Charlie All Night. Jennifer Crusie

      

      Critics are hooked on

       Jennifer Crusie

      “Crusie has a gift for concocting nutty scenarios and witty one-liners…genuine laughs.”

      —People

      “Few popular writers handle light romantic comedy as deftly as Jennifer Crusie.”

      —Boston Globe on Bet Me

      “Crusie seems incapable of writing a boring page, or one that’s not aglow.”

      —Kirkus Reviews on What the Lady Wants

      “A beach book for your brain…a sexy intellectual read.”

      —Redbook on Faking It

      “A nontraditional couple (he’s 30, she’s 40) and a dog with a true personality make this one of the funniest, sexiest romances of the year.”

      —Library Journal on Anyone But You

      “Ms. Crusie has written a funny, sexy tale about two strong, loving, but completely opposite characters…not to be missed.”

      —Paperback Forum on Strange Bedpersons

      “Crusie displays a real knack with witty dialogue and develops a fun relationship with engaging sexual tension.”

      —RT Book Reviews on Manhunting

      Jennifer Crusie

      Charlie All Night

      MILLS & BOON

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      Dear Reader,

      The ideas for books come from strange places. This book began when I read (in the nineties, remember) that people assumed they’d be sleeping together by the third date. I am not a prude (see my books), but it did occur to me that three dates didn’t give people much of a chance to get to trust each other. Want each other, yes, even fall in love…but trust? So I told my editor that I wanted to write a book in which the hero and heroine sleep together the first night they meet only to become platonic friends and then fall in love, so I could write the difference between sex without love and sex with love (both of which work out fine, thanks). And because my editor, Birgit Davis-Todd, is fabulous, I got to do the book the way I wanted.

      One of the best comments I ever got on this book was from someone who overheard me introduce myself, and said, “Oh, you wrote that book Charlie Up All Night.” And I thought, Well, that’s a good title, too, considering Charlie. Here’s hoping Charlie keeps you up all night reading!

      Jenny Crusie

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      ALLIE MCGUFFEY KNEW A yuppie bar was a lousy place to find a hero, but she was desperate, so she had to make do with what she had on hand.

      Unfortunately, what she had on hand was pretty pathetic.

      She shoved her horn-rimmed glasses back up the bridge of her nose with one finger and peered at the row of stools at the bar. Businessman. Businessman. Empty seat. Businessman. Businesswoman. Empty seat. Empty seat. Thug. Businessman.

      She swallowed the lump that had been in her throat for the past fifteen minutes. Okay, fine, if that’s what she had to work with, she’d work with it. But it was going to have to be the thug, because she was never going to have a relationship with a suit again as long as she lived. Even a relationship that was only going to last five minutes.

      And he really wasn’t a thug. Allie tried to drum up some enthusiasm before she made her move. His dark blond hair was shaggy over his collar, and his brown leather jacket had seen better days, and his jeans were authentic grunge, but he was big and clean and most important of all, he made a nice contrast to all the charcoal suits that looked like Mark. And what Allie wanted more than anything right then was a not-Mark.

      She knew she was behaving like an idiot, but given the bomb that had just exploded in her face, the fact that she was not sitting in a trance was a step in the right direction.

      It had not been a good day.

      Allie had hit the radio-station doors that afternoon at her usual clip, banging them open like saloon doors. If they ever locked those doors, she was going to seriously hurt herself, but they never did since everyone had to be buzzed in from the street level four floors below. So she’d gone charging through as usual, happy to be there. As usual, what seemed like forty people converged on her.

      Allie beamed as they pounced, loving the feeling that WBBB couldn’t run without her, that without her there would be dead air and dust. This was who she was, Allie-the-producer, Allie-the-brains-behind-The-Mark-King-Show, Allie-the-savior. She knew she was probably a little whacked to depend on a radio station for her identity, but compared to all the other psychological problems running loose at the station, she was in relatively good mental health, so she didn’t dwell on it.

      At first it was just Karen, the receptionist, who called out “Allie!” but that alerted Lisa, her former student intern, who popped out of the hall looking miserable and said, “Allie, I—” and who was promptly pushed aside by Albert the financial manager, who said, “Allie, the ratings—” and who was overrun by Marcia, the two-to-six-time-slot barracuda, who said, “Allie, I heard—” and who was shouldered aside by Mark, Allie’s ex-lover and present boss, who said, “I need to see you in your office. Now.”

      Allie pushed her glasses back up her nose so she could see him better. The silence that settled over the reception area was a tribute to how bizarrely Mark was behaving. Usually, he made his presence known through talking too loudly, dropping names and laughing heartily in the wrong places. Allie had once felt sorry for him, but she didn’t now, having been dumped as his lover two months ago when he decided he’d look better standing next to Lisa than he did with her. He was right, of course, but it still hurt to look at him now. He stood in the entrance to the hallway, quietly superior, and it was such a change that everybody shut up and she followed him to her office without question.

      Once inside, he closed the door behind her, went around to her desk chair and sat.

      Allie fought back a snarl. All right, she wasn’t territorial, but this was her office, no matter how tiny and cluttered, and her desk, and that was her desk chair, and he was making her a visitor in her own domain. So she scowled at him and said, “What is this?”

      Mark crossed his arms and leaned back in her chair, which tilted so that he was almost horizontal to her vertical, and then he said, “There’s no good way to tell you this, Allie, so I’ll just say it. I know it’s going to