Some Like It Hotter

by Isabel Sharpe

  She takes hers tall, dark and extra hot!

  To coffee-shop owner Eva Meyer, the California coast is beautiful, mellow…and boring. The solution? Swapping lives—and coffee shops—with her twin sister for one month. Now Eva’s settled in the bustling Big Apple, where she can order anything…anytime.

  And what Eva really wants is the extra hot, topped-with-whipped-cream sexiness that is Ames Cooke.

  While Eva is convinced she’s found her perfect cup of Delicious Man, Ames isn’t quite sure what to do with the quirky little number who’s charged into his life. He’s supposed to be attracted to someone cool and reserved—like her sister. But Eva has the unnerving ability to turn things seriously hot and steamy. Besides, it’s only for one month. And like every good coffee addict, Ames can stop whenever he chooses….

  He was hot—for her!

  Eva’s cheeks were flushed, her blue eyes snapped and she’d spent nearly the whole hour tempting him. Her sweater had all but slipped off one shoulder, exposing smooth, sexy skin.

  He better go home before he did something stupid. Like kiss her. Or more.

  “Actually—” he glanced at his watch “—I should call it a night.”

  Then he turned to smile and kiss her cheek in a platonic good-night.

  Come on, Ames. Get the hell out while you can.

  “I had fun, Eva.” He reached for the door handle. “Thanks for— What are you doing?”

  “Who, me?” She’d swung her crazily booted leg over both of his and had managed to straddle him in the cab. “I’m just saying you’re welcome, Ames.”

  “Jeez, you can’t—”

  Yes, she could. She was already kissing him, hot, hungry kisses, pressing her body close.

  He was a guy. That got a reaction. A fairly immediate and large one.

  Wait, there was some reason he was going to avoid getting physical with her. Now he couldn’t remember what it was. In fact, his hands were at her waist, traveling down to explore the pink skirt.

  Oh, man.

  Dear Reader,

  I had so much fun writing Some Like It Hotter and playing with New York/California stereotypes to create a story of contrasts. I grew up in central New Jersey, and my husband is from California, so we are well aware that not everyone in New York is driven and harsh, and not everyone in California is a surfer dude, but those types served my story theme and provided a lot of fun, so I didn’t flinch.

  Eva Meyer and her twin sister, Chris, learn a lot about themselves by switching coasts, coffee shops and lives. I hope you enjoy Eva’s experience trading a tiny West Coast town for the nonstop thrill ride of New York City. And I hope in February you’ll look for her sister’s story, in which former New Yorker Chris tries to cope with the slow pace of life in California and too many hot men!

  Cheers,

  Isabel Sharpe

  www.IsabelSharpe.com

  Some Like It Hotter

  Isabel Sharpe

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Isabel Sharpe was not born with pen in hand like so many of her fellow writers. After she quit work to stay home with her firstborn son and nearly went out of her mind, she started writing. After more than thirty novels for Harlequin, a second son and eventually a new, improved husband, Isabel is more than happy with her choices these days. She loves hearing from readers. Write to her at www.isabelsharpe.com.

  Books by Isabel Sharpe

  HARLEQUIN BLAZE

  376—MY WILDEST RIDE

  393—INDULGE ME

  444—NO HOLDING BACK

  533—WHILE SHE WAS SLEEPING…

  539—SURPRISE ME…

  595—TURN UP THE HEAT

  606—LONG SLOW BURN

  619—HOT TO THE TOUCH

  678—JUST ONE KISS

  704—LIGHT ME UP

  714—FEELS SO RIGHT

  761—HALF-HITCHED

  771—BACK IN SERVICE

  792—NOTHING TO HIDE

  Other titles by this author available in ebook format.

  To get the inside scoop on Harlequin Blaze and its talented writers, be sure to check out blazeauthors.com.

  To Paul Miller and Lissy Matthews of Colectivo Coffee, who helped me tremendously by answering all my pesky java questions.

