Margot Early - Love Potion #2

The realization surprised Paul.

“I think it would make you feel better,” he said, unable to keep from smiling. Feeling mischief sweep over him. “If it doesn’t work the first time, we’ll do it again.”

Spontaneously, he kissed the tip of her nose. Then his lips drifted to her cheek, down to her mouth.

He could smell the bread toasting, but he’d lost all interest in food.

She kissed him. She felt his mouth open slightly, and so did hers. She felt the tip of his tongue caress her lips. She whispered, “Okay.”

Paul let her body settle against his, touch everywhere, let her feel what was happening to him, because of her.

Dear Reader,

In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Caroline Bingley, in the hope of pleasing Mr. Darcy, speculates that balls would be better if there were more conversation and less dancing. But then the events wouldn’t be balls, would they?

In Love Potion #2, Cameron McAllister faces a similar paradox. Paul Cureux—and all men—would be much more understandable if they behaved more like women. More understandable but not nearly so much like men.

It’s confusing to discover that what aggravates also attracts. Any woman who has had to persuade a man to seek medical attention for an obviously dislocated finger—or shoulder or knee—gets a fascinating picture of one way in which men and women differ. And then there’s that other thing—that women typically talk about their feelings and men often do not.

Cameron perceives Paul as a Peter Pan figure who will never commit. She wants him to open up, to share his deepest emotions—or so she thinks. Only when unexpected challenges force her to rely upon him does she realize why he’s the man she can’t stop thinking about.

Can best friends maintain enough mystery in their relationship to keep them interested and attracted over the long run? Maybe only if they are different enough.

Wishing you happy reading and all good things always.

Sincerely,

Margot Early

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Margot Early has written stories since she was twelve years old. She has sold over three million books with Harlequin Books; her work has been translated into nine languages and sold in sixteen countries. Ms. Early lives high in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains with two German shepherds and several other pets, including snakes and tarantulas. She has studied herbalism and martial arts, and she enjoys the outdoors, spinning dog hair and dancing with Caldera, a tribal belly dance troupe. You can find her on Facebook.

For Chris

Thanks to Chris Chambers, for reading the manuscript and sharing birth knowledge and valuable life experience, and to Keiran Woodhouse and the other members of Rhesus, for their CD which became a sort of soundtrack for the writing of this book.

All technical errors in this fictional work are mine.

PROLOGUE

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

All Saints’ Day

Seven years past

Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina

TWENTY-ONE-YEAR-OLD Cameron McAllister had woken up happy. She’d woken up with Paul Cureux, her best friend from high school in Logan, West Virginia. Now, they were both students in their last year at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. The night before had been the best Halloween of her life, partying with her three best buddies, all guys. Her costume was Love; she’d worn a toga-like garment made of an ivory bedsheet—and lots of glitter. She and Paul had ended up kissing, and it was as if she’d swallowed her breath, all the breath she would ever breathe, then exhaled, and then she was screaming down a roller-coaster hill, and then they were in bed, making love, and it was great. It was exciting. It made her wonder all the things she didn’t know about Paul.

It had happened at exactly the right time, and now, the morning after, she was happy. Things might have become romantic between her and another friend, the Adonis-like Sean Devlin. But Sean didn’t intrigue her as Paul did—especially now.

Now, the morning after, she was happy.

Paul woke up and blinked at her, his curly dark hair mussed, and he smiled, and it was a boyish smile, straight white teeth. His brown eyes, strangely innocent; his lips full and sweetly curved; his nose classically shaped, the most perfect she’d ever seen—it was a young and beautiful face but also a comfortably familiar face.

Cameron had been in love. And off and on for the past two years, she’d considered trying to fall in love with her friend, Sean Devlin, who studied drama and wrote poetry and whose cheekbones could hew wood. There had been that one time, when she lost her virginity, but the chemistry just wasn’t there—not on her side, anyhow.

On the other hand, last night… It had been so perfect. And Paul was her best friend. Surely, this was love.

PAUL CUREUX peered down at his dark blue sheets. They were now sprinkled with gold glitter, as though he’d been visited by a fairy.

But it wasn’t a fairy beside him. It was Cameron McAllister, the unofficial Hottest Body of their year at Logan High School. His surfing buddy through their years at college, whom he’d decided, maybe unwisely, to sleep with.

It wasn’t that Paul was averse to sex or to casual sex. It was just that he’d had one, perfectly good, version of a relationship with Cameron. Now, she would want him to tell her he loved her. She would want dates, presents, girlfriend things. Being from Logan, she might even want him to marry her. All these ideas gave Paul a sense of time closing in, of the necessity of “settling down,” of graduation’s too-fast approach. Everything was going too fast.

He drew his eyes from Cameron’s high, perfect breasts. Yes, she was hot, but this was going to ruin everything. He grinned at her, knelt up in bed to peer out the window, and said, “Yes!” turning the focus at once to the waves and hoping she would follow his lead.

Cameron sat up, looking sleepy, and glanced out the window, too. She seemed dazed.

Paul said, “This was great. Really great.” He made himself meet her brown eyes. “But I think it could wreck our friendship. I think we shouldn’t do it again.”

He could detect little change in her expression. Not even stiffening in her body. She jumped down from the high loft bed, raised above his stereo and drawers. “Sure,” she said. “Can I borrow some clothes?”

Paul said, “Yeah. Of course.” He watched her open his drawer, rooting for things that would be much too big for her.

She did not look at him.

He said, “Are you okay?”

“Sure,” she repeated.

He knew very definitely that she wasn’t, that he’d been a clod, that he couldn’t undo any of it, that he had wrecked things. Tendrils of adulthood and commitment inched toward him, crept around him, and he, too, jumped down from bed, effectively casting them off.

Logan, West Virginia

The present

CAMERON MCALLISTER sat at a small damp table in The Last Resort, the downstairs lounge of a Stratton Street hotel, now in its fifth or sixth incarnation. She listened without much interest to Paul Cureux’s final set and tried to look like his girlfriend. She felt desperately sad, helplessly jealous and reckless.