar stipend to his research subjects and you mentioned just the other day that we needed to find money to advertise or the business is doomed.”
Mia blinked at her. “You signed up to help me?”
Carleen’s face softened. “It was the least I could do. I’ll never be able to repay you for everything you’ve done for me. Giving me a job. Taking me in when I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Treating me like a member of your family.” A smile trembled on her lips. “You’re the sister I never had.”
Mia swallowed the huge lump in her throat, then chased it down with a spoonful of ice cream. “We’re friends, Carleen. You don’t owe me anything.”
“Then think of it as my going-away present,” Carleen replied. “Toby is talking about moving to California after we’re married. He wants to live in Hollywood. I couldn’t be happy knowing I left you behind with all those unpaid bills piling up. I had to do something.”
At that moment, Mia realized just how much she was going to miss living with Carleen. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
“Look, we’ve both been trying to ignore that business hasn’t been too good around here lately. I’ve been using more and more red ink when I do the books. So when I received one of Harlan Longo’s invitations to participate in his latest study, I thought it was the answer to all our problems.”
“Harlan Longo’s not even a real scientist, is he?”
“No, but he’s really rich.” Carleen licked the back of her spoon. “Rich enough that people call him eccentric instead of crazy. So if he wants to spend his money conducting sleep experiments, he can. I heard he even has some kind of fancy laboratory set up at his estate. That’s where I’m supposed to go tonight. But…”
“But,” Mia prodded.
Carleen sighed. “But Toby thinks Harlan Longo is unstable and doesn’t want me to do it. He was so upset about it. The problem is that I’ve already used the stipend Harlan’s paying to buy advertising time for Mia’s Makeovers on the radio.” She met Mia’s gaze. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“Oh, Carleen,” Mia replied, realizing no one had ever done anything so unselfish for her before.
She’d grown up with parents who had taught her the value of hard work but who didn’t understand her desire to build her own business. Though they had never said it aloud, she knew her family back in Chicago expected her to fail. An expectation that now seemed alarmingly possible.
Mia did believe advertising could save her business, but not at the expense of Carleen’s relationship with Toby. “If Toby is that upset about it, then maybe you shouldn’t do it.”
“But the money…”
“I’ll find a way to fix it,” Mia told her, though she knew she’d never qualify for another loan.
“Ian Brock is the one who should fix it,” Carleen sputtered. “He stole all your clients when he went to work for that big design company.”
