Tempt Him

by Jaymes, Olivia

  Tempt Him

  The Man Trap Series

  Book One

  By

  Olivia Jaymes

  www.OliviaJaymes.com

  TEMPT HIM

  Copyright © 2018 by Olivia Jaymes

  Kindle Edition

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  Tempt Him

  I’m Mia and I’ve been in love with Joshua Henry for as long as I can remember. Since the day he picked me up off the sidewalk after I fell off of my bike, I haven’t been able to see anyone but him.

  Unfortunately, Josh sees me as the sweet girl from next door, not a romantic partner. I’m stuck in the friend zone and there isn’t an exit in sight.

  But now everything has changed. After a near death experience, I’m a different woman. The kind of female that doesn’t sit back and wait. I’m going after what I want, and what I want is Josh Henry.

  My sister Shelby – the psychological genius – has written a how-to manual to help me. It’s the perfect blueprint to make the perfect man fall in love with me.

  I’m setting a man trap… and I’m doing it by the book. Care to join me?

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Book

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  About the Author

  Other Books by Olivia Jaymes

  CHAPTER ONE

  Mia

  I was late again. It wasn’t unusual and my friends were used to it. For all I knew, they had told me a meeting time fifteen minutes early so I wouldn’t be tardy. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be punctual. I did. It simply never seemed to work out. I was born at forty-two weeks and have been running late ever since. A fact my mother hasn’t let me forget in all of my thirty-one years. As far as she is concerned, I ruined Christmas and New Year’s.

  Take today, for example, this was an outing I’d been looking forward to all week. I don’t get to spend near enough time with my friends these days and we’d planned a long, leisurely lunch in one of the trendy bistros in the downtown area. I was planning to blow a weekend’s worth of calories on dessert alone. The chocolate cake was already calling my name.

  I had dressed in plenty of time but then my neighbor stopped me on the way to my car to talk about how I felt about the new sidewalks they were putting in. Was I for or against? Which is why I was jogging down the sidewalk in my lime green Converse tennis shoes and sweating in my white cotton sweater and denim jacket.

  It was autumn and there was a definite nip in the air. Fall was my absolute favorite season. Even in a little university town like Arborville – smack dab in the middle of corn and cows – there was charm. The leaves were beginning to turn and thoughts of summer fun were fading quickly.

  I made my rushed apologies to my sister Shelby and our friends Emmy and Ashlyn. I wasn’t sure just how long we’d all been friends or how we all became a group, but of course Shelby and I were sisters, so we were sort of forced to be friends. Shelby and Mia Kelly, the two redheaded girls on the block. We’d taken a lot of shit about our hair color.

  Shelby and I met Ashlyn in a yoga class years ago and Ashlyn and Emmy have been friends since childhood. Somehow that translated into our tight-knit little quartet of cozy estrogen.

  My friends had ordered me an iced tea which I gratefully gulped after sitting down.

  “We knew you’d be late, Mia,” Shelby said with a roll of her eyes that would have made a teenage girl proud. “But now that you’re here I can tell everyone my amazing news.”

  “News?” I parroted. What other news could she have? She’d already announced her engagement a few months ago. Was she pregnant, too?

  My sister reached into that oversized handbag like Mary Poppins and pulled out a three-ring binder. “This is it. I finished it.”

  “It?” I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Shelby was always talking. I couldn’t remember every single thing she’d ever said. I wouldn’t have room in my brain for things like weather and which fork to use.

  “My book,” she said excitedly, flipping open the plastic pink cover. She was practically vibrating in the chair. “I finished my book. The one about relationships and finding the right man.”

  I leaned over and scanned the title page.

  How to Trap a Man by Dr. Shelby Kelly.

  I looked up at my sister in disbelief. “A man trap? It sounds…archaic. And misogynistic.”

  “It’s supposed to be a fun title, not serious. I guess it could change.” She had a pleading look on her face that usually melted any resistance. With other people, but not me. “C’mon, you all swore you’d help me if I ever finished. Well, I’ve finished. Now I need testers for the assignments that I give the readers.”

  No way. We had no way of knowing when we’d made that agreement that Shelby would ever finish. In fact, I was pretty sure we were all counting on her being far too busy to ever complete an entire book.

  “I know what happened to your last guinea pig. He’s buried under Mom’s rose bushes.”

  Shelby huffed her disapproval. “He died of old age. It was nothing I did.”

  “Old age? He lived with us for six months. Hardly a geriatric.”

  “He was old when I got him. So you’re not going to help me? Even though you promised? I can’t believe this. I think I need new friends. I completed the biggest project of my entire life and this is the response I get? I’m disgusted with all of you.”