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Excerpt

  Prologue

  THE SUN WAS setting over the Pacific. Eva Meyer sat on Aura Beach on California’s Central Coast, a cup of her own blend of orange chamomile tea in hand. The colors were fantastic, a soaring ceiling of pink, orange and burgundy, reflected in the clouds and across the water. Over her cheeks blew a gentle, fresh September breeze. Pelicans winged past, long necks doubled back, wings arcing, heading south. Any moment the magic of a dolphin breaching the ocean’s restless surface could happen.

  She was bored stiff.

  As a matter of fact, she’d been feeling off center and uncharacteristically low for the past several months. Around here they’d put her funk down to some interruption in her chi or planets out of alignment or angry spirits or whatever mystical forces might be at work—but her sensible midwestern roots were looking for a more concrete reason. Maybe she’d been working too hard, maybe she hadn’t been social enough, definitely she hadn’t been getting enough sex. But boredom? That kind of thing wasn’t easy to admit. Only the Boring Get Bored had been her accountant mother’s mantra, which Eva had lived by—often to an excess her mother didn’t approve of.

  But today, during this relatively rare moment of relaxation and reflection, the ugly truth had burst from its hiding place and smacked her across the face.

  Ow.

  For the past three of her twenty-eight years she’d been the proud owner of the Slow Pour coffee shop in the tiny town of Carmia, building a decent business, honing its identity, growing its reputation. Though she totally loved the shop, loved the friendly vibe it put out in the community for residents and tourists alike, was totally into the challenge of keeping the business afloat, underneath it all she was...

  Bored.

  How could this happen? Years of learning beside her father, coffee scientist Dr. Meyer, decades of traveling to major coffee-producing locations—Hawaii, Ethiopia, Brazil, Indonesia—had fostered her dream. All her life she’d known she’d escape the Midwest for the serenity, beauty and open-mindedness of the California coast, that she’d be her own boss with her own shop...she was living a fantasy come true! How many people got to do that?

  Her fraternal twin sister, Chris, older by a whole two minutes and as glamorous and driven as Eva was nonconformist and laid-back, had made her same dream come true in New York City, buying the shop NYEspresso a couple of years after Eva rescued a sad little bankrupt souvenir shop and transformed it into Slow Pour. You didn’t see Chris whining after achieving her life’s goal. What kind of spoiled brat would have it all and still be wanting more?

  She sighed, sipping her tea, watching the sky turn Crayola colors...

  Bored.

  * * *

  “UNGH.” CHRIS FLOPPED onto the narrow bed in her small bedroom in the tiny apartment on East Eighty-Seventh Street that she shared with her roommate, Natalie. Outside her window a siren blared, horns honked, a driver shouted, “Get the heck out of the way, please!”

  Only he didn’t say please. Or heck.

  She was exhausted.

&nb
sp; Not fun to admit. Or to experience. She’d always had the energy of an ant. Or a hummingbird. Or a gazelle. Now she was more like a cow. Or cat. Or sloth. For a while she thought maybe her low mood was due to the death of her favorite season, summer, and the approaching long winter months. Or maybe residual disappointment over her breakup with John, though that had been weeks ago, and they’d only dated four months before realizing they were not so meant to be after all.

  But today she’d actually turned down an invitation to go dancing with friends from her Zumba class. Instead, she’d chosen to come home, eat a bowl of soup and stare at the wall, because she was...

  Exhausted.

  No, no, this was all wrong! Since when did anything even slow her down, let alone wear her out? She’d known her whole life that she’d end up in a major city someday. Noise, bustle and a certain amount of chaos were her bread and butter, her peanut butter and Nutella, her French roast and cream. Bright lights, big city—oh, yeah, bring it on! And had she ever. For the past three years, she’d been part of the amazing ride that was New York City, working first as a manager at Fine Grind and last year buying the store and making it her own, NYEspresso. She hadn’t been turning an amazing profit, but hadn’t run it into the ground, either. Her dream had come true! Somebody pinch her!

