Mating Game
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
About the Author
Teaser chapter
Acclaim for Janice Maynard
“Spicy sweet success.”
—Romantic Times
“Sizzling heat and a creative story line.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“Readers will be caught up in the story from page one.”
—Love Romances
“The plot is carefully crafted, characters fully developed, and the level of writing is superb.”
—A Romance Review
Hot Mail
“Readers will fall in love with the characters and their foibles. With its well-crafted story line and characters, this is a delightful read.”
—Romantic Times (4 stars)
“A truly sensational story. Ms. Maynard is such a talented author and really knows how to bring her characters to life. . . . This is a Must Read. A true scorcher. I wasn’t ready for this one to end.”
—Romance Junkies (Rating 5)
“A sweet love story.”
—Romance Novel TV
“Hot Mail is highly entertaining and a tale readers won’t want to put down for even a moment. Be sure to put Hot Mail at the top of your ‘to be bought’ list today.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“A deliciously sexy, sweetly romantic tale of two friends who are meant to be much more than friends.”
—The Erotic Reader
By Appointment Only
“A page-turner that has all the ingredients for a sexy, fun-loving read.”
—Romantic Times (4 stars)
“Janice Maynard ups the ante on passion in her new book.”
—Romance Junkies
“An awesome book.”
—Fallen Angel Reviews (recommended read)
The Perfect Ten
“If you . . . like your romance lovin’ hot, emotion-driven, and often, Maynard delivers in spades. Her novels are great choices when you’re looking for a read to sweeten up your day—or spice up your nights.”
—LifetimeTV.com
“Treat yourself to a great read as the three cousins each find their own Perfect Ten.”
—A Romance Review
“Janice Maynard has written three sexy and overall great stories . . . a Perfect Ten all the way!”
—RRTErotic
“Witty and provocative.”
—Affaire de Coeur
Play with Me
“By the end . . . readers will be left wanting another provocative tale.”
—Erin McCarthy
“For the reader looking for hot, explicit sensuality, with tons of happy endings, and good character development, Play with Me delivers.”
—TwoLips Reviews
Suite Fantasy
“[Maynard] develops her characters and plotlines to the extent that the reader cares about what happens outside of the bedroom as well as within it.”
—Romantic Times
“Heated and passionate.”
—The Best Reviews
ALSO BY JANICE MAYNARD
Hot Mail
By Appointment Only
The Perfect Ten
Improper Etiquette
Play with Me
Suite Fantasy
SIGNET ECLIPSE
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First published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library,
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First Printing, July 2009
Copyright © Janice Maynard, 2009
All rights reserved
SIGNET ECLIPSE and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
Maynard, Janice.
Mating game/Janice Maynard.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-05866-4
1. Mate selection—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.A958M38 2009
813’.6—dc22 2009002111
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PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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For Willie Ann Morrison, the most wonderful grandmother a child could hope to have. And for her sister, Thelma Gertrude Nelms, who lived in the same house and made the “spoiling” a twofer.
One taught me to appreciate good Southern cooking—the other nurtured my love of books. . . .
I miss you both!
One
“You have to be married to inherit. It’s as simple as that.”
Nola stared at her grandmother’s lawyer, trying to ignore the knot in her stomach. His expression was sympathetic, but his words were unequivocal.
She licked her lips, searching in vain for some sense to this madness. “Couldn’t I go to court and argue mental incompetence?” If Marc were here, he’d have whispered in her ear, Hers or yours? He had a wicked sense of humor, and loved to tease her.
It was only one of the many things at which her lover, Marc, excelled, not the least of which was his ability to prove to a woman that she was multiorgasmic, despite all previous evidence to the contrary.
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br /> The lawyer shook his head. “She wrote her will five years ago, when she was in full possession of her faculties. No judge will be able to break it. Your grandmother may have gotten a little fuzzy right at the end, but she knew what she wanted for you.”
