Rochelle Alers - Man of Fantasy

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You met Tessa, Faith and Simone—the Whitfields of New York and owners of Signature Bridals—in the WHITFIELD BRIDES series. Now meet three lifelong friends who fulfill their boyhood dream and purchase a Harlem brownstone for their business ventures.

Kyle Chatham, Duncan Gilmore and Ivan Campbell have worked tirelessly to overcome obstacles and achieve professional success, oftentimes at the expense of their personal lives. However, each will meet an extraordinary woman who just might make him reconsider what it means to be the best man.

In Man of Fate, high-profile attorney Kyle Chatham’s classic sports car is rear-ended by Ava Warrick, a social worker who doesn’t think much of lawyers and deeply mistrusts men. Ava expects the handsome attorney to sue her, not come to her rescue after she sustains a head injury in the accident. But Kyle knows he has to prove to Ava that he is nothing like the men in her past—a challenge he is prepared to take on and win.

Financial planner Duncan Gilmore’s life is as predictable as the numbers on his spreadsheets. After losing his fiancée in the World Trade Center tragedy, he has finally begun dating again. In Man of Fortune, Duncan meets Tamara Wolcott—a beautiful and brilliant E.R. doctor with a bad attitude. As their relationship grows, Tamara begins to feel that she is just a replacement for his late fiancée. But Duncan knows that he has to put aside his pride if he’s going to convince Tamara to be part of his life.

After the death of his identical twin years ago, psychotherapist Ivan Campbell is a “love ’em and leave ’em” guy who is afraid of commitment. But all of that changes in Man of Fantasy when he meets Nayo Goddard at an art gallery, where she is showing her collection of black-and-white photographs. Not only has she gotten Ivan to open up his heart to love again, she is also seeing another man. Ivan knows that he must prove that he is the best man for her, or risk losing her forever.

Yours in romance,

Rochelle Alers

Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom:

I am understanding; I have strength.

—Proverbs 8:14

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

Epilogue

Ivan Campbell barely heard what the woman, who he’d been working closely with for the past two years renovating his Mount Morris brownstone, was rambling on about.

“Ivan, you’re not listening to me.”

He affected a half smile. “Yes, I am. You said Architectural Digest wants to do a layout of my place for an issue featuring New York City homes and apartments.”

Carla Harris stared at the man with the sensual, brooding expression, wishing he would smile, because whenever Dr. Ivan Campbell did smile, it reminded her of pinpoints of sunlight breaking through dark storm clouds. She’d thought she was attracted to a certain type until she found herself face-to-face with the brilliant psychotherapist.

An inch shy of the six-foot mark, he could not disguise the perfection of his toned body, whether in a tailored suit or in casual attire. She didn’t know why, but Carla preferred seeing Ivan casually dressed, as he was now, in a pair of jeans, short-sleeved shirt and running shoes. His aftershave was the perfect complement to his body’s natural masculine scent.

“Okay, I apologize.”

What passed for a smile quickly vanished as Ivan stared at Carla. They were sitting on soft leather chairs in a pale butter-yellow in an alcove off the living room designed for small, intimate gatherings—a room his mother had referred to as a parlor. He’d lit a fire in the fireplace to ward off an early-autumn chill. The fireplace was an architecturally minimalist design that resembled a hole set inside a low, horizontal box along a wide expanse of wall, without a mantel or surround. Large pillars in bronze candleholders of various heights and sizes were positioned off to one side of the stone hearth, accentuating the modern interior of the brownstone, which was situated in one of Harlem’s most prominent historic districts.

Ivan knew Carla was flirting with him and had been since their initial meeting, which now seemed ages ago. He’d communicated, albeit subtly, that he didn’t believe in mixing business with pleasure. His deep-set, intense, dark brown eyes met and fused with a pair of gray ones behind a pair of oversize horn-rims. The fire-engine-red glasses and flaming-red spiked hairdo had become Carla’s signature look—a look that was a bit too funky for his tastes. Laid-back by nature, Ivan preferred women who were less flamboyant, whose manner of dress didn’t call attention to themselves.

Carla took another sip from a bottle of sparkling water. “I know how much you value your privacy, Ivan, but I’ll make certain your name and address don’t appear anywhere in the piece.”

Ivan knew what the layout would do for her career. It would be the first time Carla Harris’s decorating skills would be displayed in the preeminent magazine of interior design. She was young, having just celebrated her twenty-eighth birthday, and she was not only ambitious, but aggressive. When she’d contacted him for an initial consultation, Carla refused to take no for an answer. She called him relentlessly every other day for three weeks until he’d finally relented, then worked closely with the architect to reconfigure spaces that would restore the century-old structure to its former grandeur.

“Thanks, Carla.”

The designer pressed her vermilion-colored lips together until they resembled a slash of red across her pale face. “You don’t have to sound so enthusiastic, Dr. Campbell.”

“I know how much this means to you,” Ivan said in the comforting tone he always used with his patients, “and because it does, I’m going to agree to the magazine spread.”

The interior designer’s smile was dazzling. “Thank you, Ivan.”

He inclined his head. “You’re welcome, Carla.”

Ivan wanted to tell her he couldn’t care less about someone taking pictures of his residence. At the end of the day all he wanted was to come home and relax after spending hours with his patients and lecturing students as an adjunct college professor.

He’d purchased the abandoned, dilapidated brownstone more than three years ago. It took a year and a half to complete the renovations and another year to decorate the interior. He’d lost count of the number of hours he’d sat with Carla going over catalogs filled with tables, chairs, lamps, rugs, beds and kitchen appliances. Four stories and fifty-seven hundred square feet of living space that comprised a terrace, garden and patio, powered by solar panels and an organic garden, provided the perfect environment for living and entertaining.