by Lisa Plumley
Praise for the novels of Lisa Plumley
HOLIDAY AFFAIR
“Secrets and subterfuge add complexity and zing to this well-crafted, heartwarming story that features a wealth of engaging characters, including five remarkable, memorable children, and great sexual tension. A deliciously satisfying, cocoa-worthy holiday read.”
—Library Journal
“Lisa Plumley’s latest holiday novel delivers. It has warm gooey holiday moments complete with happy children, Christmas traditions such as caroling and decorating Christmas cookies, and, oh yeah, hot and steamy romance. Loaded with fun pop-culture references and witty dialogue, Holiday Affair delivers on entertainment!”
—The Romance Reader (5 Hearts!)
“A delightful story with utterly charming characters. It brings to life the sounds, smells, and tastes of Christmas as it brings together more than just the two main characters for a joyous holiday season.”
—Romantic Times BOOK Reviews (4½ stars)
MY FAVORITE WITCH
“In keeping with Plumley’s tradition of lively romantic comedy (Home for the Holidays), her first foray into the paranormal-witch-world subgenre is quirky, sexy, creative, and hilarious.”
—Library Journal
“Humorous adventures and unexpected romance with a sprinkling of heartwarming moments will keep the reader well entertained in this delightful tale, skillfully crafted by the clever Plumley.”
—Booklist
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
“Lisa Plumley once again gifts readers with a Yuletide story sure to put you in a holiday mood. This is vintage Plumley. She’s created a cast of characters that are a bit eccentric, quirky, and likeable, and spun a story that will make you smile.”
—Lezlie Patterson, McClatchy-Tribune News Service
“A delightful secondary romance adds to the fun in this upbeat romp that is touching, hilarious, and lightly dusted with seasonal charm.”
—Library Journal
LET’S MISBEHAVE
“Once again, Plumley shows her fine flair for comedy as Marisol learns that there is life beyond Rodeo Drive, and the Connelly triplets discover that they can’t scare away every nanny. Full of witty dialogue and hilarious situations, this romp with a heart is certain to please readers.”
—Booklist (starred review; named one of the
Top Ten Romances of 2007)
“Plumley not only delivers a fun-filled premise, clever dialogue, and a delightfully sexy sports-loving hero, she brings to life a memorable, hilarious, and utterly unique heroine readers will adore. This is pure romantic fantasy and an absolutely entertaining novel from start to finish.”
—Romantic Times BOOK Reviews (4½ stars; Top Pick!)
“Let’s Misbehave is funny, romantic, heartwarming, and sexy. It’s fantastic!”
—Joyfully Reviewed
MAD ABOUT MAX
“A cool cast of secondary characters adds much to the story as clever Plumley, who is already known for her entertaining romantic comedies, presents another winner in this humorous and engaging tale about a man who literally loses his shirt, but finds his heart.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Mad About Max kept me laughing from beginning to end. What great characters! Very highly recommended, especially for fans of romantic comedy.”
—Romance Junkies
JOSIE DAY IS COMING HOME
“Turning not-so-perfect, unlikely characters into romance heroes and heroines is Lisa Plumley’s forte, and she once again delivers a zany cast who will make you laugh!”
—The State newspaper
“In this heartwarming, often humorous story, the feisty Josie proves that you can go home again—if you’ve got the right stuff. And once again, the talented Plumley, whose books include Perfect Switch, proves that when it comes to writing romantic comedy, few do it better.”
—Booklist
Also by Lisa Plumley
MAKING OVER MIKE
FALLING FOR APRIL
RECONSIDERING RILEY
PERFECT TOGETHER
PERFECT SWITCH
JOSIE DAY IS COMING HOME
ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS
MAD ABOUT MAX
SANTA BABY
(anthology with Lisa Jackson,
Elaine Coffman, and Kylie Adams)
I SHAVED MY LEGS FOR THIS?!
(anthology with Theresa Alan,
Holly Chamberlin, and Marcia Evanick)
LET’S MISBEHAVE
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
MY FAVORITE WITCH
HOLIDAY AFFAIR
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
Melt Into You
LISA PLUMLEY
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Praise for the novels of Lisa Plumley
Also by Lisa Plumley
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Dear Reader,
Together for Christmas,
Copyright Page
To Peter Senftleben,
with thanks for all his enthusiasm,
encouragement, and insightful editing!
And to John Plumley,
with all my love, now and forever.
Chapter 1
September 2002
La Jolla, California
Damon Torrance believed in a lot of things.
He believed in perfect surf, unassailable integrity, and the ultimate Baja fish taco. He believed in making connections, making things happen, and making a never-fail margarita (it was all about the blue agave tequila). He believed that nudity was better than wearing … anything at all, no matter how pricey the clothes were or where you happened to be going.