Nola’s bottom lip quivered, and she bit down on it, not willing to make a scene in her favorite Starbucks. She gazed blindly at a grungy teenager two tables away who was swallowing great gulps of cappuccino from a cup in one hand while texting with his other.
The depth of her grief took her off guard. Since the day her grandmother took ten-year-old, orphaned Nola into her home to raise her, the two women had butted heads over virtually everything. As an adult, Nola traveled south to visit her old home a couple of times a year. She had spent Christmas with her grandmother just four months ago, but it was a strained week, compelled by a sense of duty.
Now guilt and loss made uncomfortable bedfellows in her gut. She brought her attention back to the lawyer. He’d been her grandmother’s legal counsel since the late sixties. His worn, three-piece suit with the vest tightly buttoned and his dated, almost embarrassing tie made him stand out. He’d have been right at home on a rerun of The Andy Griffith Show, but not so much amidst this trendy downtown crowd.
Nola suspected that his decision to fly here and break the news to her in person was more for his benefit than hers. There wasn’t much to do in Resnick, Georgia, and this impromptu trip to Chicago would probably be the highlight of his year.
Nola cleared her throat. “I can’t believe she’s gone.” And it was just like the cantankerous old biddy to demand she be cremated and, even worse, to forgo a funeral. Didn’t she ever hear of closure?
The lawyer frowned slightly, as if he had read her mind. “I tried to argue with her about the final arrangements some time ago. It didn’t seem fair to you. Funerals are for the living, and they’re an important ritual . . . part of saying goodbye.”
For the first time, he looked uncomfortable. “We can talk later about where and how she wanted her ashes spread, but let’s get back to the matter at hand. You have thirty days to find a husband, or your grandmother’s entire fortune—house, land, everything—will go to another beneficiary.”
Nola raised an eyebrow. “Who . . . or what?”
He shook his head. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Probably something stupid.” Nola slapped her hand over her mouth, aghast at her ill-timed sarcasm.
But the lawyer just chuckled. Again, sympathy gleamed from his faded blue eyes. “Believe me, Nola. I understand how absurd this seems. But unfortunately, the will is completely ironclad.” He paused and took a sip of his plain black coffee. “Surely there’s a man in your life. . . .”
Nola nodded slowly. Marc was a man. And he was definitely in her life. But a suitable candidate for matrimony? Doubtful.
She sighed. “Tell me again about the residency requirement.”
“You have to live full-time in Resnick for a minimum of six months.”
“After I’m married?”
He shook his head. “Not necessarily. You could start that immediately. And there’s no time limit on the marriage. Technically you could marry and then divorce as soon as possible. There’s nothing in the will to stop you from doing that.”
Except common decency and morality and a basic sense of ethics. She looked him in the eye. “If I decide to do this, I intend to stay married.”
The lawyer nodded. “Your grandmother would be very proud. She spoke most highly of you.”
Nola rolled her eyes. “Not to me, I can assure you.”
He smiled. “She bragged to anyone who would listen about your life and your job. She even had brochures made up with your Web site in case anyone wanted to fly to Chicago and have you shoot their portrait.”
Nola’s heart sank again as she thought about leaving Chicago and her thriving career. She would be turning thirty in a few months, and she had apparently tempted fate by believing that her life was finally in order. It had taken her half a dozen years after college and a master’s degree in fine arts to establish herself as a locally notable photographer. She wasn’t in the big leagues yet, but she made a nice living.
At one time she had dreamed of having a studio in her grandmother’s house. But the two women could never have coexisted as adults. And besides, how many people in Resnick could afford—or would even want—to have their portraits professionally done?
The lawyer spoke again, perhaps sensing her ambivalence. “I haven’t finished settling all the bills and such, but I think it will probably be a significant amount of money to walk away from.”