  No, someone punch her for all this whining. Her free-spirited twin, Eva, had also achieved coffee nirvana, and she was having a blast, not a boohoo-fest.

  Chris lifted her head, gave up, let it drop back on the pillow.

  Nothing helped. She was simply...

  Exhausted.

  * * *

  THE SUN’S GLOWING disk disappeared over the horizon. Eva hauled her cell out of her pocket to call her sister. Born on Christmas Eve—hence their names—on the surface Chris and Eva were about as different as two souls could be, except for their shared love of all things coffee. But they still had the deep bond of most twins. Chris might not understand Eva’s off mood, but she’d be supportive and helpful, even if it was just to tell Eva to snap out of it.

  Maybe that was all Eva needed.

  Chris picked up immediately. “Hey, twin, how goes it?”

  “Okay.” Eva frowned. “What’s wrong? You don’t sound like yourself.”

  “You don’t sound like yourself, either.”

  “No? Who do I sound like? Wait, don’t tell me. Scarlett Johansson.”

  “I’m thinking...Eva with sharp edges. Who do I sound like?”

  “Chris dulled down.”

  “Tell me what’s going on?” They both spoke at once.

  “You first.”

  “No, you.”

  Eva giggled. Just hearing her twin’s voice made her feel better. “I’m sitting on warm sand watching the sky fade from magenta to coral to pink to navy. There are palm trees behind me, waves making a great swishing sound in front of me...”

  Chris snorted. “And something is wrong?”

  “I know.” She grabbed a handful of sand, let it flow through her fingers. “I’m restless, not feeling peaceful. Been this way for a while, just something not quite right.”

  “Time for new hair?”

  Eva grinned at their joke girlie remedy for whatever was wrong. “I bought a ton of new accessories to decorate it with. Didn’t help.”

  “Accessories? I’m afraid to ask what these are like.” Her sister made a shuddering noise. “Is Slow Pour doing well?”

  “Not great, not bad.”

  “Man trouble?”

  “No man to cause any.”

  “Ha. Maybe that’s your problem.”

  Eva snorted. “Could be. What’s been going on with you?”

  Her sister sighed. “I don’t know. Just...lethargy.”

  “I can’t picture that at all. You’re usually a blur of a person.”

  “I feel like I need a change.”

  “Me, too.” Eva pulled her hoodie closer as the air chilled with the fading light. “I moved to California because it’s so laid-back, but sometimes it feels like nothing happens, and the nothing that happens does it really slowly.”

  “That sounds like heaven.” Her sister sighed. “Everything is always happening around here, all at top speed.”

  “That sounds like heaven.” Eva lay back on the sand, looking up into the night sky, and a crazy, impractical, ridiculous thought made her giggle.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Since we can’t leave our shops to go on an extended vacation—maybe we should just switch lives for a month.”

  Silence. Then both sisters gasped. “Oh, my God!”

  1

  “CHRIS! I’M HERE. I’m calling from your apartment!” Eva dumped her bags in Chris’s tiny foyer, which wasn’t really more than the beginning of a narrow hallway. She’d visited her sister only once in New York, shortly after Chris moved here. Generally they saw each other in Wisconsin when they got together with their parents for the holidays.

  “Let me guess. It’s much bigger than you remember.” Chris’s voice dripped sarcasm.

  “Uh...not really.” Eva peeked around a corner toward the kitchen, the size of her closet, and the living room, which struggled to contain a chair, love seat and coffee table. “But it’s got so much charm!”

  “Oh, is that charm? I thought charm was your house, with the plants and flowers growing everywhere and the ocean smell outside. Try and see how charming my place is in February when it’s dark and freezing for weeks on end. I can actually run from one end of your place to another. Run! It’s a real house!”

  “A tiny house. Which you have to take care of.” She hoisted her bags again, phone between her chin and ear, and marched down the hall, then pushed open the first door. “Your bedroom is adorable.”