  We weren’t being very nice but everyone sitting at that table knew what was going to happen. We were all going to say no and then Shelby was going to mention it every time we were together until one by one we all gave in. I was convinced that my sister enjoyed the dance and that if we all just said yes, she’d be slightly let down.

  I lifted my iced tea and took a dainty sip, studiously avoiding her gaze. “I’m very busy right now. Maybe in a few months. I’m kind of off men at the moment.”

  I could feel the weight of my older sister’s stare. She was bossy and it made me crazy. My life wasn’t exactly perfect but hers? Practically a fairytale. She had a PhD in psychology. She taught part time at the local junior college, had a thriving private practice, was working on a book, did Pilates, cooked like a gourmet, and had a handsome and successful fiancé that she’d met five years ago at a wine tasting event for charity. Yep,
wine tasting.

  See? Perfect. I was surrounded and couldn’t escape. Right now that annoying big sister was about to say something that we would both regret. I could feel it coming but I couldn’t stop it.

  “Are you still in love with him?”

  Shelby had cut straight to the heart of the matter. No beating around the bush.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes. Are you?”

  The other girls had fallen silent. No one was going to rescue me. They all knew who Shelby was talking about.

  The one man that I’d been avoiding for the last month.

  Joshua Henry.

  He’d lived in the house next door to ours when I was growing up. Five years older and always and forever out of my league. Tall and sexy, with dark curly hair that always seemed to need a trim, he was my dream man. And by dream man I mean that the only way I’d ever be getting him was in my dreams.

  Over the years we’d fallen into a friendship of sorts and we hanged out quite a bit. But to save my sanity, I’d stopped returning his calls and texts. I’d even stopped frequenting the places I knew he’d be. It was a drastic step, but I’d had to do it for my own sake. A woman can only take so much.

  “We should order.” I picked up my menu and buried my nose in it which was ridiculous. We all knew the menu by heart. “I think I might try the risotto.”

  “You hate risotto,” Shelby said. “Now answer the question.”

  “I’m not one of your patients, Shel. I am your sister.” I pulled the menu down so I could look her in the eye. “And I could like risotto. Maybe I’ve tried it and loved it.”

  “Have you?”

  “You’re annoying.”

  “In other words, no. So do you still love him? It’s okay if you do.”

  My sister was like a dog with a bone and she wasn’t going to shut the hell up until I answered. Honestly.

  “Yes, can we order now?”

  Ashlyn, the soft-hearted one in the group, immediately reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “Oh honey, I’m so sorry. Unrequited love is awful.”

  I shrugged, not wanting to make this a bigger deal than it already was. “It’s fine. He keeps calling and I keep ignoring him.”

  Shelby turned to the other two women. “She’s been in love with him since we were kids.”

  That was true, although I don’t know why she was saying it. Ashlyn and Emmy already knew. Everybody knew except Josh. The big bonehead.

  “I fell off my bicycle and he helped me up. I’d scraped my knee.”

  For me it had been a magical moment. Josh lifting me up in his strong arms. I had been about eight and he’d been a mature thirteen, practically a grown man in my eyes. I wasn’t sure why I was repeating the story because they’d heard it all before during a drunken night watching chick flicks where I had decided that I’d had enough watching Josh date other women. It was that night that I’d found something of a backbone and not returned his latest text. Or any of the ones after. You would think it would have gotten easier after awhile but it hadn’t. I missed him and thought about him far more than I should.

  “And love began,” Emmy replied in a sour tone. She was the cynical one of our group. “That man has been nothing but trouble for you. I am in full support of you not returning any of his calls. You need to find a new man, a better one.”

  The waitress had had enough of their stalling. With toe tapping impatience, she planted herself at Shelby’s elbow, her pencil posed to take their order. It was always the same.

  Emmy didn’t have to worry about her weight because she was constantly on the run with her job as an event planner and burned calories like a squirrel on Red Bull. Frankly, I think calories are terrified of Emmy. They won’t come anywhere near her. She ordered the double cheeseburger and fries with a side of cholesterol medicine.

  Ashlyn, like myself, constantly battled the scale and we both liked dessert. She ordered the grilled chicken sandwich with the special sauce on the side. As the owner of the coolest retro shop in town, she didn’t get a chance to work out as much as she’d like to.

  Shelby never worried about anything in her life, convinced it would all work out for the best, so she ordered chicken smothered in cheese and mushrooms along with a baked potato. Butter only, because she said sour cream just sounded like it didn’t taste good. I wasn’t sure if she was aware that it was in cheesecake but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.

  I ordered the chicken stir-fry but I was absolutely having the dark chocolate cake afterward. I wasn’t going to share it, either. I had a fork and I wasn’t afraid to use it as a weapon.

