by Casey Hagen
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Text copyright ©2018 by the Author.
This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Ryann Kerekes. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Imperfect Love remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Ryann Kerekes, or their affiliates or licensors.
For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds
OPERATION:
GIRL NEXT DOOR
Casey Hagen
Hagen Novels, LLC
KENNEBUNK, MAINE
This writing world has given me the opportunity to meet hundreds of people. Some, I call friends, others associates, a select few carry warning labels, and then I found a fellow writer I can call, my person.
My person, Jen Talty, reads my every word, calls me on my bullshit, and makes my world a much better place.
This one is for her!
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“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”
-Bindi Irwin
Table of Contents
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 1
Trevor Myers sat with his leg confidently crossed over his knee, surrounded by eager employees perched around the conference room table. He smiled as he brushed a piece of lint off the breast of his Armani suit jacket. He was finally going to make partner. As the top contracting agent at Williams and Stensky Ad Agency for the past four years, it was about damn time.
He’d just had to wait for someone to leave the company to slide right in on a wave of charming smiles, firm handshakes, endless favors of the female variety, and the boatload of Benjamins he’d raked in.
A whopping forty-eight million in Benjamins to be exact.
He eyed the hungry schmoes around him, all sitting with their three-piece-suit-clad chests puffed out, chins jutting forward, hanging on Davidson Williams’ every word, just hoping for Williams to rain advancement crumbs over them like fairy dust.
Good luck guys, because again, he had this in the bag.
He’d spent four years making himself the best friend of every potential client. He’d been their confidant. He quite possibly had some answering to do in the after-life for the “favors” he provided in this one. Nothing illegal. He wasn’t stupid. Immoral? Yeah, but then, he wasn’t the morality police and if a client was going to cheat on a spouse, they would cheat, whether or not Trevor delivered their flavor-of-the-moment to them.
His phone vibrated. Sliding the phone out of his breast pocket, he spied Monica’s exotic smile and wink. He’d taken the picture of his latest flavor on a friend’s yacht three weeks ago.
He’d cropped out her tits.
A damn shame that. They were possibly the most magnificent pair money could buy. Her caramel skin hid the scars and thank fuck she hadn’t upgraded too far that she looked distorted.
He’d call her back right after Williams handed him the partnership. He’d call in a favor and make an available table appear at La Bernardin. Once he filled her with the French food she loved, he’d feast on her lush curves for dessert. With any luck she’d wear those thigh-high boots of hers that made a man want to fuck the bad…
The sudden quiet of the room interrupted his carnal thoughts. He looked up to find every pair of eyes in the room focused on him.
Rachel aimed a feral smile his way, her arms crossed, and from the way she vibrated in her seat, her crossed leg whipped under the desk. He knew that hostile energy. He’d missed something while his mind wandered, and she’d gained the upper hand. Given the opportunity, she’d go in for the kill. Josh and Mitch looked at him with that “sorry bro” look, their eyebrows raised, and glanced away. Others visibly snickered.
He’d missed something.
“Are you in, Myers?” Davidson Williams’ asked, his eyes narrowed, impatience rolling off him in waves.
What the fuck? In? Why the hell would he ask him if he’s in. It’s a partnership. He’d have to be insane to not be in. Trevor tugged at his suddenly tight tie, glanced around, and pasted a smile on his face. Fake it 'til you make it. That was the saying.
“Of course. I’m so in,” he said with his most winning smile.
Williams leaned back in his chair, and steepled his fingers under his chin. “So you have someone in mind to bring?”
Huh? His smile slipped. “To bring?” His leg fell to the floor as his chair snapped upright.
“Yes, it’s a couples’ retreat after all. If you’ve got your eye on this partnership, that is,” Williams said, raising a salt and pepper brow.
“Uhhh…” Trevor stammered.
Sebastian elbowed him. “You need a girlfriend,” he whispered as he leaned over.
“What?” Trevor whispered back.
“He needs a fucking miracle if you ask me,” Zack muttered from his other side.
“Trevor’s a single guy, Mr. Williams,” Rachel offered with a curl of her shiny blood-red lips.
“Oh, well, that’s too bad. I had high hopes…”
The roaring in Trevor’s ears drowned out Williams’ voice as it all came together in one fucked up picture. He didn’t have the partnership in the bag. He had one last schmooze to make, this time to his boss since that cool forty-eight million hadn’t been enough, and he needed a woman to do it.
A real woman.
At least one who could hold her own in an intelligent conversation for more than two minutes.
“I’m not single,” Trevor said with a feigned conviction born of experience and a touch of sheer panic.
Sebastian gave him a 'poor bastard' look.
