The Bachelor. Marie Ferrarella

deserved and wouldn’t soon forget.

      First, however, he needed to get Eric there.

      “Give a little more,” Jordan coaxed, his voice straining. He’d almost lost that last serve and struggled to recover it.

      Sweat was pouring into Eric’s sweatband. The terry cloth fabric felt as if it was glued to his forehead. He went long, captured the ball and sent it hurtling back to the wall.

      “Why the sudden interest in my participation in this beefcake extravaganza?”

      “My sister’s chairing it.” Jordan sneaked a side glance at Eric, but the latter’s expression gave no indication that he even remembered Jenny. That could have just been his involvement in the game, since Eric always played to win. “And I thought I’d be a good big brother and recruit a few men for her. Besides,” he said with a grin, “misery loves company.”

      With one mighty whack, Eric sent the ball flying over Jordan’s shoulder. Triumph surged through his veins. The point was his.

      Sports was the only field in which he allowed his natural sense of competition to emerge. God knew it wasn’t at work. There his older brother Peter was the fair-haired boy, the company CEO to his department VP now that their father had retired. He’d become thoroughly convinced that Peter never slept. His older brother was there in the morning when Eric arrived at the office and remained there long after he went home.

      Eric supposed that part of the deal was that Peter felt that he had to try twice as hard because he was adopted. The bottom line was that Peter achieved a tremendous amount and consequently left him looking as if he were standing still. If he was the insecure kind, this would have sent him running to the nearest therapist’s couch, but he had a healthy sense of self that allowed him to view Peter’s efforts as being good for the family, not reflecting badly on him.

      If anything, it made him worry about his older brother. He felt as if Peter was allowing life to pass him by.

      “Okay, I’ll sign on. On one condition.” He served the ball, then immediately braced himself for its return. “You talk Peter into it, too. He’s the one who needs to get out, to unwind.”

      There was no hesitation on Jordan’s part. “Sure, Peter’d be a great addition to the stable.” Jordan grinned, thinking of the serious man as he sent the ball flying. “Why don’t you broach it with him first, though?”

      “Me?” Eric echoed. Missing the ball, he muttered a curse under his breath. Then, with the ball out of play, he stopped for a second to catch his breath. “You’re the pimp.”

      Picking up a bottle of water, Jordan stopped to drink before answering. “This isn’t pimping.” He wiped his forehead. “This is strictly aboveboard. You take the lady—”

      “Who paid for my services,” Eric was quick to point out.

      “Who donated a great deal of money to a worthy charity for the pleasure of your company,” Jordan corrected. Then he started again. “You take the lady out for the evening and show her a good time. That doesn’t include warming any sheets.” Jordan paused, knowing he couldn’t come across like a choirboy without raising Eric’s suspicions. “Unless, of course, you want to.”

      “What I want is never an issue. It’s what the lady wants that counts,” Eric told him with a touch of innocence that was a tad less than convincing.

      Jordan was well aware of Eric’s reputation as a heartthrob. “And you always make them want exactly what you want,” he finished.

      Eric took a deep breath, getting ready for another set. “Whatever you say.”

      Jordan bounced the ball once on the gym floor, then looked at Eric. “Then it’s a yes?”

      Eric shrugged. “Sure, why not? And I’ll see about Peter.” He gave Jordan a penetrating look. “You are in on this, right?”

      “Wouldn’t miss it.” With that, Jordan served the ball with enthusiasm.

      Phase one was complete, he thought. Now he needed to go on to phase two.

       Two

       J enny threw back two extra-strength aspirins, washed them down with water and fervently hoped that they would live up to at least half of their advertising hype. Otherwise, she was ready to surrender now. Death by headache.

      It was the kind of morning created by tiny devils gleefully working overtime in the bowels of hell. As far as she saw, there was no other plausible explanation why, when she was such a good person, everything that could go wrong today had. One right after the other.

      Her alarm failed to go off, and for one of the few rare mornings of her life, she’d overslept. Then the toaster emitted flames instead of toast. That, luckily, had been handled by the fire extinguisher she’d had the presence of mind to keep in her cupboard. Cole’s baby-sitter, a woman who thrived on punctuality and took pride in being early, was late. To top it off, her less than reliable car decided that it’d had enough of the distributor cap—the one her mechanic had put in just last month—and burned a hole through it.

      Needless to say, that left her without a means of transportation to use in order to get to her downtown office. There wasn’t even time to see about getting the evil car towed to her mechanic’s shop. Telling herself she wasn’t going to have a nervous breakdown, she just left the vehicle parked in the carport and hurried back to her apartment to call a taxi.

      When she’d arrived at her office, there were a pile of messages already on her desk, threatening to breed if left unread. And her appointments were backing up.

      On mornings like this that life of leisure her mother kept advocating began to sound awfully tempting.

      Still waiting for the aspirins to kick in and do their magic, Jenny was only one third through her pile of messages and in between the battalion of clients when the secretary she shared with the other attorneys who made up Advocate Aid, Inc.—a title she’d come up with because it was short and to the point, unlike her life—called out across the communal space they all shared.

      “Line three’s for you, Jenny.”

      Jenny cringed. She felt as if an anvil had just been dropped on top of her head. There was such a thing as physically and mentally reaching a limit and she had well surpassed hers. She’d stayed up last night to work on the Ortiz case, but then one of Cole’s nightmares had brought her rushing to his side. She’d remained there, consoling him, until he’d fallen asleep.

      Unfortunately, so had she.

      Slumbering in Cole’s undersized junior bed while assuming a position made popular by early Christian martyrs had given her a phenomenal crick in her neck. One that refused to go away even when bombarded with an extra three minutes worth of hot water in the shower.

      She rubbed it now, telling herself that this, too, shall pass, as she called back, “Tell them I died.”

      “Really?”

      She’d forgotten that Betty was a woman who took you at your word. Literally. She was completely devoid of any sense of humor, droll or otherwise.

      “No,” Jenny sighed, “not really.”

      Rotating her neck from side to side, she picked up the receiver. As she placed it to her ear, Jenny struggled with the sinking feeling that she was going to regret not sticking to her original instruction.

      Trying to sound as cheerful as she could under the circumstances, she said, “Hello, this is Jennifer Hall.”

      “Mother called me last night.”

      Tension temporarily slid out of her body as she recognized her brother’s voice. Jordan represented a moment’s respite from her otherwise miserable day. “My condolences.”

      She heard him chuckle before he continued. “She said that you were chairing that fund-raising bachelor auction again.”

      Undoubtedly