What A Girl Wants (Harlequin Blaze)

by Jamie Sobrato

  “I’m with them,” Jane said to the saleslady, who was busy sizing her up and probably already had her pegged as a bridesmaid and not a bride.

  “Of course,” she said through a thin smile.

  “Jane, dear,” her mother drawled in her carefully preserved Texas accent, “please tell your sister she absolutely cannot have the bridesmaids wear hats.”

  “Heather, I’m not wearing a hat.”

  Livvy nodded triumphantly. “You have to remember Jane looks odd in hats, anyway. They draw attention to the size of her head.”

  Not the head issue again. According to Livvy, Jane’s head had caused unimaginable pain during childbirth, and she hadn’t forgiven her yet. As far as Jane could tell, her head was not abnormally large—her mother’s hips, however, were abnormally small—yet she couldn’t resist glancing in the mirror to see if her head was casting a shadow over the entire store.

  Heather frowned at Jane’s head. “Maybe we could just get an extralarge one for you.”

  “No, it’s bad enough that I have to stand in front of a church in a bridesmaid dress. I’m not wearing a hat, too.”

  The saleslady intervened. “If you’d like, I can show you to a dressing room now.”

  “That would be splendid,” Livvy said, eager to divert attention while she’d still won the battle.

  “We’ve picked out a few styles we think might be flattering on you, Jane.” Heather followed behind with their mother, just as Jane had feared. They were both going to be there, critiquing her as she tried on the dresses.

  The dressing room was, literally, a well-appointed room, complete with two walls of adjustable mirrors, a carpeted platform to stand on for fittings and a velvet sofa. In one corner stood a rack of dresses.

  Apparently Jane was the test female for the dress all the bridesmaids would wear. Since Heather’s friends and the other two triplets would look fabulous in whatever she picked out, they needed only to find a dress that Jane could wear without looking like the “before” picture in a makeover article, standing next to a bunch of former and current Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders—the perfect legion of “after” photos.

  The saleslady selected a pink satin sheath from the rack. “Since this is your sister’s favorite, why don’t you start with it? These are all size tens, so they should fit.”

  Jane resisted the urge to point out that she was a size eight on non-PMS days. “Could I have a little privacy?”

  “Of course, but someone will need to stay in here with you to help with the zippers.”

  Right, because she couldn’t possibly manage a zipper by her poor little self. “Heather stays.”

  Jane avoided her mother’s gaze and began unbuttoning her blouse as the two women left the room.

  “Why did you have to bring Mom along?” she whispered as soon as the door closed.

  “Sorry, she insisted.”

  “I thought we were supposed to talk today.”

  Heather had been asking all week for them to find some time to get together and chat. They weren’t the closest of siblings, but Jane’s younger sisters did tend to view her as the fount of all knowledge when it came to their problems. They may not have liked reading books, but they did respect the fact that she’d written one.

  Jane finished undressing and stepped into the pink gown, then slipped it over her shoulders. Already she hated it.

  As Heather zipped up the dress, she whispered, “We do need to talk. It’s about…” She hesitated. “Bradley Stone.”

  Bradley Stone? He was a good friend of Heather’s fiancé, one of the groomsmen in the wedding, and Jane’s biggest crush from college. He’d been in the same psychology program that she had, and he was so different from the average Texas male, it was hard to believe he’d even grown up in the Lone Star state. He was intelligent, insightful, enlightened, sensitive…

  And he didn’t own a single Stetson or pair of cowboy boots. As far as Jane knew, he didn’t even possess a warped passion for college football or contact sports of any kind. He was a combination of her girlhood and adult fantasies, all rolled into one perfect guy.

  What on earth could Heather have to say about Bradley?

  Heather took one look at the dress and shook her head, then unzipped it again. Jane slid it back off and stepped out of it.

