Best Laid Plans. Brenda Jackson

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СКАЧАТЬ men think so and you know it.” And until Damien Fargo, she hadn’t cared what they thought. She’d been fooled enough to think he was different. That he could see beyond her in-depth knowledge of scientific and digital technology and accept her for who she truly was. He’d pretended to and then, like every other guy, he’d proved he hadn’t liked a woman with a brain; one who was smart enough to think for herself and who didn’t hang on to a man’s every word. In the end, he’d tried changing her into the woman he had wanted her to be. When that failed, he had dumped her for someone else.

      “You know my opinion on what most men think about your love for science, math and technology. As far as I’m concerned, they only wish they could be as smart.”

      Ivy smiled. Tessa had always been her champion, lifting her up when others—especially men—tried putting her down. “Now, back to Ms. Helen. I just can’t imagine her doing such a thing.”

      “Well, she did. I saw proof. He had one of those notes I supposedly sent him right on his desk. I read it. It was Nana’s handwriting. He and I were set up.”

      Ivy sighed, rubbing one of the gold hoop earrings she wore between her fingers. “I thought about it on the drive here, wondering why Nana would do such a thing, and could only come up with one reason.”

      “And what’s the reason?”

      “She’s getting older and unfortunately for her, Dad didn’t settle down and marry until his late thirties. Nana was nearing sixty when I came along, her one and only grandchild. I guess she wants to live long enough for me to give her a great-grandchild.”

      Tessa nodded as if following her logic and agreeing that had to be the reason as well. “What are you going to do?”

      Ivy released a frustrated sigh. “I’m going to pay my grandmother a visit. She should be home soon from her exercise class. I was so mad when I left Nolan Madaris’s office. You don’t know how tempted I was to go straight to that gym and confront her. I came here instead to cool off.”

      “And I’m glad you did.” Tessa then leaned toward her. “So tell me, Ivy. Is Nolan Madaris as handsome in person as he looks in the newspapers?”

      Ivy shrugged. “I didn’t notice.”

      “Liar.”

      A smile touched Ivy’s lips because she had noticed, even when she hadn’t wanted to. He’d looked so tall and commanding while standing behind his desk. What she’d almost found too distracting was the dark stubble on his jaw like he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning. “Okay, I’m lying. I couldn’t help but notice. And yes, he looks just as handsome in person. Doubly so. Too much for his own good if you ask me.” No need to mention that he smelled good, too. Her senses had been filled with the subtle, masculine scent of his cologne the moment she’d walked into his office.

      “My kind of man.”

      Ivy took a sip of her coffee thinking, yes, Nolan Madaris would be Tessa’s kind of man, but he wouldn’t be hers. Although she’d arrived at his office angry and ready to chew him out, her anger hadn’t stopped her from noticing how good-looking he was. After all, techie or not, she was still a woman who could appreciate a handsome man when she saw one.

      She figured Nolan Madaris was at least six-two or six-three. And his skin was a stunning coppery brown. Although his eyes had stared her down almost the entire time, she thought the dark coloring of his pupils was his most valued asset. He had that wow factor, which was probably why he was so popular with women. And she knew just the type of women he dated. The sleek, sophisticated type, draped in jewelry with her hair perfectly styled. A woman whose mind was filled with passion and romance instead of scientific knowledge and data.

      Ivy noticed Tessa was staring at her. “What?”

      “If what you said earlier is true—about the reason Ms. Helen wants you to hook up with Nolan Madaris, and she’s teamed up with his great-grandmother to make it happen—I can’t imagine her stopping now. Look how long she’s been trying to get the two of you together.”

      Ivy recalled that it had started right after her breakup with Damien, nearly two years ago. Her grandmother had come by her apartment the following day to find her a total mess. Nana had told her to wipe the tears from her eyes because Damien Fargo wasn’t worth it. Helen Chapman had then told her that she hadn’t met the man she would one day fall in love with and marry but that his name was Nolan Madaris.

      Of course Ivy had thought her grandmother was joking, but when Nana kept dropping Nolan Madaris’s name at every turn, Ivy couldn’t help wondering why her grandmother could believe such a thing. The only answer Nana would give her was that it was meant to be. Well, she had news for her grandmother. It wasn’t meant to be.

      Like most people living in Houston, Ivy knew of the Madaris family. They were a large family, all highly successful and wealthy. She had graduated from high school with Victoria Madaris, who’d been one of the popular girls. Unlike some of the other mean-spirited girls at school, Victoria had always been nice to her and Tessa and would speak to her when the other girls would not. For that reason, she’d always liked Victoria. And Victoria had even invited them to her huge party when they’d graduated from high school, but Tessa had been out of town visiting her grandmother that weekend and Ivy hadn’t wanted to go alone.

      Then there was the fact that the matriarch of the Madaris family, Nolan Madaris’s great-grandmother, Felicia Laverne Madaris, was a good friend of her grandmother’s. According to Nana, their friendship began over sixty years ago when Nana was fresh out of college. Her first teaching job was at one of the local elementary schools, and one of her first students was Ms. Laverne’s oldest son, Milton Madaris Jr.

      Nana remembered ten-year-old Milton as a holy terror of Long Pine Elementary School, and Ms. Laverne had to come to school quite often because of her son’s misbehavior. Over the following years, Nana had also taught Milton’s younger brothers Lee, Nolan and Luke, and they’d been just as much of a handful as Milton. Working together, Nana and Ms. Laverne had been able to turn those behaviors around somewhat.

      A half hour later Ivy was pulling into her grandmother’s driveway. Before getting out of the car, she sat there for a moment while memories flooded her mind. The huge two-story Victorian-style home had always been her refuge; a place she’d loved to visit and found comfort in doing so. Thanks to her grandmother and grandfather, there had been so much love radiating inside those walls. Love that she’d desperately needed.

      Her parents had divorced when she was twelve and as far as she was concerned, it had been twelve years overdue. No child should have been exposed to such constant fussing and back-and-forth bickering as she had. There had been a fifteen-year difference in her parents’ ages. It was a known fact that her father, Dr. Ivory Chapman, had enjoyed his life as a bachelor and highly respected physician, and hadn’t been in a hurry to settle down and marry. When he’d decided to do so, he’d been in his late thirties and wanted a young wife—one who would easily bend to his will. He’d thought thirty-year-old Reba Andrews, a nurse at the hospital, would be the perfect woman. He’d discovered too late that Reba had no intentions of bending to anyone’s will but her own.

      Ivy had drowned out her parents’ constant bickering with her books and her love for computers. She had also escaped the dysfunctional madness by coming to this house to visit her grandparents every chance she got. Both had been educators and had encouraged her to read. They had even converted her father’s old bedroom into a library just for her. They’d also encouraged her love for technology and would take her to tech conventions every СКАЧАТЬ