Mr Right There All Along. Jackie Braun

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СКАЧАТЬ “All cats are antisocial. I told you to get a dog if you wanted companionship from a pet.”

      She crossed her arms over her chest. “Must you lecture me now?”

      “It seems so.” He waited a beat before asking, “Are we going together? Or are you bringing a date?”

      “A date.” She frowned, apparently realizing what she’d said. Her hands fell to her sides. “How do you do that?”

      “What?”

      “Talk me into doing something that I absolutely don’t want to do?”

      “Years of practice,” he replied.

      “Okay. Since you think I need to do this, I will.”

      “Thanks.”

      “But only because I know you’ll hold it over my head forever if I don’t.” She ended on a long-suffering sigh.

      They both knew it was a cover and that she was grateful for the push.

      “You’ll thank me someday,” he said.

      “Or I’ll blame you indefinitely for the years of therapy to follow.”

      “I’ll take my chances.” He shrugged and started in again on the mac and cheese. It was good, nearly as mouthwatering as Chloe’s pout.

      She was quiet while he finished off the last of the pasta, which was never a good sign. It meant she was thinking. More accurately, it meant she was plotting.

      Sure enough, just as he blotted his mouth with a napkin, she said, “You don’t mind if I go with someone else, do you? We can still sit together.” Her expression brightened. “You can bring someone, too. We can double-date. That will be fun.”

      Simon ignored the twinge in his chest. He always felt it when Chloe talked about other men. In fact, one of the things Sara had flung in his face that evening during their breakup was what she termed his “unhealthy attachment to that woman.”

      Sara wasn’t the first girlfriend to mention it. Nor, he suspected, would she be the last. He was attached to Chloe. How could he not be? They’d been close friends since before puberty and had seen one another through the good, the bad and the ugly of adolescence. They’d also been there for one another through high school and college and, now, the better part of their twenties. She was the only constant in his life.

      “Well?” Chloe was frowning, and obviously waiting for his reply.

      “Why would I mind?” Even to his ears, the words came out sounding hollow and defensive. He cleared his throat and shifted the conversation in a new direction. “I didn’t know you were seeing someone.”

      “I’m not. But I plan to come up with the best-looking, most successful guy I can find, even if I have to pay him to attend with me.”

      Oh, yeah. Those wheels had been turning, all right.

      “Chloe, really—”

      She cut him off. “Yes, really. I want Natasha, Faith and Tamara to take one look at the hunk I’m with and drool an Olympic-size swimming pool.”

      “That’ll show ‘em,” he drawled.

      She nodded, oblivious to his sarcasm.

      “Where do you plan to meet this Adonis?” God, please, tell him that she wasn’t going to say the internet. He’d talked her out of cyberspace dating twice already.

      Her smile was overly bright despite the fact that her teeth were tinted the same shade of purple as her lips. He knew he was in trouble even before she said, “I remember seeing a really attractive guy at your office the last time I stopped in to see you. Trevor something. I think you mentioned that he was a lawyer helping you with some of the details on your merger.”

      Uh-uh. No way was Simon going to set her up with Trevor, or, as the ladies at his company had dubbed him, “Mr. Hottie.” He would be only too glad to have the merger behind him so he could cut the guy loose. Productivity among the women at Ford Technology Solutions came to a standstill whenever Trevor was around.

      “No.”

      “Please.” She clasped her hands in front of her. “Pretty please?”

      Her smile, purple-tinted or not, was nearly Simon’s undoing. God knew, as it was, he would do anything short of murder for the woman, and even that was negotiable. But, he managed to remain firm. “I’m sorry, Chloe, but no.”

      “All right.” She nodded. “I understand. I mean, it’s not as if I’ve ever done you a huge favor or anything.”

      It was all he could do to suppress a groan, because the list was long and, no doubt, Chloe planned to launch into it at any moment. Simon sighed and capitulated with the grace of a man being pushed to his death.

      “Fine. All right.”

      “Thank you!”

      “I make no promises.”

      “I know. I don’t expect promises.”

      Which was exactly why Simon, to his everlasting regret, meant it when he said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

      CHAPTER TWO

       Cramming for Finals

      THE FIRST THING Chloe did when she woke the next morning—after trying to rub off the worst of the wine stains from her lips—was to boot up her computer and make a list of all the things she needed to do before the reunion.

      Six weeks.

      That’s all she had. It wasn’t a lot of time. and she had a lot to do. Well, no problem. She was the queen of self-improvement. She’d had enough practice at it—she had an entire library of books in her apartment on the subject. More might be in order, she decided, thinking of a show she’d seen earlier in the week.

      She prioritized her needs as she created the list.

      First and foremost, she would whip herself into the best physical shape possible. Since this had been a regular New Year’s resolution since her late teen years, she was familiar with the format. But rather than mere diet and exercise, the reunion timeframe called for a boot-camp mentality.

      If she had to forgo ice cream, so be it. The same for her favorite bagels, pasta, comfort food and … food in general. She’d work out five—no, seven—days a week. And really work out. Not just don the outfits and sit in a smoothie bar, pretending to have just come from aerobics class. She’d even give in and accompany Simon on his morning runs in Central Park. He was always after her to join him.

      Running. Hmm.

      She tapped her bottom lip thoughtfully as she gazed at the computer screen. In parentheses next to the bit on exercise, she wrote: Shape wear.

      She wasn’t above a little cheating, as proved by the padded push-up bras she wore on a regular СКАЧАТЬ