Delphine Dryden - Mai Tai For Two

Julie’s Hawaiian Vacay Itinerary!

You and your “work husband” have just won an all-expenses-paid vacation in Oahu. Now the fun begins...

1 Get lei’d. (With flowers, obvi.)

2 Settle into your gorgeous ocean-side cabin. Contemplate living in Hawaii forever.

3 Become overwhelmed with hideous unexplained jealousy when your bestie decides to make sexy moves on your work husband, Alan.

4 Dismiss jealousy. After all, you’re not interested in Alan “that” way...are you?

5 Avoid joyous dancing when bestie’s ex arrives and sweeps her off her feet—leaving Alan completely and totally available.

6 Now you’re alone with Alan. Alone. In paradise. Take a deep breath, have a mai tai—or two—and (gulp!) make your move. Be classy.

7 “Accidentally” let Alan peek under your grass skirt.

8 Take off grass skirt.

9 Do Incredibly Naughty and Sexy Things everywhere.

10 And do not think about what happens when you and your work husband go back to reality....

Dear Reader,

You know when they draw the name for the really big door prize, the one you can’t believe somebody actually donated? We all finger our little ticket stubs, pretending not to care, because we know we won’t win. It’s too much, too lucky, too outrageous.

But somebody wins. And this is the story of two such somebodies, whose amazing luck seems to follow them from the Silicon Valley all the way to the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii.

Julie and Alan are “work spouses” and good friends, but the unexpected dream vacation they find themselves on is charmed in all sorts of ways. The tropical setting. The exotic wildlife. The fruity drinks with umbrellas and tiny plastic swords. And that’s all before they even get to the wild night of dancing by the light of the tiki torches.

They’ve done this once before...accidentally falling on each other’s faces. This time, it goes way beyond faces. And this time, they can’t blame it on champagne and mistletoe. They have to face the morning after, and decide what to do about all the mornings after that. And they only have four days to figure it out.

I hope you enjoy their delicious dilemma!

I love to hear from readers. You can find me online at www.delphinedryden.com, or on Twitter @deldryden.

Aloha!

Delphine Dryden

Mai Tai for Two

Delphine Dryden

Contemporary, sexy stories for sassy women.

Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon

www.millsandboon.co.uk/cosmo

About the Author

Delphine Dryden majored in English at the University of Texas at Austin, and probably should have gone ahead for that MFA and PhD to become an English professor like she planned. Instead, she took a detour through law school, practiced law for a woefully brief time, and wound up working in special education for the next fifteen or so years (first as a teacher, then as an educational diagnostician). Somewhere in there, she also obtained a master’s in educational psychology/special education.

Delphine writes contemporary erotic romance for Carina Press, and mainstream steampunk romance for Berkley. She has also published with Ellora’s Cave and Cleis Press. Her writing has earned an Award of Excellence and Reviewers’ Choice Award from RT Book Reviews, an EPIC Award and a Colorado Romance Writers’ Award of Excellence.

A few years ago, Delphine gave up the day job to write full-time. Now she balances that with parenting two kids and two dogs, and occasionally designing web sites or making trailer videos. She and her family are all Texas natives, and reside in unapologetic suburban bliss near Houston.

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Contents

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 One

“But I never win anything!”

Julie kept saying it long after she should have stopped, probably annoying her coworkers no end. It wasn’t true, of course. She’d won stuff—everybody won stuff. Little things, like a spelling bee, or a round of rock, paper, scissors. Once, she won an office pool on when the receptionist’s baby would be born (three in the afternoon, on a lovely Tuesday in May).

This was different. The little stuff barely counted as wins next to something this spectacular.

She leaned over, raising her voice over the steadily increasing after-work crowd noise in the bar, and asked Alan Cortese to pinch her.

He shook his head. “I’m pretty sure pinching you would be harassment.”

“Not if it’s on the arm. Besides, we’re not in the office right now. Ouch!” His fingers left significant heat behind on her shoulder. “I take it back. It’s harassment if you do it that hard.”

“You’re awake, okay?” He used his cheesy emcee voice, rolling his prize certificate up and using it as a microphone. His dark eyebrows waggled over bright brown eyes alight with mischief. “Julie Perfetto, you’ve just won a vacation for two to a fabulous tropical resort in beautiful Hawaii! What are you going to do now?”

“Never complain about a company motivational event again.”

“That’s a given. Me, either. I can’t believe either of us won this fucking thing. What are the odds? What else are you gonna do?”

“Yikes. Call Amanda, I guess, once she’s done at work. How about you? Who are you gonna bring on the trip?” She knew he wasn’t dating anyone at the moment, but maybe he had a sleeper candidate.

“No clue. I don’t know, I’ll probably end up giving the tickets to my parents. Sitting on the beach isn’t really my thing.”

Ugh.

Not for the first time, Julie considered what a dutiful son Alan was. He really did put her to shame. Parents. She should have at least thought about calling her parents. It was really big news. She told herself she would totally call them. Right after she called Amanda.

Julie plucked the tour brochures they’d been ogling from the slightly sticky bar and fanned them in front of Alan’s face. “Did you even read these? You don’t ever have to go near the beach. There’s horseback riding, hiking, kayaking. You can take a helicopter ride. Or skip the beach itself and go straight into the ocean for snorkeling. Surfing, even.”

“Are you two going to do all that stuff?”

She wasn’t about to tell Alan her actual plan for the trip, conceived about five minutes after the initial shock had worn off. Find a good-looking guy, take reasonable precautions and then—for once in her life—have no-strings-attached sex. A story for her pervy mental scrapbook, which was woefully thin as yet.

“Oh, hell no. I mean, I probably will do some adventure sports, but Amanda...” She flipped through the themed brochures until she found the one labeled Spa Retreat. “This is how I’ll entice her away from her desk. Massages. Full day spa. Yoga classes. World-class cuisine. And fruity drinks with umbrellas in them.”