Alison Kelly - Man About The House

Joanna Ford had the bluest eyes he’d ever seen! Joanna Ford had the bluest eyes he’d ever seen! That was Brett’s first thought as he was introduced to her. “Hi, Joanna, it’s nice to meet you.” The hand she extended to him was tentative, but the touch of her palm in his packed a real wallop. “I...hope my being here isn’t going to be an inconvenience.” “Absolutely not,” Brett replied. If he’d been caught off guard by the contrast between her angelic features and sinful curves, it was nothing compared to the impact her sudden smile had on him. He was honest enough to admit to himself that, had Joanna been a few years older, his vow to avoid women would have been postponed.... Author’s note—For Female Readers Only! Author’s note—For Female Readers Only! When my editor first asked me if I’d like to write a book entirely from the hero’s viewpoint, I jumped at the chance. First, because of the challenge it presented. We all know guys don’t think like us—although, let’s be honest, the world would be a smarter place if they did! The second reason was...revenge. Now, as a married woman, the mother of two sons and a romance author, I’m anything but anti-men. In fact, despite all the undue stress they cause us women with their quirky little habits, they are by and large an endearing species. My great fear, however, has always been that we don’t really cause them nearly as many problems as they cause us. They constantly ridicule us for our women’s intuition; but really, what can we do when they are so reticent about revealing their true thoughts or feelings to us? They can, on rare occasions, be perceptive themselves—as was proven when my husband’s best mate, Mark, informed me that my husband-to-be was crazy about me...long before he came to that realization himself! I confess I had a lot of fun “thinking” like a man for this story, and I hope you’ll get a few smiles reading it, too.... Oh, and incidentally, this book is dedicated to my fourteen-year-old son, Jordan, whose quick thinking and instincts for protecting the female sex saved not only two chapters of this book but also his little sister’s life when she inadvertently switched off the computer! Ah, men...you gotta love ’em! Title Page Man about the House Alison Kelly www.millsandboon.co.uk PROLOGUE CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN EPILOGUE Copyright

Joanna Ford had the bluest eyes he’d ever seen!

That was Brett’s first thought as he was introduced to her.

“Hi, Joanna, it’s nice to meet you.”

The hand she extended to him was tentative, but the touch of her palm in his packed a real wallop. “I...hope my being here isn’t going to be an inconvenience.”

“Absolutely not,” Brett replied. If he’d been caught off guard by the contrast between her angelic features and sinful curves, it was nothing compared to the impact her sudden smile had on him.

He was honest enough to admit to himself that, had Joanna been a few years older, his vow to avoid women would have been postponed....

Author’s note—For Female Readers Only!

When my editor first asked me if I’d like to write a book entirely from the hero’s viewpoint, I jumped at the chance. First, because of the challenge it presented. We all know guys don’t think like us—although, let’s be honest, the world would be a smarter place if they did!

The second reason was...revenge. Now, as a married woman, the mother of two sons and a romance author, I’m anything but anti-men. In fact, despite all the undue stress they cause us women with their quirky little habits, they are by and large an endearing species.

My great fear, however, has always been that we don’t really cause them nearly as many problems as they cause us. They constantly ridicule us for our women’s intuition; but really, what can we do when they are so reticent about revealing their true thoughts or feelings to us?

They can, on rare occasions, be perceptive themselves—as was proven when my husband’s best mate, Mark, informed me that my husband-to-be was crazy about me...long before he came to that realization himself!

I confess I had a lot of fun “thinking” like a man for this story, and I hope you’ll get a few smiles reading it, too....

Oh, and incidentally, this book is dedicated to my fourteen-year-old son, Jordan, whose quick thinking and instincts for protecting the female sex saved not only two chapters of this book but also his little sister’s life when she inadvertently switched off the computer! Ah, men...you gotta love ’em!

Man about the House

Alison Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

THE customs officer who’d welcomed the previous passenger into the country with minimum fuss, despite grubby jeans, a bare chest and tatty leather waistcoat, was becoming more and more pedantic in his inspections of Brett’s Louis Vuitton luggage. And on the tail-end of a delay plagued flight from LAX Brett was becoming more and more anxious to get it over with.

‘Fair go, mate,’ be said irritably. ‘Do I look like a sleazebag drug courier?’

‘I couldn’t say, sir,’ the man informed him, his face expressionless as he flicked his eyes over Brett’s crumpled designer sports coat. ‘But the sniffer dogs didn’t seem to think so.’

Despite himself, Brett grinned at the subtle, ironic humour of the man’s response. He’d missed the Australian trait of blending dry, cheeky wit with a perfectly straight face during the four years he’d been in the ‘let’s-do-lunch’ capital of the world. The small, unexpected dose of it now reminded him he’d re-entered the pretention-free zone of home.

After the hectic pace of his LA existence as producer of a cable TV lifestyle show, in a business climate that worshipped over-achievers and workaholics, Brett was more than ready to embrace the more laid-back attitude of his home country. For all that the television and film industries in Australia operated on only a fraction of the budgets available to their North American counterparts, the commitment of those involved seemed more, not less, professional. There was no way the star of an Aussie television series would arrogantly not turn up for work until his salary was doubled, because there was no way network executives would cop for that kind of prima donna behaviour.

Okay, so coming home meant he was going to be earning less, but conversely he’d be less stressed and in a better position to re-evaluate the current state of his life and what was important to him. Thirty-four seemed like a good age to do this, especially since he’d wasted the last three years of his personal life on a live-in relationship with a former-model-wannabe-TV-presenter who’d cared more about what he could do for her career than she had for him.

He groaned mentally when the image of Toni Tanner popped into his head, vowing that in the wake of the pouty, manipulative, china-smashing shrew he’d stupidly imagined himself in love with the only women he wanted in his immediate future were his twin sister, Meaghan, her daughter, Karessa, and his mother.

When the customs clerk finally cleared his luggage, it was with an easy smile and an uncomplicated, ‘Welcome home, mate.’

Maybe it was the accent, but somehow those words sounded a hell of a lot more sincere than all those routine have a nice day’s he’d been on the receiving end of for the last four years. More than once he’d been tempted to snap back with, Don’t tell me what kind of day to have! if only for the sake of seeing if that would generate an honest, impulsive response. Though to be fair, he reasoned, steering his luggage trolley towards the exit, that particular habit hadn’t started grating on him until Toni had, and—