  Had her crush on Bradley grown so obvious that even her sisters knew about it? Jane thought back to the engagement party for Heather and Michael, where she’d last seen Bradley. Okay, she had to admit, she’d probably lingered at his side too long, retrieved one too many drinks for him, laughed a little too hard at his jokes.

  She’d been downright pitiful.

  But she definitely wasn’t ready to talk to Heather about her infatuation with Bradley, even if her sister had already figured it out. Knowing Heather, she’d probably tell everyone, including Bradley, as soon as she got confirmation from Jane that there was an attraction.

  “I don’t like him, and I don’t have anything to say about him.”

  Heather studied Jane through the mirror and frowned.

  Oops, maybe she’d protested too much. “I’ve got problems of my own, you know,” Jane said to cover her tracks.

  Heather looked at her as if she’d just appeared from thin air. “Of course you do, Janie. You seem really tense—what’s up?”

  She handed Jane the next dress, another pink one, as ugly as the last.

  “Didn’t you guys listen to The Jax Reed Show on the way here?”

  “Mom wouldn’t let me turn it on. She says no self-respecting person would listen to such garbage.”

  Right, even if her own daughter was appearing on the show.

  “It was awful. All these guys were calling in, angry and talking trash. Then the last caller was downright scary. He said he’d been watching me, and Jax hung up on him.”

  “Janie! Are you still getting nasty letters, too?”

  “I’ve gotten a few this week.” Ever since the publication of The Sex Factor, Jane’s mail from readers alternated between glowing praise and vicious attacks. She got a sick feeling in her stomach each time she had to open a letter now.

  “Did that caller say anything else? Something you could go to the police with?”

  “He said his name is Bryan—though I’m sure that was a lie—and that he knows where I live.”

  “You’ve got to take this seriously. There are a lot of crazy people out there, you know.”

  “I know. But I don’t want to become paranoid about this whole thing.”

  Heather unzipped the dress, and Jane slid it off and stepped out of it. “You know, one of Mikey’s cousins who’s also in the wedding is some kind of security expert. He works for lots of rich and famous people in Dallas.”

  Jane immediately thought of the phone number Jax had given her. “His name isn’t Lucas Nicoletti, is it?”

  “Yes! Did you meet him at our engagement party?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” She’d been too busy drooling all over Bradley that night to notice anyone else. “Jax Reed gave me his number and told me I should call him.”

  Heather’s eyes turned to blue saucers. She believed in signs, horoscopes, tarot cards and fortune cookies. “Janie, that’s a sign! You were meant to get Luke’s help.”

  “What do you know about this guy?”

  “I know he’s really cute, and that he and Mikey were childhood playmates, but that’s about it. They’re not close anymore, but they were such good friends growing up that Mikey had to have him as a groomsman.”

  “Hmm, a cute cousin of Michael’s. Guess that’s all I need to know to hire him.”

  “Of course you should talk to him first, but I really think the universe is trying to tell you something here.”

  “Jane? Heather?” Their mother tapped on the door. “Aren’t you going to let me see?” Instead of waiting for an answer, she opened the door and walked in, catching Jane in the middle of bending over to untangle a dress from her ankles.

  “Dear, th
at is not your best angle,” Livvy said.

  Jane swung around for privacy, then remembered that the walls were mirrored. “Do you mind? We’ll call you in when we’ve found the right dress.”

  “Someone’s wearing cheap perfume out there. It’s upsetting my allergies.” She produced a dainty little sneeze.

  Her mother used the old allergy excuse whenever she got the chance. It was her way of making sure no conversation took place too far from her ears.

  Jane took the next dress from Heather and stepped into it. A navy-blue princess-style gown with a subtle flare at the hips and low-cut décolletage. She hoped before it was even zipped up that it would be Heather’s choice. It had the distinct advantage of complementing Jane’s overly curvy hips, and dark colors were, after all, slimming.

  Not that Jane thought she needed any slimming down, but next to all Heather’s toothpick friends, she was bound to look like a Clydesdale among thoroughbreds no matter what she wore.