Trevor racked his brain. Nervous sweat broke out along his temples. He hadn’t been nervous since he’d been in middle school hiding rogue boners.
Monica didn’t fit the bill. Hell, none of the women he knew did. His sister had warned him that his, as she called them, man-whore ways would eventually bite him in the ass, and it looked like his time had come.
Williams sat forward. “Oh. Who’s the lucky lady?”
Lady? He didn’t know any ladies. He knew fast women with even faster libidos. And none of them were the kind of women you use to impress the boss.
He needed a name. Something. Anything.
A neglected memory cropped up in the corner of his mind and he grasped at that fucker, blew off the cobwebs, and threw out a name from when he’d done his best friend a favor by escorting his painfully shy sister to the prom when no one had asked her. “Piper Bradley, sir.”
“Well, that’s good to hear, son. So it’s serious?”
As serious as
it could be after one date with a brace-faced, curveless girl almost five years younger. “Sure, it is. Been together a year now. Thinking of popping the question,” he called to the front of the conference room with a quick nod of his head and a smile.
Sebastian cleared his throat on a cough. “Shit man, I can’t wait to see how you swing this one.”
Yeah, he couldn’t either.
“Good, good. I can’t wait to meet her. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find the inspiration to move things along and pop the question at the retreat,” Williams said with a gleam in his eye that made it crystal clear that he expected just that.
He needed Piper, a ring, and a legion of prayers that he didn’t screw this up. No problem, he could do this. Call his buddy and ask to borrow his sister. Nothing weird about that at all. Perfectly normal. And…ask said sister’s ring size.
What’s the worst that could happen?
His buddy could punch him in the face.
He pulled out his cell and dialed his best friend, Ryden, his only connection to Piper.
Ryden picked up after two rings. “Hey man, how have you been?”
“Good, good. It’s been a while.” Trevor cleared his throat. “Look, this is going to sound insane, but…any chance I can borrow your sister?”
***
Piper Bradley straightened and rubbed her knotted neck muscles. Her eyes scanned over her latest creation, a ballet gown with a double reinforced bodice for those wonderfully talented dancers who had been heavily blessed in that department.
How many dancers, as they developed, had been body-shamed? Dance instructors, fellow dancers, and society, all hitting them with little digs, disparaging looks, and scathing judgments until they gave up their passion. Well, not anymore.
Dancers were not to have large breasts or wide hips, but through her designs, she was changing that.
No dancer had to go through what she had.
She scanned the dress again, her eyes not missing a single feature. She’d created the waist just an inch above the belly button. It was high enough to conceal evidence of a non-traditional ballerina body, but not high enough to be considered an empire waist, which would have dance critics crying foul when it came to this particular style.
As mesmerizing as it was, something was missing, but no matter how hard she examined it, she couldn’t figure out what.
“Hasn’t come to you yet?” her best friend, and business partner, Rafe, said as he sidled up next to her with a hot, sinfully-rich cup of much-needed espresso.
“No, and I’m ready to tear my hair out.” She took a sip, savoring the sting of the hot liquid, and sighed. “It’s gorgeous, right? I mean the barely-blush ombre color is perfect, just perfect.” She rubbed the mostly nylon fabric between her fingers and blew out a breath.
“We have time, Piper. Plenty of it. You should take a break. Go see your family for a few days. Clear your head. I bet when you come back and take a look, it will jump out at you.”
She hadn’t seen her parents or her brother in a good six months. She wasn't sure she would classify a visit as clearing her head, more like good-natured ribbing directed at her brother over his latest conquests. He’d take it all in stride, for a few minutes. Then, he’d get that gleam in his eye and turn the tables. “Still spending all your free time in those gay bars with Rafe? You sure you don’t have something to tell Mom and Dad?”
And of course that would get her mother going. Not that her parents had anything against that kind of thing, quite the opposite. And her brother knew it. His comment would launch their mother into after-school-special mode and she’d sit her down to tell her that they love her no matter what, and if she has anything to tell them, she should feel comfortable.
Knowing her mother, she’d launch into statistics, too.
If she was really unlucky, her mother would find a way to lure Piper into a gay bar, a place she usually loved, but with her mother?
She shivered.
Piper took Rafe’s hand and kissed his cheek. “I’ll think about it.”
“You do that. I should let you know, Marla called again. Actually, she called the office, and then she managed to hunt down our production company and hounded them, too. I don’t know how long you’ll manage to hold her off.”