He believed that rules were made to be broken and that whoever had said virtue was its own reward probably hadn’t tried hard enough to be bad first. He believed that person shouldn’t have made that decision so damn hastily. Or so publicly. Because that idiot had ruined it for everyone else who just wanted to have a good time.
When it came right down to it, more than anything else, Damon believed that life was too short to waste time with anything less than hundred-percent pleasure. Plain and simple.
That’s why, when he found himself spending a week with an attractive, capable, flirtatious, and ultra-available journalist (she made it bluntly, sexily, one-step-short-of-manhandling-him obvious that she was single) who was writing a profile of him and his family’s company, Torrance Chocolates, for Oceanside Living magazine’s “Getting to Know …” feature, Damon took the only reasonable action.
He let her seduce him. On his desk. In full view of the glittering Pacific Ocean outside. Right between his stapler and his office phone, with his brand-new, full-size desk calendar for a cushion. Not that Kimberly (the journalist) bothered to scout a prime location before she smiled, dropped her notepad, and lun
ged at him.
It would have been rude to say no, Damon reasoned. So he met her kiss with a sliding, seductive, nice-to-meet-you lip-lock of his own … and before he knew it, they were “Getting to Know …” each other pretty damn well. Kimberly’s warmth was a sharp contrast to the brisk ocean breeze coming in off the Pacific. Her perfume added synthetic flowers and spice to the sugary smells of the confectionary shop downstairs. Her breath panted over him. Her I’m-a-professional suit jacket hit the floor. So did his I’m-supposed-to-be-working shirt. They kissed a little more. Then they kissed again, more passionately.
A discordant electronic jangle startled them both.
Kimberly quit kissing him. She frowned. “What was that?”
“Who cares?” Right on cue, it happened again. At the sound, Damon glanced sideways. “Oh. It’s my father’s BlackBerry.”
At her mystified expression, Damon nodded at the device.
“It’s used to get e-mails and appointments on the go. I gave it to my dad as a birthday present, but he didn’t take to the technology the way I hoped he would. That’s why it’s in here and not with him.” Damon smiled at her. Confidingly, he added, “I think he’s afraid he’s going to drop ‘that expensive gadget’ into a vat of bittersweet chocolate ganache or something.”
It was semi-likely. Jimmy Torrance spent most of his time and all his creativity on the family business. That’s how he’d turned a tiny seaside sweetshop into one of San Diego’s favorite “hidden treasures” for thirty years running. That’s how he’d earned himself the very office that he shared with Damon today.
“Aw. You gave your dad a birthday present?” Kimberly cooed, running her fingers over his bare chest. “That’s so sweet!”
“It’s not that unusual, actually. He is my dad, after all. I give my mom something on her birthday every year, too.”
Kimberly shook her head, seeming inordinately impressed with his filial devotion. “I knew you were more than just a studly corporate hotshot.” More stroking. “You’re a nice guy, too! I have to say, when I heard I’d be profiling the company’s head of Internet development, I was expecting to meet someone a lot more …” Here, she broke off. She gave him a thorough once-over. She shrugged. “Well … geekier.”
Damon grinned. “You can’t judge a book by its cover. Any second now, I might start talking about byte serving, hypertext transfer protocol, and compression scheme negotiation.”
“I have a better idea.” Kimberly slid her hands lower. She cupped his ass, then hauled him nearer. “Don’t talk at all.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Agreeably, Damon concentrated on using his mouth for more diverting activities than talking. But even as he did, his dad’s BlackBerry chimed again. Damon began remembering something—something he ought to have remembered earlier.
At the same time, a familiar voice floated down the corridor outside his office. “Damon? Well, I guess you’d say he’s a genius,” his father was telling someone proudly. “His official promotion was a long time coming. He resisted it, but—”
Whatever else Jimmy said was lost to Damon. He was too busy simultaneously enjoying the naughty way Kimberly was nibbling on his ear and trying to remember what his father had said earlier.
All that came to mind was his father saying, as he’d done a million times a day since Damon had been old enough to outwit his first babysitter and go looking for adventure, “You’ve got to focus, Damon. Focus! Try to behave for once. All right?”
But all those requests were bona fide lost causes, and they both knew it. Who did his father think he’d been raising all this time? One of the Backstreet Boys? A new Disney teenybopper idol?
Hell, no. There was no fun to be had in being good. Damon knew that. There was no glory to be found in staying focused, either. All that mattered was looking ahead … and maybe finding out if Kimberly’s freckles meandered all the way to her cleavage. Curiously, Damon started unbuttoning her shirt.
The voices outside grew louder. His father—and his unknown guest—were coming closer. Probably to this office. Damon swore.
With a mighty effort, he wrenched himself away from Kimberly. He peeked down at his desk calendar. It was rumpled. It had slid pretty far sideways. But Damon could still make out something handwritten on the square representing today’s date.
