Early to Bed?. Cara Summers

      

      “I want you, Lily.”

      Lily stared at Tony, feeling her muscles melt.

      “Tell me that you don’t want me,” he continued, “and all our future dealings will be strictly business.”

      Her skin was icy and hot all at once. “I can’t tell you that.”

      He lowered his head again and closed his teeth around her bottom lip, then soothed the small pain with his tongue. “Then tell me you want me to make love to you.”

      She thought of lying to him, but then he leaned down and scraped his teeth against her neck. “You don’t play fair,” she said, a shiver running down her spine.

      He smiled—a very slow smile that ruthlessly made use of his dimples. “I play to win. Tell me you want to make love with me.”

      She gave up trying to resist. Wrapping her arms around him, she conceded, “I want you. I really shouldn’t, but I want you so much.”

      He let out a groan of triumph. “Good thing…because you’ve got me. You’ve had me from the moment you crawled into my bed.”

      Reaching down and pulling the string on his sweatpants, Lily said playfully, “Then let me see what I’ve got….”

      Dear Reader,

      I love writing WRONG BED books! What greater trouble can you plunge your heroine into than putting her in bed with the wrong man? And that’s just the beginning of the fun!

      Fresh from a success seminar in Tahiti, Lily McNeil is a new woman. The failures in her past are history. Not only has she shed twenty-five pounds, but she’s also permanently erased the little black cloud that has hovered over her head since she was ten. And to prove to her skeptical family that the old Lily no longer exists, all she has to do is acquire Henry’s Place, a small family-run hotel in Manhattan. So what if she has to lie to the owner to do it? No problem. The new Lily can handle it.

      All Tony Romano wants is to keep his hotel running. When the sexy-voiced Lily McNeil offers her consulting services and promises that she can solve all his problems, he knows that she’s lying through her teeth, but he figures he can handle her. He’ll pick her brain, then send her packing. Tony’s plan begins to unravel the moment he wakes up to find Lily sleeping in his bed. Then he wants to handle her, all right. And he does. Now all he has to do is figure out how to hold on to his hotel—and keep Lily in his bed permanently.

      I hope you have as much fun reading Tony and Lily’s story as I had writing it.

      All the best,

      Cara Summers

      Early to Bed?

      Cara Summers

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To Jane Frances Manor, my cousin and one of my biggest fans. Thanks for your unfailing praise and support! I love you, Janie.

      Contents

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

      1

      YOU CAN HAVE whatever you want.

      Lily McNeil chanted the phrase silently, just as they’d taught her to do in the week-long success seminar she’d recently attended in Tahiti.

      Your past does not have to equal your future.

      That was phrase number two in her daily mantra. Somehow, the idea that she could transform herself into someone her family could respect had been easier to believe on a sunny beach with all those bright blue waves pounding on the shore.

      Of course, the monsoon presently hammering Manhattan was having a debilitating effect on both her hairdo and her ego. And the fact that the taxi driver had dropped her off across the street from her hotel was a slight problem. Rain and wind lashed at her as she waited on the curb for the traffic to clear.

      You live under a black cloud.

      No. Tightening her grip on her rolling suitcase and her briefcase, Lily dashed across the street. She’d been ten when her stepbrother Jerry Langford-McNeil had first flung the black cloud taunt at her. For years after that, she’d carried the image around in her mind of a dark, rain-filled mist hovering over her wherever she went.

      No more. No way. No how. Black clouds were in her past—and her past did not have to equal her future. In the past, her father had never approved of anything she’d ever done. But she was about to change all that.

      True, her confidence had slipped a notch when the company plane had failed to pick her up in Tahiti. But she’d managed to charter another plane to bring her to New York. And she was here. Mission accomplished. Dripping, she pushed through the revolving doors of Henry’s Place. Then she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass.

      The old Lily was staring back at her—unfashionable, insecure, and overweight.

      No. She was not that person anymore. Stopping short on the worn oriental carpet that ran up the stairs to the lobby, Lily squared her shoulders, drew in a deep breath and pictured herself the way she wanted to be. Visualization was the key to success. That’s what the energetic motivational guru had preached on his island. Her five-hundred-dollar hairstyle might be a little under the weather. She risked a peek in the mirrored wall to her right and felt her stomach plummet. Okay—a lot under the weather. As for her clothes—she closed her eyes and suppressed a shudder. They could be replaced.

      She risked another peek, just to make sure that the twenty-five pounds she’d struggled so hard to lose over the past six months hadn’t somehow crept back onto her frame. They hadn’t. Relief streamed through her. She might look like a drowned rat, but at least she was now a slim one.

      Your past does not have to equal your future. Squaring her shoulders, Lily opened both eyes and faced herself in the mirror. She’d changed on the inside, and that was what was important. More important, her father, J. R. McNeil of McNeil Enterprises, had given her a job and she had to prove to him that she could do it.

      “Beware the Ides of March.”

      With a start, Lily whirled to see a tall ethereal-looking woman standing at the top of the short flight of stairs. She wore a gauzy caftan in faded shades of blue, and her slivery white hair flowed down over her shoulders. She might have been a witch sprung right off the pages of a Harry Potter book. But the voice didn’t go with the rest of her. It had an “I don’t take any crap” tone that sounded more like a five-star general’s. The contrast aroused Lily’s curiosity, but then she met the woman’s eyes and felt a chill right through to her bones.

      “Beware