“Maybe it’s time to expand and bring on new designers.” Piper bit her lip. The thought of bringing others in terrified her. She loved designing and if she had other designers, her design time could just evaporate with the added responsibility of supervising others. Plus, her fashion line name, Exclusively Piper, really wouldn’t be exclusively Piper anymore, would it? While others may never know that she hadn’t agonized over every sketch, every fabric option, every stitch, she’d know. She’d know and she’d feel like a fraud.
“I don’t know about that. These women are frothing at the mouth for you. They want your designs, your quality, they want the consideration you show every dance body, not just the standard ones. I don’t know if there is another you. Not that I’ve seen anyway.”
High praise from a man who had been in the bowels of the dance fashion industry for a decade before Piper even arrived on the scene. And he’d confirmed what she already knew. Piper leaned her head on Rafe’s shoulder. “I don’t know, you’re just like me.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know about that. I can see your vision, but it’s still all your vision. Maybe the answer is in production. The designs are all you, but you build a team to figure out the execution.”
An interesting idea, one that intrigued and terrified her. Right now, she had a huge waiting list of dance directors and dance mothers just itching to secure her as their child’s dance troupe designer. Most of them thought they could throw money at her and find the price it would take to skip the line.
Piper didn’t have a price. As a matter of fact, those kinds of offers often got people bumped off the list altogether, or at the very least, bumped to the bottom.
Her phone buzzed and Ryden’s smiling face popped up on the screen. Yeesh, it was like he knew they had been talking about her going home for the weekend.
“Hey, Rye, I’m glad you called.”
“You sound good, Pip. I can hear that smile, as always. Now, promise me you’ll keep it as I ask you a whopper of a favor.”
Oh no, not again. “I’m not setting you up with any more of my girlfriends. Do you have any idea how grossly awkward it is to nurse them through heartbreaks after you love ‘em and leave ‘em? I’m going to send you my therapy bills.”
His rich laugh soothed her frayed nerves. Although kidding, to an extent, it had been a slippery slope drying the tears of a couple of her girlfriends as they lamented her brother’s hip prowess between the sheets. Ick.
“It’s not about me this time. It’s about you. Well, sort of. Look, I need to loan you out to a friend.”
She scrunched her nose. Did she just hear him right? “Uhhh…”
“I know, it sounds bad—”
“Yeah, it sounds like you want to loan me out for sex.”
Rafe raised a brow at her, making her smile.
“Oh, God, no, you can’t have sex with him.”
Hmmmm, big brother’s voice laced with a tinge of panic. Oh, now this was going to be fun. “Pssshhh, I can have sex if I want to.”
She relished that strangled sound he made when the ten comments running through his head all tried to claw their way up his throat at once. “Oh, well, um, sure, but Jesus, please don’t.”
“Why? Do I need your permission?”
“Yes, no. I don’t know. Look, it’s not that you can’t, but just don’t. I’m going to have a stroke,” he muttered.
Ahh, she still had it. Laughter bubbled up, and damn did that release feel good.
“For the love of God, if you do, don’t tell me until I’m dead. I don’t want to know.”
“I don’t make it a habit of passing myself around for sexual favors, Rye.”
“Yeah, I made you sound like a ho. Sorry, this i
s weird-ass territory for me. Look, my buddy is trying to secure a promotion and the big boss is fixated on the idea that whoever he makes partner needs to be coupled. He’s looking for someone who’ll stick, and he seems to have it in his head a bachelor, someone without a family to support, can walk away from the company a bit too easily for his liking.”
“This guy can’t find a woman to bring? I mean, what’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing, nothing. The problem is the boss put him on the spot and he threw out your name.”
She reared her head back and looked down at her phone then held it up to her ear again. “Who do you know that would have thrown out my name?” An unfamiliar tingling sensation vibrated under her skin as she waited for the answer.
“Trevor Myers…and you might remember that at one time, he did you a favor.”
Trevor. Her first, middle, and last crush. Five years older than her, but the biggest star Clendon High had ever seen, Trevor shined so damn bright, the rest of the world disappeared.
She’d worshiped him from afar for years. She relished every single word he’d ever spoken to her when he hung out with Rye. She had measured the feeling every man since had given her to the way it felt to have him hold her in his arms at prom.
Still, at twenty-five, every man had come up lacking.
She needed a break.
He needed a favor.
She owed him one.
And maybe after a few days with him, she would find out he was just a mere mortal like the rest of them, and her perspective on men would be restored.
“How many days?” She couldn’t believe she had said the words.
“You’ll do it?”
“If I can fit it in…how many?”
“You’d leave Friday morning and be back Tuesday night. Trevor will pick you up and you’ll drive to his boss’ place in upstate New York.”
The damn timing was perfect. “Any idea what I should plan for while I’m there?”
