Cara Summers - Moonstruck In Manhattan

“Oh, but we can,” Chelsea corrected, drawing his mouth to hers.

Sensations flooded through him as her mouth moved on his, her tongue probing. Her heat, her scent, her taste, swirled in his head until he couldn’t separate them. All night long, he’d watched while she danced in other men’s arms. Now she was his. Slipping his fingers beneath the thin straps on her shoulders, he began to push them aside.

“No.” Chelsea drew back. “You can’t take off my top. I’m sewn into it. If you loosen it, the skirt won’t stay up.”

“Damn the skirt,” Zach said. “I need to touch you. I’ve been waiting to touch you all day. And you dragged me into this closet….”

“To have my wicked way with you.” Settling back on the shelf, Chelsea grinned seductively. Then, taking his hands, she ran them along her thighs, pushing the skirt out of the way. “Now, Zach, don’t tell me you’re complaining….”

Dear Reader,

What happens when a single girl navigating her way through the dating scene in a big city gets a little help from a skirt that has the power to draw men like a magnet?

That’s what the heroine of Moonstruck in Manhattan is about to discover!

Sick of the singles scene in the Big Apple, Chelsea Brockway has sworn off dating, period! From now on, she’s just going to write about it. And she sees her friend’s supposed man-magnet skirt as her ticket to a lucrative contract with Metropolitan magazine. All she has to do is prove to Zach McDaniels, the sexy new editor-in-chief, that the skirt works. And it does, all too well….

If you enjoyed Moonstruck in Manhattan, don’t miss the rest of the SINGLE IN THE CITY miniseries: Tempted in Texas by Heather MacAllister in January 2002, and Seduced in Seattle by Kristin Gabriel in February 2002. In the meantime, I hope Zach and Chelsea’s romantic adventures will brighten your holiday season.

Happy Holidays!

Cara Summers

P.S. I love to hear from readers. Write to me at P.O. Box 718, Fayetteville, NY, 13066. And check out our Web site at www.singleinthecity.org!

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

813—OTHERWISE ENGAGED

HARLEQUIN DUETS

40—MISTLETOE & MAYHEM

56—THE LIFE OF RILEY

Moonstruck in Manhattan

Cara Summers

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To my Aunt Kathleen—for introducing me to Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey Twins when I was seven. And for always being there for me—in the best of times and in the worst of times.

To my Uncle Jimmy, too—and to the romance that you and Aunt Kathleen have lived together.

I love you both.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

“THE BRIDE is not going to throw her bouquet.” Chelsea made a wide sweep with her foot under the table and located the sandals she’d kicked off earlier. Her feet were killing her. Getting married on a California beach at sunrise sounded romantic. But it wasn’t so much fun when the bridesmaids had to walk around the rest of the day with sand in their shoes.

“What are you talking about? She has to throw her bouquet!” Gwen said. “Torrie is the most conventional person I know.”

“I might even get up the energy to make a try for it. That is if I could believe catching a bunch of posies would get me a decent date,” Kate said.

“A date? What’s that?” Gwen asked.

“It’s been that long, huh?” Chelsea asked and then joined in the laughter. After rooming together during their senior year in college, she and Kate and Gwen had each gone on to pursue career goals in separate cities. But they’d managed to keep in touch by phone. Chelsea couldn’t help recalling how often they’d had similar conversations over the years, discussing the dating wasteland they’d encountered in the big city. And the dangers, she thought as a little band of pain tightened around her heart.

Loud cheers and whistles drew their attention to a raised platform at the far end of the dance floor where the groom was removing the garter from the bride’s leg.

“You’ve got to be wrong, Chels,” Kate said starting to rise from the table. “The bouquet comes right after the garter.”

Chelsea grabbed her arm. “But it’s not the bouquet she’s going to toss. It’s the skirt.”

Her two friends stared at her, comprehension, surprise and finally amusement flickering across their faces.

“Not the man-magnet skirt?” Gwen asked.

“The one she picked up on that island during her cruise?”

“You got it,” Chelsea said. They’d all listened countless times to the story of how Torrie’s cruise ship, blown off course by a storm, had dropped anchor at a small out-of-the-way island, and how she’d found this little shop where an elderly seamstress had sold her a special skirt. According to the woman, each spring, the old ladies of the island gathered on a moonlit beach to spin the fibers of the lunua plant into thread. Any woman who wore a garment woven out of this thread that had been supposedly “kissed by moonlight” would draw men like a magnet. And one of those men would be her soul mate.

Privately, Chelsea had always wondered if those island women had been sitting on that beach smoking the fibers and spinning stories instead of thread. While the skirt was a great basic black that fit Torrie perfectly, none of them had ever been able to see anything special about the “fibers” or the “thread.” Still, Torrie swore by it, crediting the skirt with attracting men every time she put it on. And now she claimed it had brought her new husband to her.

“You’re putting us on,” Gwen said, glancing at the bride and groom. “She’s not going to toss the skirt. She doesn’t even have it up there with her.”

“She’s wearing it,” Chelsea said. As if on cue, Torrie began to hike up the yards of satin cascading from her waist. “She told me she wasn’t going to take it off until he said, ‘I do.’”

When the three of them pushed back their chairs and rose as one, Kate said, “This is not a very good testimonial to being single in the city. We’ve all got to be desperate to believe in a moon-kissed skirt!”

“I want to catch it,” Chelsea said.

Gwen and Kate turned to stare at her.

“You? We thought you’d sworn off men after Boyd the bum.”

Kate’s elbow cut Gwen short. “We’re not going to mention his name ever again. Remember? A low-life cad like that does not deserve one more minute of our time. And I think it’s great that you’re going to throw yourself back into the dating jungle, Chels. At least one of us should be out there.”

“Oh, but I’m not…I mean…,” Chelsea paused, touched by the concern she saw in her friends’ eyes. Truthfully, she didn’t want the skirt to attract men. She had entirely different plans for Torrie’s man-magnet skirt. But Kate and Gwen looked so happy for her…