Falling for the Guy Next Door Read Free

revolve
around Jack Marlin!”
    Lucy poured
the wine and brought the glasses over to the sofa. “I know what he
did was terrible, but have you—”
    “No,” she cut
in firmly. Lucy was the only one she’d told about that night and
they had a deal. “We don’t talk about Jack, remember?”
    Her brown eyes
narrowed in what was probably both concern and frustration. But she
made the sign of zipping her lips and shrugged. “How’s the new book
coming along?”
    “I have an
earl who refuses to kiss his new bride,” Megan said grumpily. “I
have no idea how I’m going to get these two into bed.”
    “What’s wrong
with her?”
    “Nothing at
all.” Megan sipped on her wine, her mind instantly swept into the
lives of her characters. “Elizabeth is the most beautiful debutante
London has ever seen. She’s vivacious and witty and—”
    “Okay, okay.
So, what’s wrong with the earl then?”
    “He’s first
wife died ten years ago. He has to re-marry for an heir, but he’s
never got over the love of his life.”
    Wine
spluttered from Lucy’s mouth. She lowered her glass and narrowed
her eyes on Megan. “Let me guess, he’s been celibate for a
decade?”
    “No need to
sound so cynical.”
    “You have a
warped idea of real life, honey. No man is going to wither a decade
away over the love of one woman.”
    “I don’t write
real life,” Megan muttered. “I write fiction.”
    “And in both,
men are just as human as women. They hurt, they love, they get
confused, they make mistakes, and sex is always the dark smudge
left behind.”
    Megan knew
where this going and didn’t like it. She’d never put Jack on a
pedestal. She’d never expected or wanted perfect. She had expected
more than a one-night stand and the abrupt dismissal, as if they’d
been nothing more than strangers passing in the night. It didn’t
help that she was just as mad with herself as she was at him. She
really should have known better.
    And now he was
back, sexy as sin and sizzling her blood with those heated looks.
Charming his arrogant features with that lop-sided grin and
taunting her with the familiar banter of their once-upon-a-time
friendship.
    The last time
around, he’d stripped her ego and nipped her heart. She couldn’t
afford to give him anything more to walk away with this time.
    Megan jumped
up to fetch the bottle of wine and steered the conversation
determinedly toward the hen party she was organising for Isobel
next month.
    Isobel was
more Finn’s friend than theirs. Finn was another guy they’d known
forever, a close friend, and he’d taken the new, slightly gawky,
somewhat aloof, girl under his wing when Isobel had arrived in
Corkscrew Bay with her dad halfway through their final year of
school. Megan had been a little surprised to be appointed chief
bridesmaid, but then again, Finn would have looked ridiculous in
pink satin.
     
    Hours later,
wrapped in slinky black silk and seated at a table of twelve
beneath fairy lights twinkling from the ceiling, Megan finally
responded to Jack’s message.
    You know what they say about a man’s ego being indirectly
proportional to his— She reconsidered the word she’d been
about to use and substituted –shoe size. I didn’t
run from you. I’m at a writing conference that I attend every year
without fail.
    There were two
erotica writers, a poet and the lead scriptwriter for a TV comedy
show at the table with Megan, which made for a colourful
conversation indeed. Megan relaxed into the laughter that was
sparked with naughty context, drank too much wine and table-hopped
to catch up with friends she seldom saw face-to-face except at
events such as this.
    When she
returned to her seat for the final round of speeches, there was a
new message notification. She ignored her phone. For exactly five
seconds.
    Never heard that saying, but knowing that you’re thinking
about my *shoe size* has me hard and throbbing.
    Heat rushed up
her throat. Her eyes flashed around the table, but