Donna Birdsell - Madam Of The House

Cecilia shook her head. “Are you insane? I can barely get the guy to give me a straw with my drink.”

Dannie shrugged. “Hey. You picked Dare, and that’s the dare. Take it or leave it. But if you leave it, you know what happens.”

The Fallback Dare.

“In the case of forfeit of an Official Dare,” Cecilia intoned, “the Daree shall be forced to perform the Fallback Dare, which shall consist of phoning her current crush, and confessing all feelings she might have to such crush.”

She pictured that phone call in her mind.

Hello, Jake? This is your boss, Cecilia. I think you’re really, really sexy, and I want you to know that even though you are my assistant and I’m just about old enough to be your mother, I have smoky sex dreams about you almost every night.

Donna Birdsell lives near Philadelphia, where she absolutely doesn’t get any of her ideas from her perfectly normal family, friends and neighbors.

She’s addicted to reality television and chocolate, loves a good snowstorm and cooks to relax.

She spent many years writing press releases, newsletters and marketing brochures until a pregnancy complication kept her home from the office. She needed something to keep her busy, so she started her very first novel.

Five years later her dream of becoming a published fiction author came true when The Painted Rose, her first historical romance, was released.

She is excited about writing for Harlequin NEXT. You can reach Donna through her Web site at www.DonnaBirdsell.com.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Dear Reader,

I’m an ’80s junkie.

What can I say? The music, the fashion, the valley-girl vocabulary. Totally awesome!

I was in high school in the ’80s, and the decade brings back fond memories of big hair, big shoulders, big belts and big dates.

It also brings back fond memories of hanging out with my girlfriends, gossiping, doing our nails in study hall, debating who was the cutest boy in Spanish class and which guy from The Breakfast Club would probably be the best kisser. (I always voted for Emilio Estevez.)

I got many letters from readers who said the first Truth or Dare book, Suburban Secrets, brought back lots of good memories for them, too. I hope this book does the same. I also hope it brings a brief, thoughtful moment about why we, as a society, view older-woman/younger-man relationships with relative disdain.

Most of all, though, I hope it makes you laugh.

Come visit my Web site at www.DonnaBirdsell.com, where you can take an ’80s quiz, e-mail me, or share your own memories by posting a message to my blog.

Best wishes,

Donna Birdsell

P.S. Many thanks to Susan Yannessa for her help with the real estate particulars. Of course, any mistakes are purely my own!

For Laina.

You should write a book.

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

“Kid,” Monty had told her, a half-smoked Cuban cigar dangling between his teeth—the permanent accessory accompanied all of Monty’s words of wisdom—“the best piece of advice I can give you is this—personal availability is the key to making sales. When you get a call from a potential buyer, drop everything.”

Cecilia Katz, known in southeastern Pennsylvania real estate circles as The Madam of the Million-Dollar Deal, had come to realize that everything in life could somehow relate back to the tenets imparted to her by her late mentor, Montgomery Frye.

Monty Frye was a firm believer that real estate equaled life. That if you didn’t put your whole heart and soul into a sale, you weren’t worth the paper your license was printed on. That if you weren’t willing to forsake all else to meet a client for a showing, you may as well be selling time-shares in the Poconos.

So when the muffled strains of “Viva Las Vegas” echoed through the silence of St. John’s Episcopal Church, distracting Monty’s mourners from one of the most uninspired eulogies Cecilia had ever sat through, she didn’t hesitate to answer her cell phone.

She dug through her purse, finding it wedged between a half-eaten PowerBar and an electronic lockbox she needed to put on the door of a house she’d just been contracted to sell.

“This is Cecilia,” she whispered into the phone.

The elderly woman beside her gave her an acid look.

“Hang on.” Cecilia hunkered into a crouch, working her way to the far end of the pew while, at the pulpit, a puffy-eyed golf buddy extolled the virtues of Monty’s tee shot.

She hurried up the side aisle of the church, through the vestibule and out the red, arched front door into a blinding October morning.

“Okay. What’s up?” She lit her first cigarette of the day, sucking the smoke deep into her lungs. Her exhale doubled as a sigh of relief.

“Marcia Hagstrom wants to look at the Grove place again.” The voice of Jake Eamon, her assistant, cut in and out over the crappy connection.

Jake was manning her phone at Belkin-Frye Real Estate while Cecilia and most of the other agents from the office attended the funeral for her unfortunate mentor, who had dropped dead of a heart attack during negotiations on an eight-bedroom, six-and-a-half-bath estate home on the Main Line.

Cecilia hadn’t been shocked at the news, but she had been saddened by it. Monty had been her chaperone into the world of real estate, her adviser, her friend and—when she’d finally hit her stride—her stiffest competition. He was now, of course, stiffer than ever.

Still, she felt absolutely no guilt over the fact that she’d left in the middle of the service to take a call. Monty would have done the same—especially these days, when sales were hard to come by.

“You’re kidding me,” Cecilia said, dragging on the cigarette. “She wants to look at it again?”

“Says she’s bringing her husband, but they need to do it right away. Maybe she’s really serious this time.”

Yeah, thought Cecilia, and maybe when I get home I’ll find George Clooney waiting for me in the bedroom in a tuxedo, with a bottle of Cristal and a dozen roses.

She crushed out the cigarette beneath the toe of her ridiculously expensive black patent-leather pump. “All right. Let’s hope the third time’s a charm. Tell them I’ll meet them at the house in—” she checked her watch “—twenty-five minutes.”