A Hasty Wedding by Cara Colter

Author:Cara Colter [Colter, Cara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Romance, General, Man-Woman Relationships, Love Stories, Contemporary, Sagas, Secretaries
ISBN: 9780373217526
Google: SSAAYyK2xvYC
Amazon: 0373217528
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2001-01-02T07:00:00+00:00

Nine

"It's backfiring," Holly said, opening the cardboard box of Chinese food that Jenn had brought for supper. She looked at the pork dumplings without interest, took one to be polite.

"What do you mean it's backfiring?" Jenn didn't have her lack of appetite at all. Her plate was already piled high with the Szechuan-style Chinese food they both preferred.

Holly pushed a grain of rice across her plate with her chopstick. "At least I used to feel like Blake liked me. I've wrecked what we had. He used to be friendly, now he's curt. He used to ask my opinions on things, now he avoids me. He used to be good-humored and fun and now he's stern and remote."

"Really?" Jenn asked avidly.

"Really," Holly said glumly. "I've ruined everything."

"My honest opinion is there was nothing to ruin. You loved him, he didn't know you were alive. I think you're reading this all wrong."

"In what way?"

"He knows you're alive."

"He hates me!"

"Hates you?" Jenn asked with interest. "What would make you say that?"

Holly told her about the cookies.

"My," Jenn said, putting a whole pork dumpling in her mouth and chewing thoughtfully, "doesn't that strike you as rather a strong reaction to cookies? What did he say exactly, again?"

"'I don't want your damned cookies.'"

Jenn's eyes went very wide. "This is better than I hoped."

"Oh, sure."

"Think about it, Holly. He doesn't want the damned cookies, he wants you!"

Holly took a desultory bite of her ginger beef and gave her friend a suspicious look. "Are you reading too many romance novels?" It was her friend who had introduced her to the delights of a good love story.

"There's no such thing as reading too many. I read two a week, three in a good week."

"Real life doesn't work like that!" Holly wailed.

"Holly, cynicism does not suit you. If you're going to get that man, you have to trust me and follow my instructions exactly."

Holly was not sure she wanted to turn her romantic life so completely into Jenn's keeping. Her friend had admirers coming out her ears, it was true, but her longest relationship had lasted just under six weeks.

"What are your instructions?" she asked reluctantly.

"More of everything. More cookies. More accidental meeting of hands. Turn up the heat. Bring a romantic picnic lunch packed for two."

"And if he says 'I don't want your damned lunch'?"

"Then you say 'Fine, I'll call Steve and he can come eat it with me.'"

To Holly it did sound like the plot of a romance novel. Lure the boss in with romantic gestures and if that didn't work, try to make him jealous. What Jenn didn't seem to get was that Blake had to care about her in order to be jealous.

"I don't know," she said uneasily. "I think I should just go back to the way I was before. Everything seemed so much more comfortable."

"Comfortable?" Jenn said. "Good grief. Is that what you want—comfortable?"

"Yes," Holly said firmly.

"Well, then stick with Steve. You'll get comfortabled near to death. You can take up golfing and learn to play cribbage.

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