  The waitress headed back to the kitchen and Shelby clasped her hands together, smiling widely. “Emmy, I think you have a fabulous idea. We need to find Mia a new guy. We can use the book to do it.”

  We all groaned simultaneously. People in happy relationships always think it’s so easy to find a mate, but it’s not. Considering the last several dates I’d been on I was beginning to think it was downright impossible.

  I was not going to be railroaded into road testing Shelby’s ridiculous book. I couldn’t even look at it without cringing. Man trap. What self-respecting woman would trap a man? Not me.

  “No. You’ll need to find another victim. Oops, I mean volunteer.”

  Shelby snapped the binder closed. “Do you remember that party you threw your senior year of high school? The one when Mom and Dad were visiting Nana? You know…the one I never told them about?”

  I narrowed my eyes and gave my sister the meanest look I could. She was playing dirty pool.

  “Is that a threat?”

  Shelby’s fingers drummed on the table. “I’m not making any threats. I’m just saying that I never told Mom and Dad.”

  Because my sister had been holding onto that for this very moment. I wouldn’t forget this. This wasn’t our usual game of me saying no and then finally saying yes at some point down the road. Shelby was playing in the big leagues when it came to this book.

  “I’m an adult now. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Then it won’t matter if I tell them. Will it?”

  She thought I would fold like a cheap tent. She was going to be disappointed. I was going to be gracious and happy for my sister even though she was a low-down dirty dog for trying to blackmail me. Two could play that game. She had secrets too, and as the little sister I’d spent many years cataloguing every one of them. She had no idea who she was dealing with. I’d kept my eyes open and I knew stuff. Big stuff.

  “It won’t matter at all. By the way, did you ever tell Mom and Dad about that night at the drive-in with Steve Baker? It was such a great story. Now shouldn’t we have a toast and celebrate your book?”

  I really did feel that we should celebrate even when Shelby annoyed the hell out of me. She was amazing and I loved her. But I wasn’t going to be forced to humiliate myself with men just so my sister could rack up another accomplishment on her long and prestigious resume.

  At least not right away. She was going to have to work for it, and since she’d brought up that party, I wouldn’t mind some begging and groveling, too.

  I was far too busy avoiding Josh to spend time finding another man.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Josh

  I was feeding the parking meter in the downtown area when my phone went off. I was supposed to be meeting a woman I’d been dating for a few months for lunch. I’d been busting my ass all week and I planned to have some fun this weekend and relax. Running my own business was great but sometimes it could become all-consuming. I needed to slow down every now and then, but I never seemed to.

  “What do you want, Luke?”

  Luke was my younger brother by eighteen months and also my best friend when he wasn’t being an ass. After hating corporate America, he’d come to work with me at my video game design business about two years ago. Working with family always made for an interesting and often frustrating workday but he did a damn good job of keeping all the nu
mbers straight. I hated numbers.

  “I want to know why I’m in the office today and you aren’t.”

  “Because I’m the boss?”

  That wasn’t going to work with Luke.

  “Whatever. Seriously, you have a deadline looming and you’re cool as a cucumber. Did you stay up every night all week and get the storyline done? Have you been hiding that from me?”

  The storyline. The first part of my game design and the bedrock that the interface rested on. If it wasn’t right, no cool graphics could save it.

  “I’ll get it done.”

  I could hear Luke’s exasperated sigh in my ear. I wasn’t all that happy about it either, but that’s why I was taking some time off. I needed to recharge my creative batteries.

  “Has Mia called you back?”

  No, and that was unusual. She might show up everywhere fifteen minutes late but she was excellent about returning calls. However, I’d left over a dozen messages and she hadn’t returned one of them. I’d started checking the local paper to make sure she hadn’t shown up in the obituaries.

  Mia had always been a sweet kid growing up next to me and my parents. Funny and interesting to talk to. With her red hair and freckles she was teased by some of the neighborhood kids and those big glasses she always wore didn’t help things. Or the fact that she always had her nose stuck in a book. It was all that reading though that made her so fun to talk to. She seemed to know something about everything and she knew a hell of a lot about history. That’s why I needed her help. My new video game was set in the Roaring Twenties and I needed her expertise.

  “Not yet. I’ll send her another message. If she doesn’t return this one, I’ll call her sister Shelby. I hope Mia isn’t sick or hurt.”

  I was positive that if something really bad had happened I would have heard about it from my mom and dad who still lived next to Mia’s parents. I think my mom and her mom had coffee together just about every morning, rain or shine.

  “Maybe she’s got a boyfriend and he’s keeping her busy.”