Meg Maguire - Making Him Sweat

Look what people are saying about this talented new author’s first Blaze ®book, Caught on Camera!

“I literally could not stop reading this book.

I ignored my children as they pleaded with me to

serve them food and beverages. I ignored my weenie

dog who was whining to go outside

to do her business. I refused to do the laundry,

pay the bills, or answer the phone.

I inhaled this book from cover to cover.”

—Penelope’s Romance Reviews

“4½ stars. [A] spectacular Blaze debut.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Ms Maguire can sure write a kick-ass love scene.”

—Cheeky Reads

“I loved this story and instantly fell in love

with both characters.”

—Night Owl Reviews

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Wilinski’s Fight Academy, Boston’s shadiest boxing and mixed martial arts gym!

Don’t know much about mixed martial arts? If not, join the club! Jenna, this story’s heroine, doesn’t even know what MMA stands for until she shows up to claim the property she’s inherited from her late, estranged father.

And since you’re holding a Mills & Boon ®Blaze ®book in your hands, I can only assume you also share Jenna’s love of all things romantic. Making Him Sweat is the first in a series of stories set in the unlikely cross-section where Jenna’s fledgling matchmaking business collides with the realm of her downstairs neighbors—a gritty basement full of battered boxers. It’s all about opposites attracting, and Jenna just might meet her own match in the disreputable gym’s general manager, Mercer. His love of fighting is as foreign to Jenna as her romantic idealism is to him, which made throwing these two into the ring together all the more fun!

I hope you enjoy it! And if you finish this story wanting more, keep an eye out for the next book in the series, when hot-blooded Rich goes head-to-head with Jenna’s pretty new assistant.

Happy reading!

Meg Maguire

Before becoming a writer, MEG MAGUIREworked as a record-store snob, a lousy barista, a decent designer and an over-enthusiastic penguin handler. Now she loves writing sexy, character-driven stories about strong-willed men and women who keep each other on their toes…and bring one another to their knees. Meg lives north of Boston with her husband. When she’s not trapped in her own head, she can be found in the kitchen, the coffee shop or jogging around the nearest duck-filled pond.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Amy, Ruthie and Serena,

with crazy gratitude for your time and input.

You gals rock my socks. Continually.

Also with thanks to the staff of the Wai Kru

mixed martial arts gym in Allston, Massachusetts—

especially Michael, for letting me loiter and ogle, and

pester him with endless questions about the business

of building great fighters.

And of course, thank you to my editor, Brenda,

for liking this premise enough to contract the series,

and for beating my first draft into submission.

I won’t let you down, coach.

JENNA’S HEELS CLICKED against the asphalt as she crossed the street. Though they’d proven adorable enough to earn compliments from three different strangers on the ten-minute walk, she’d have to rethink this shoe choice in the future. Boston was made for flats, with its warped old brick sidewalks. Made for flats and for doctors who specialized in ankle injuries.

She survived a final block to reach her destination, a building she’d seen only in photos until this moment. Five stories, a former hosiery factory long since divided and repurposed. She paused to picture a new sign above the entryway, but a river of speed-walkers engulfed her, their brusqueness making it known that 9:00 a.m. downtown was not the time and place for daydreaming.

Leaving the August sunshine behind, she stepped into a cool, wide front corridor, with a worn but handsome hardwood floor and brick walls. She smiled, clutching her purse with cautious hope. With a bit of polishing and some nice light fixtures and greenery, this place could be very stylish indeed.

To her right stood a display case of boxing equipment, its glass overdue for some Windex. Gloves and shorts, headgear, mouth guards, supplement bottles—the accessories of her inheritance, surreal as that felt. She eagerly erased the image on her mental sketchpad and filled in the blanks, adding a couch and a couple of easy chairs, a shiny coffee table covered in magazines. Hopeful, excited people chatting as they waited. Waited for Jenna to make their romantic dreams come true.

In a few months’ time, this would be the home of the Boston branch of Spark, New England’s fastest growing matchmaking company—and Jenna its newest franchise owner. Spark was very old-school, unlike the online services, and that suited Jenna just fine. The web was great for impulsive commitments—such as shoes you’d never tried on—but one’s love life was not a thing to march into blind. Finding Mr. or Miss Right could be mystifying, and as a future matchmaker she was excited to help shine some light through the fog.

At the end of the foyer was a wide stairway leading down to what a banner on the wall proclaimed Wilinski’s Fight Academy—the less savory half of Jenna’s real estate inheritance. At the sight, she dropped back to earth from the clouds. The front doors opened behind her, and she tensed as a stocky man toting a gym bag brushed past and disappeared down the far steps. The misgivings she’d been flirting with for the past couple months flared, setting her body buzzing.

To her left was an office fronted with tall windows, welcoming if not private. Beyond the glass a man sat at a desk, typing on a laptop. If this was who she thought it was, he’d be expecting her. But not the news she had to share.

She took a final, calming breath and approached the open door, studying her adversary before announcing her arrival.

The man looked about thirty, with short brown hair. His thick arms and the formidable build beneath his T-shirt told her he was no stranger to the gym’s recreational punishment. His physique made her heart race. In another context it would’ve been a guilty, pleasurable excitement, but this thumping at her pulse points was pure nerves. A strong, capable body might be an asset for a lover—if you were into that kind of thing, which Jenna most certainly was not —but intimidating from an opponent. And this man was likely to prove himself the latter, once she spelled matters out for him.

She straightened the sweep of her bangs, the hem of her skirt, the set of her shoulders. Abandoning her silly, daydreaming self at the threshold, she knocked on the doorframe.

The man looked up and she saw him scan her in a breath before rising. He had a stern, pensive expression, but she thought she caught a widening of his eyes.

“Jenna?”

She stepped inside. “Yes. Are you Mercer Rowley?”