Nola stared at him bleakly. “The money is one thing. The house and land are another. I’m the last of the Graingers. How am I supposed to turn my back on that legacy? My family has lived in that house since the early eighteen hundreds.” And she knew every one of the oft-told ancestral stories. During the War of Northern Aggression (as Nola’s grandmother called it until the day she died), a savvy Confederate Grainger widow had bartered her body in exchange for the house being bypassed by Sherman’s rampaging army. Was Nola about to do the same? Could she prostitute herself to save a house and a few hundred acres of land?
Not without love. Or at least the semblance of it. In that moment, she knew what she had to do.
She had to find a man. Someone she could respect, and look at across the breakfast table every morning, and—above all—someone she could enjoy hot, satisfying sex with. Definitely that last one. Marc had spoiled her that way. He’d taught her things about her own body that still made her blush. She wasn’t about to enter into some farcical, platonic marriage of convenience.
She wanted a man who would love her and lust after her and understand why she had to protect her grandmother’s legacy. Marc had a fortune of his own, but he was a player. Nola was merely his flavor of the month. And from the beginning, she’d recognized their passionate liaison as temporary and superficial.
So he probably wouldn’t be a viable candidate. But if not him, then who?
She wanted tenderness and respect from her husband, as well as raw, raunchy sex. Was that too much to ask? And was she willing to dangle her fortune-to-be as the carrot? Could a woman ever really love a man who was in it for the money?
She stood up, and the lawyer did the same. Nola smoothed her skirt. “Thank you for coming in person. This would have been tough to hear over the phone.” It was still surreal and upsetting, but she was trying to cope.
He gave her an odd little half bow. “If you wish to make other arrangements for your own legal counsel, I certainly understand.”
She shook her head slowly. “No. You knew my grandmother. You know the town and the life. I’d say between the two of us we can work things out.”
He gathered his umbrella and the newspaper he’d been reading on the train. “It’s a hell of a situation, my dear. But I’m sure in the end it will be worth it.”
They paused on the sidewalk, preparing to part in opposite directions. Nola’s skin felt supersensitive to the thin late-April sunlight. Early-morning thunderstorms had given way to a tentative, springlike warmth.
The lawyer shook her hand. “You’re a very attractive woman, Nola. Any man would be lucky to have you.”
She adjusted her purse strap on her shoulder. “From your mouth to God’s ears.” Then she wrinkled her nose. Was it sacrilegious to ask the Almighty’s help in shopping for a husband under such selfish circumstances?
As the lawyer disappeared toward the subway station, Nola stood irresolute, the crowds of harried pedestrians parting on either side of her as though she were an easily overlooked obstruction. She glanced at the men—old and young, fat and thin, handsome and homely.
Could she do this? Could she deliberately track down a healthy, unattached, suitable male and persuade him to marry her in thirty days? And in the process, make sure they were sexually compatible? The sheer gutsiness of what she was contemplating sent a quiver of uncertainty and ex
citement through her abdomen.
In her own conflicted way, she would miss her grandmother, but the old lady had thrown down the gauntlet, and Nola was not about to disappoint generations of Grainger ancestors by wimping out.
She had thirty days to find a man. And the clock was ticking. . . .
Two
Nola’sbest friend, Tally, carried a box into the bedroom, dumped it on the floor, and straightened to rub her back. “Are you sure about this, Nola?” Tally was going to sublet Nola’s apartment for the next six months.
Nola tugged a stack of summer tops and shorts from the hall closet. “Definitely. The house where I grew up is amazing. I have to do everything I can to keep it in the family.”
“But you told me there isn’t really a family . . . only you.”
Nola winced. “Yeah. Thanks for bringing that up.”
Tally bit her lip. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound disrespectful. I know you loved your grandmother.”
But Tally also knew how difficult Nola’s relationship with her only relative had been. Nola had certainly complained about it often enough. Nola shoved the pile into a clean plastic garbage bag and tied the top. She wasn’t taking much with her to Georgia, at least not on the plane. But she planned to ship several boxes of warm-weather clothing she would need almost immediately.