Lori Wilde - Packed With Pleasure

Alec winced. “Listen, Mac, I don’t know about this blind date.”

“Shh. You’re the publisher of Single Guy. You’ve got a reputation to uphold and, seeing as how your partner has decided to up and get married, the mantle of sustained bachelorhood rests firmly on your shoulders. Gotta show the world you’re all about the fun. Besides, Sophie says her friend used to be a circus acrobat.” Mac winked. “Bet you never dated one of those.”

“You got me there.”

“I’ll send a car around at six. We’re going to see The Producers after dinner at Kim Sum’s. I’ll spring for the check.”

Alec didn’t want to go on a blind date, but he hadn’t seen Mac for over a month. It was the least he could do for his uncle. “Sure. Okay. See you tonight.”

The minute the door closed behind Mac, Alec plopped into his chair and reached for the telephone. Circus acrobat be damned. He had a sexy, erotic gift-basket designer on the hook and he wasn’t about to let her get away.

Alec made reservations at an intimate restaurant on Forty-fourth Street that was way overpriced for lunch, but what the hell? What was the point of having money if you couldn’t use it to spoil a special lady? He was definitely looking to impress her.

Eden represented the kind of naughty, no-strings-attached relationship he’d been searching for since Randy had announced his engagement. Showing her a great time would remind him exactly how good it was to be single, footloose and fancy-free.

He rubbed his palms together, requested the restaurant’s most expensive bottle of champagne, asked them to ice it and then called his florist to order a small bouquet of flowers. He planned on laying his cards on the table, giving Eden the full court press. He wanted her to know exactly what was on his mind—that he was very attracted to her, but he wasn’t the marrying kind.

Alec didn’t want to waste either of their time with silly mind games, nor did he want her to get hurt. If his initial impression of her had been wrong and she wasn’t all about fun and adventure, then he needed to know that now.

Because ever since their electric meeting yesterday afternoon, Alec had only one goal on his mind.

Seducing Eden Montgomery.

“YOU WERE RIGHT,” Jayne Lockerbee told Sarah Ramsey Armstrong. “They are perfect for each other. Sparks flew the minute they laid eyes on each other.”

Sarah pushed a strand of sleek blond hair behind one multipierced ear and grinned over the top of her cubicle at her co-worker. They were both financial analysts for Dean-Sterns Investments, although Jayne worked only three days a week.

“When you gave Zach and me that erotic gift basket for a wedding present I knew whoever had made it was exactly the kind of woman Alec needed. Earthy, grounded, intelligent and yet incredibly sensual.”

“That’s Eden to a tee—even if she doesn’t yet have the self-confidence to realize her feminine power. But with our help, she will.” Jayne grinned.

“Yes! Enough with the airheaded bimbos already. Alec goes for them because they’re not a threat. My brother needs someone who’ll challenge him both inside the bedroom and out, whether he knows it or not.” Sarah clapped. “Making this match is going to be such fun.”

“Are you sure Alec is ready to settle down?” Jayne frowned. “I care about Eden and I don’t want to see her hurt. She’s vulnerable, especially since the fire. I think the last guy she was seeing really did a number on her ego.”

“Relax. My little brother’s got his faults, but he’s not a heartbreaker.”

“But he publishes a magazine worshiping the merits of bachelorhood over marriage and he has dated a lot of women,” Jayne mused.

Sarah waved a dismissive hand. “A lot of what you see is public relations. Alec doesn’t treat women frivolously and he hasn’t had nearly as many girlfriends as he likes everyone to believe.”

“Really?”

“Now, he wouldn’t admit it if you tortured him, but I’ve seen the wistful way he looks at Randy and Jill and me and Zach. No matter how much he protests to the contrary, he’s not built like Uncle Mac. Sooner or later he’s going to realize what he’s missing by clinging to his silly belief that love and marriage mean the death of fun and freedom. And I think your Eden is just the woman to teach him how to face his fears. He’s going to love the intimacy of monogamy once he gets a taste of it.”

“How do you know?”

Sarah held out her left hand and admired the big diamond sparkling there. “Until I met Zach, I was afraid of commitment, too. We Ramseys are a stubborn bunch, but when we do fall in love, we’re in it for the long haul.”

“I remember.” Jayne laughed. “I kept trying to tell you what a wonderful thing a good marriage was.”

“So I’m a slow learner. Let’s hope Alec realizes sooner than I did that there’s nothing more profound than finding your soul mate. Not to mention hot, hot, hot.”

“The sexual chemistry between those two was unmistakable,” Jayne said. “I thought Eden’s boutique was going to combust.”

“All they needed was a push in the right direction.” Sarah nodded. “They’ll thank us in the end.”

“I’ll call Eden after she comes back from their luncheon and see how things went.”

“I’ll keep you posted on what Alec says.”

The two women grinned at each other and Sarah started humming the matchmaker song from Fiddler on the Roof.

WOULD LIGHTNING STRIKE twice? Or had yesterday simply been a fluke?

Wetting her lips to dampen her nervousness, Eden changed from her Nikes in the ground-floor ladies’ room at Trump Towers and slipped into the pair of four-inch Jimmy Choo ebony sling-backs Jayne had loaned her.

Was Alec Ramsey really the man she wanted as her love mentor?

That was the question she was here to answer.

In the meantime, she had caved in to Ashley and Jayne’s demands that she vamp out, although she couldn’t shake the feeling she was leading Alec on, acting like an experienced, sexually confident woman when that’s the last thing she was.

“Act the part,” Ashley had encouraged when she’d insisted Eden borrow her skintight black leather skirt that was long enough to hide Eden’s burn scars but short enough to generate plenty of head-turning interest. On the subway ride over she’d gotten a half-dozen appreciative wolf whistles.

“Perceiving, behaving, becoming,” Jayne had imparted along with the Jimmy Choos, and a pair of dynamite black fishnet stockings with sparkly rhinestones sewn into the back seam.

But what had finally convinced her to give their plan a try was the editorial in the front pages of the October issue of Single Guy. She was impressed by the way Alec advocated responsible sex and described all woman as goddesses. As the publisher of a magazine aimed at bachelors, he might be commitment shy, but reading the article clued her in that Alec definitely knew how to indulge a lady.

And that was exactly what she needed. A temporary tryst with a tender and considerate man who wouldn’t head for the hills when he discovered her secret.

Eden peered at herself in the bathroom mirror and was startled to see how unruly she appeared. She ran a hand through her rowdy curls to tame them. The humid weather played havoc with her hair, giving her a just-tumbled-out-of-bed look. Her lipstick color too red, her mascara too thickly applied.

Bad-girl glam.

She felt restless and reckless and edgy. And those alien feelings scared her. She wished she’d had the courage to explore her sexuality more fully before the fire, before she had the scars to contend with, but she’d been too chicken. Frightened of catching a communicable disease or of ending up like her mother or of getting her heart broken.