  “You can barely turn around—you call that adorable? I can do jumping jacks in yours! I can see an expanse of floor! And then I can take a dozen steps and be outside! And to the beach in five minutes! No elevator, no sirens, no taxis, no—”

  “Concerts or museums, no theater, no—”

  “Traffic jams, no hurricanes, no impatient rude people—”

  “No excitement! No energy!”

  “No Ames!”

  “Huh?” Eva hauled her suitcase onto the twin bed. “Who’s Ames?”

  Chris made a noise of exasperation. “A regular at NYEspresso. Also an arrogant pain in the ass who doesn’t seem to hear me when I tell him I’m not interested. He’s this complete rich-boy spoiled brat who’s never heard ‘no’ in his life.”

  Eva chuckled. Men came after Chris pretty regularly. All she had to do was green-light the ones she wanted and ta-da, she had a boyfriend. Eva’s quirks meant it was usually the other way around for her—she’d see someone and go after him. So far neither approach had worked long-term for the sisters, but they were happy to keep trying. “I’ll tell him you’ve eloped. Maybe he’ll fling himself off a building.”

  “Please encourage him.”

  “You’ll have to deal with surfer dudes and lost tourists and retired hippies who order a cup of coffee and stay for hours thinking you have nothing better to do than chat. Which, sadly, you often don’t. Though Zac will be there most days and he’s awesome.”

  “So you’ve said. Though I still think your arrangement is weird. Who agrees to get married when they hit thirty only if nothing else works out?”

  “We did.” She didn’t expect Chris to understand. Eva had begun to realize that while love affairs were a fabulous, fireworks-filled pleasure, when it came to choosing a life partner and future father of her children, she wasn’t going to get much better than her best male friend, Zac, master’s candidate at Cal Poly and regular at Slow Pour. It was precisely because they didn’t burn so hot that she knew he’d be a good solid match, one that actually lasted.

  But they still had a year and a half before that commitment. And as much as she adored Zac and he adored her, neither of them had yet given up hope they could find another soul mate they could also be frantic to tangle up the sheets w
ith.

  “At NYEspresso you’ll have to deal with people screaming at you because you aren’t moving fast enough or the line isn’t moving fast enough. People act as if you’re put on the planet only to serve them.”

  “I look forward to the challenge.”

  Chris giggled. “I can’t believe we’re doing this!”

  “What, turning our hometowns into horrific stereotypes?”

  “Well, yes, but I meant switching lives. Are you heading over to NYEspresso tonight?”

  “Uh-huh.” Eva couldn’t wait to be in the place, knowing it was hers, however temporarily. “I think I can just make it over there before closing.”

  Chris snorted. “Yeah, figure how much time you’ll need realistically, then add half an hour for delays and waiting and crowds and—”

  “At least I get to go somewhere.” At home her commute was down the hill and around a corner. Not a lot of sights to take in. “I want to meet your staff, make sure they’re ready to have me take over for a month.”

  “They’ll be thrilled. I’ve been such a bitch lately.”

  “You?” Eva scoffed. “Never!”

  “Uh-huh. You take care, twin.”

  “You, too.” Eva hung up the phone, bursting with excitement. Traffic and street noise reached her window. Civilization actually happened here—this was real life! She couldn’t wait to get started. But first, deep breaths, a little meditation to get the nerves under control, calm her down so she didn’t appear too frazzled when she met her crew at NYEspresso.

  She sat cross-legged on the scuffed hardwood floor and closed her eyes, loosened her consciousness from her surroundings, swaying slightly to keep herself off balance, clearing her mind, trying to connect to the wise voice deep inside her that never failed to—

  The apartment door burst open, making her jump. Must be Chris’s roommate, new since Eva had last visited. Natalie worked near NYEspresso and had mentioned to Chris one day that she needed a roommate. According to Chris, Natalie was either trying to get into bed with a guy or getting kicked out of bed by a guy in one of the most misguided searches for love Chris had ever seen, but she was good-hearted—once she got to know you.

 
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