  Heather zipped it up, took a step back, and clapped her hands together. “It’s perfect,” she said, as if on command.

  “Yeah, not bad.” Jane surveyed herself in the mirror. She could imagine walking down the aisle arm-in-arm with Bradley Stone in this dress.

  Their mother frowned. “But I thought we’d agreed upon rose petal as the color for the dresses.”

  “You agreed on rose petal, and I wanted seashell. But I think I like midnight blue even better. This is the dress I want—it’s settled.”

  Jane breathed a sigh of relief. She’d narrowly escaped wearing a pink bridesmaid dress. Maybe this day wasn’t turning out so badly after all.

  Livvy gave them her best put-upon look and disappeared from the room to find the saleslady.

  Heather leaned in close and whispered to Jane, “What I said about Bradley—just forget it. I’m sorry I brought him up.”

  “You didn’t say anything about him.”

  “Right. Well, I think I know why you didn’t want to talk about him, and I’m sorry I even mentioned him. Just forget I ever said anything.”

  It was completely out of Heather’s character to behave so sensitively, but Jane wasn’t in the mood to question it. “No problem.”

  Their mother came back with the saleslady, who pinned the dress in all the right spots for the seamstress.

  By the time Jane had dressed and said goodbye to her mother and sister, it was already close to ten, and that meant half of her usual writing day was over. She’d have to write in the afternoon now, which was not her most creative time—definitely not after such a stressful morning.

  She was working on a proposal for a follow-up book to The Sex Factor, but in the midst of so much controversy, she was beginning to think she ought to give up writing and pursue a career in dental hygiene or library science.

  Mostly she just longed for her old, boring life, her pre-Sex Factor life, when her biggest worry was how to avoid Sunday-night dinner at her parents’ house and when she never needed bodyguard recommendations from her sister. Jane hadn’t realized how comfortable she’d been in her happy little rut, writing and jogging and searching for the perfect latte, until the controversy surrounding her new book had completely knocked her out of her comfort zone.

  She stood at the corner looking for a cab, and managed to wave one down after a few minutes. Having two appointments downtown that morning, she’d opted not to deal with traffic and parking hell, and had left her own car at home.

  She climbed into the cab and gave him her home address, then sat back and sighed as he pulled away from the curb. On the radio was none other than Jax Reed, wrapping up his show as he did every morning at ten.

  The driver glanced at her in his rearview mirror that sported a dangling Texas state flag air freshener. “You listen to The Jax Reed Show?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Hear the lady was on this morning, crazy broad that wrote that Sex Factor book?”

  Jane sunk down in her seat. “Um, no?”

  “Aw, you missed a good one! All these guys was calling in, giving her hell. Man alive, it was funny.”

  “Hmm.” Jane kept her expression neutral, not particularly interested in implicating herself as the crazy broad in question.

  “I tell you, that woman deserves what she got. Anybody write a book that claims sex is bad for you needs to be taught a lesson, if you ask me.”

  She couldn’t help but ask, “What sort of lesson?”

  The cabby laughed. “Aw, you know, nothing a good roll in the hay couldn’t show her.”

  All the saliva evaporated from Jane’s mouth. She slid her hand into the pocket of her blazer and withdrew the card Jax had given her.

  Lucas Nicoletti, Personal Security Specialist. This was her future life—self-defense lessons, a high-tech home security system and some guy named Lucas to tell her how far apart the bars on her windows should be.

  Jane eyed the creepy cabby, pulled out her cell phone, and dialed the number on the card.

  2

  Men like to think of themselves as useful and in control. Women must decide exactly how a man can be useful in her life, and exactly how much control she will let him believe he wields.

  —Jane Langston, from Chapter One of The Sex Factor

  “I NEED YOUR HELP,” a low, sultry female voice said from the other end of the phone line.

  “Who is this?” Luke Nicoletti asked, but received no immediate answer.