There, right next to Kimberly’s delectable bare thigh, were the words administrative assistant and the time, 9:30.
Having deciphered his father’s unmistakable scrawl, Damon blinked in surprise. “You can write on these things?”
Kimberly laughed. “That’s what they’re for, silly.”
“Oh. I thought it was decorative. But in my own defense, I don’t spend much time in the office.” Momentarily distracted again, Damon lowered his gaze to the cleavage he’d revealed, framed now by Kimberly’s silky unbuttoned shirt. He looked at the high, high slit on her Ally McBeal-style miniskirt (damn, he loved that trend), then stroked his fingers over her knee. “It made a really fine landing pad, though. You were clever enough to discover that for us.”
“It was my pleasure. Believe me.” Kimberly gave him another sultry look. She seemed to specialize in them. “Now … where were we?”
“Right about … here.” Damon squeezed her thigh. Another kiss kept him pinned atop her, even as he heard footsteps coming nearer. Just then, he didn’t care. Life was all about enjoyment.
“… and this is where you’ll be spending most of your time,” Jimmy Torrance said as he opened the office door. “I’m afraid you might be stuck inside a lot, but the view is awfully nice.”
“Oh, yes, it is nice,” his father’s female guest said in an appreciative tone. Her footsteps preceded his into the office. “I love the ocean!” There was a pause. Then, in a wry voice, she added, “Will the guy who’s humping like a bunny on the desk be here every day? Or is that a one-time-only thing?”
No one ever answered her question. Natasha Jennings would have been lying if she’d said she wasn’t disappointed by that.
In the few minutes it took for Jimmy Torrance to hastily cross the room, shut off his dinging BlackBerry on the other unoccupied desk, and confer with the desktop Casanova and his nearly naked female partner, though, she did learn several interesting facts about her new workplace.
First of all, she learned that either today was Nooky Monday or Torrance Chocolates was a lot more freewheeling than she’d anticipated. Second, she learned that it was both busier and much more charming—given its location inside a two-story former surf shop in La Jolla—than she’d foreseen based on her initial interview. Third, she learned that although her official job title was administrative assistant, they might as well have had miracle worker printed on her business cards.
Because so far, all she’d done was tour the shop, the chocolate-making kitchen downstairs, and the several makeshift offices upstairs, and already Natasha could see that Torrance Chocolates needed help. They had plenty of drive, heart, and inspiration, that was true; but their transition from mom-and-pop shop to burgeoning corporate power player was clearly overwhelming them. At the moment, they were short of staff, space, and direction. To manage those things, they needed her.
Jimmy Torrance and the rest of his staff might not know it yet, but the smartest thing they’d ever done was choose Natasha from among the dozens of (curiously bodacious-looking) applicants she’d seen during the open interviews last month.
In fact, it occurred to her, most of those applicants had looked a lot like the woman who’d been doing the horizontal desktop tango a minute ago. They’d been made up, perfumed, and dressed to attract. They’d worn super-high stilettos and trendily flat-ironed hair. Most inexplicably, they’d been unable to say the name of their potential future boss, Damon Torrance, without giggling and trading giddy, girlish glances with each other.
All in all, the experience had been a lot like interviewing for a job as head groupie for a rock band. Which, in retrospect, made Natasha wonder why Jimmy Torrance had chosen her. Bec
ause while she did have her share of vanity—and her very own flat iron, lip gloss, and high heels—what she didn’t have was the kind of va-va-voom necessary to hold the attention of a rock star … or the corporate equivalent of one.
Not that she cared about that too much, Natasha reminded herself. She didn’t need nonstop reinforcement of her own attractiveness. Especially not now and especially not at work.
As the daughter of parents who’d both held down more than one job on several occasions—just to make ends meet—Natasha understood the value of hard work. She’d made it through high school and graduated from community college and then UCSD, all while working full-time to pay her tuition.
This was her chance to kick off her career, and Natasha wanted to succeed. Admittedly, she was starting at the bottom, but still … she was only twenty-four. She was here. She was in at a growing company. Unlike her competition, she hadn’t had to outfit herself in sexed-up “office attire” like a hot-to-trot fugitive Victoria’s Secret model to make it happen, either.
Speaking of hot-to-trot …
Natasha gave the office-hopping Lothario a second look. He was probably only a couple of years older than she was, but he’d made her first day at Torrance Chocolates memorable, that’s for sure. She wondered if he made the rounds of all the offices and all the different desks, or if he’d come in here solely for the spectacular view—which, in hindsight, had only been improved by the addition of him, looking all shirtless and muscular and dark-haired and intense, doing his thing in the middle of it.
Either way, she doubted this particular incident was his first time getting lucky at work. Whoever he was, he had that aura about him—a quality that made people want to be close to him. Looking at him more carefully now only confirmed Natasha’s initial impression: this was a man for whom things came easily, whether those things were women, good times, or success.
