The Sexy Devil. Kate Hoffmann

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      Ceci reached out and took Angela’s hand. “That’s so tragic.”

      Angela shook her head, lost in thoughts of Max. “No, it isn’t,” she said stubbornly. “It wasn’t meant to be. If he’d been interested, he would have walked across that bar and introduced himself.”

      “And you’d be married to him today,” Ceci said.

      “No!” Angela protested. “We might have gone out, had a nice time, maybe slept together, but then he would have turned out to be like all the others.”

      “You don’t know that,” Ceci said.

      “I do.” Angela paused, not sure of how much she wanted to reveal to Ceci. “He has a huge profile on our site. Nearly fifty women have commented. I would have been just another in a long line of broken hearts.”

      “You found him on the site?”

      “Actually, he’s the reason I started the blog,” Angela admitted. “We went to high school and college together and I had this massive crush on him. He never noticed me. We had that moment in the bar and I realized what a ridiculous fool I was, still carrying a torch for him after all those years. That night, I went home and wrote my first blog.”

      “What’s his name?” Ceci asked, turning back to her computer. “I want to look him up.” She clicked on the search engine, then waited.

      Why not tell Ceci? It’s not like she had feelings for him anymore. “He’s the Sexy Devil,” she murmured. “Chapter Five. Max Morgan.”

      Ceci’s hands froze on her keyboard and she slowly turned to face Angela. “You know Max Morgan? The baseball player?” She sighed in frustration. “How many times have we talked about him? About his chapter in the book. And you never told me you knew him.”

      “I don’t, exactly.” Angela shrugged. “I’ve spoken to him … once. No, twice if you count the one word he said to me when we first met. I know almost everything there is to know about him. But we don’t know each other. He’s not even aware I exist.”

      “But you had a moment!” Ceci cried. “Maybe you were destined for each other.”

      “Love is not about magic moments and fairy-tale endings,” Angela said. “It’s about two people willing to work hard to make a relationship succeed. Two people sharing common interests and goals. And there are few truly decent men around willing to invest the time and effort to make a relationship work.”

      “You sound just like your mother,” Ceci said. “So what are you going to do? Are you going to interview him?” She frowned. “Wait a second. Is that why you didn’t go to that big charity event? The one he was hosting last month?”

      “It wouldn’t have been a good place to conduct an interview. I have to get him alone and talking, without any distractions.” She swallowed hard. “And I’m not sure I want to catch him. I have several other candidates for that chapter.”

      In truth, Angela had thought an interview would be the perfect opportunity to prove to herself that her feelings for Max Morgan were gone for good. She was adult now and she’d put all her teenage fantasies about love behind her. He wasn’t her Prince Charming. Max Morgan was just another serial seducer, bent on bolstering his ego with an endless supply of willing women. It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes in his presence to recognize that he was not the man of her dreams.

      “I think the reason you made him the subject of Chapter Five is because you want to see him again,” Ceci said. “You had a moment and you can’t forget it. And don’t bother lying to me. I’m your best friend. Whenever you lie, your face turns red.”

      Angela clapped her hands over her cheeks and shook her head. “I’ll interview him. But my luck with interviews has been pretty bad lately. I can’t help it if no one wants to talk to me.”

      “What if I could set you up with Max Morgan?” Ceci said.

      “How would you do that?”

      “Will hangs out at the Tenth Inning every Monday night with his fantasy league buddies. Max Morgan owns the Tenth Inning. And Will says that Max has been in occasionally these last few weeks. He’s back in Chicago for the summer, recuperating after some sort of surgery he had during the off-season.”

      “How do you know all this?”

      “Occasionally, I do listen to Will’s rambling. He even met Max last week. Got a photo of him on his phone. I’m sure if you went in there, you could talk to him.”

      Angela felt her stomach flutter and she drew a sharp breath, pushing the surge of excitement aside. Ceci was right. She shouldn’t be afraid to interview Max. She could certainly maintain a professional demeanor, even taking into account her former feelings about him.

      “If I’m going to interview him, we have to develop a better strategy. He can’t know he’s being interviewed. I have to find a way to meet him and then get whatever I need from casual conversation.” Angela stood. “He can’t know that this is for a book.”

      “Conversation,” Ceci said. “That’s exactly what people do in a bar.”

      “I know. But I’ve never been very good at that. I don’t flirt, I have a tendency to babble when I’m nervous, and I absolutely cannot hold my liquor.”

      “That’s the least of your problems,” Ceci said. “First, we have to go shopping and buy you the sexiest outfit on the planet. You’re going to have to attract him first. From what I see on his profile, he doesn’t have any shortage of women wanting to sleep with him. What do you think—legs, belly or cleavage? Pick one.”

      “For what?”

      “It’s my mother’s rule. She always used to tell me that if your outfit only showed one of the three, it was sexy. Two of the three makes the outfit sleazy. And showing all three makes it slutty. The rule of three has served me well. So, legs, belly or boobs?”

      “What do you think?” Angela asked, staring down at her rather unremarkable body.

      “Legs,” Ceci said. “You have great legs. Let him fantasize about the boobs and the belly.” Ceci grabbed her purse, then pulled Angela along toward the door. “What color?”

      “Does your mom have a rule for that as well?”

      “No. I do. Black is boring, red is desperate. An unusual color, like chartreuse or tangerine, says you’re a strong, independent woman who doesn’t care what other people say about her weird color choices. And men think that women who wear weird colors are kinky in bed.”

      “You have proof of this?” Angela asked.

      “Yes.” She pointed to her own mustard-colored top. “I was wearing pumpkin-orange when I met Will. He said he knew exactly what I was like in the bedroom.”

      “I’m not going to sleep with Max Morgan,” Angela said.

      “Of course not. But in order to get close to him, you’re going to have to make him believe you just might.”

      They СКАЧАТЬ