  He tried to place the woman’s voice. It resonated deep in his belly and made him think of hot, slow sex on a summer night. Vaguely familiar, he couldn’t think where he’d heard it before. There was barely a hint of a Texas accent, suggesting a woman who was a transplant or who had either accidentally or purposely learned to speak without it. Having spent most of his life moving back and forth between Texas and South Florida himself, Luke knew all about losing his accent.

  “Hello?” he asked, growing impatient.

  The honk of a car’s horn in the background clued him in that she might be calling on a cell phone or a pay phone.

  She finally spoke again. “M-my name is Jane, and I need to discuss your services with you.” A pause. “As soon as possible.”

  His services? She made it sound like something clandestine, which led him to wonder who was listening in on her conversation, and what she had to be afraid of.

  “Okay, Jane.” That name was obviously an alias, and not even a creative one. “Are you in any danger right now?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “Are you at home?”

  “I will be in fifteen minutes.”

  Luke looked down at the calendar on his desk. The afternoon schedule was empty, because he’d set aside the time to organize files, sort through paperwork—the sort of stuff he always put off doing. But the sound of this woman’s voice instantly appealed to him, and he never could resist a damsel in distress. He knew without thinking twice that he was interested, whatever her problem might be.

  “You’re in luck,” he said. “I can meet you in a half hour, if you want.”

  “That would be great,” she said, breathing what sounded like a sigh of relief.

  “I just have one question—how did you hear about me?”

  Another pause. “My sister, Michael Bell’s fiancée, referred me to you.”

  Michael Bell was Luke’s cousin and childhood playmate. He’d met the fiancée, and if this woman was anything like her sister, she was a real dingbat. But some quality of her voice told him she was different.

  Luke copied down the directions to Alias Jane’s house and hung up the phone. In another ten minutes, he was out of the house and on his way to the suburban neighborhood she’d described, about a twenty-minute drive from where he lived.

  When he reached her neighborhood, he consulted the directions she’d given, memorized the next three turns, and tossed the paper back onto the passenger seat.

  Three stop signs later, Luke turned onto her street and started looking for house numbers. The stree
t was lined with town houses and upscale apartments. He could tell by the assortment of luxury SUVs, Saabs and BMWs parked in the driveways that the neighborhood was probably occupied by overpaid yuppies who spent way too much money on things like balsamic vinegar and aromatic face massages.

  He spotted her corner residence and turned into the driveway. Parked there was an ancient white Mercedes, probably twenty years old and in need of some TLC. He’d bet Alias Jane had inherited the car as a teenager from Daddy and never bothered to buy a new one.

  Luke eyed the windows, the entry and the access to the rear of the town house. Securitywise, prefab places like this were usually in poor shape, with cheap alarm systems slapped in as a selling point. No doubt he could help, if he chose to take the case.

  He rang the doorbell, and moments later he spotted the movement of curtains in the front window, and then a woman asked, “Who is it?” from the other side of the door.

  “Luke Nicoletti, the security specialist you called.”

  A dead bolt clicked, and the door opened.

  There stood a woman of average height, with a wild mop of chestnut curls draping her shoulders, and intelligent brown eyes. She was pretty in a nondescript sort of way, with even features and a nice figure as far as he could tell. The sort of woman who could be prettied up or uglied down without too much effort, but left alone she could blend into the crowd. That was definitely a plus for security.

  “Mr. Nicoletti, thank you for coming on such short notice.” She stepped aside and let him in.

  “No problem.” The inside of the apartment was dark from drawn curtains. The scent of a fruity-smelling candle burning nearby gave the place a sense of hominess, but when Luke’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he could see that the walls were empty and several moving boxes littered the entryway.

  “Moving somewhere?” he asked.

  “Actually I’ve just moved in but haven’t finished unpacking. Can I get you a drink?”

  “Water, please.”

  “Have a seat in the living room and I’ll be right in.”