PRAISE FOR GERRI RUSSELL
“Gerri Russell writes with a passionate intensity that will sweep readers straight into her richly imagined world.”
—Jayne Ann Krentz, New York Times bestselling author
“Gerri Russell’s creative imagination enthralls me. I was hooked from the very first page.”
—Debbie Macomber, New York Times bestselling author
“Gerri Russell writes with grace and style.”
—Stella Cameron, New York Times bestselling author
PRAISE FOR FLIRTING WITH FELICITY
“This sweet tale includes all the requisite ingredients for love and . . . the journey is a good, lighthearted read.”
—Boca Raton Observer
“If you like your romance served with delectable treats . . . Gerri Russell’s Flirting with Felicity takes the story into the kitchen, with a lovable chef and a relentless billionaire.”
—DuJour magazine
ALSO BY GERRI RUSSELL
Flirting with Felicity
This Laird of Mine
A Laird for Christmas
A Knight to Desire
Border Lord’s Bride
Seducing the Knight
To Tempt a Knight
Warrior’s Lady
Warrior’s Bride
The Warrior Trainer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 Gerri Russell
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503950689
ISBN-10: 1503950689
Cover design by Michael Rehder
C, A, J, and M, you fill my heart with love and my life with joy.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
Olivia Tyler looked over the balcony of the party, allowing herself a moment of indulgence. Tonight could be the night. The room was full of men who might be open to a little flirtation with her good-girl self. She was tired of always being in control, of being responsible. For just one night she wanted to indulge in a fantasy with a man and be someone else.
Who am I kidding? With a small sigh of regret, Olivia turned away from the balcony. She could never do something so spontaneous, especially tonight. Not with her responsibilities. Pushing disappointment aside, she allowed pride to fill her. Seattle’s most generous donors spilled out of the Four Seasons Hotel’s ballroom doors into the prefunction areas. Never had she imagined the auction would garner all these people for her small, two-year-old foster-adopt program. The possibility of a rousing success for the Tomorrow Foundation seemed sure.
If the noise was any indication, the attendees were having a good time. The better time they had tonight, the more money they would spend, especially when they learned about the life-altering services they were funding for local youth.
A smile of satisfaction came to her lips. In terms of firmly establishing her foundation in the community, tonight was turning out to be everything she’d ever hoped for. The foundation would have operating funds for the next year, and her neediest clients would have the services they required—from heart surgery to more benign issues like the math tutoring Paige desperately needed to graduate from tenth grade. Dozens of children would receive counseling services, while their foster parents would attend training programs to help them in their callings. So many special services her kids needed—made possible through the donations gathered tonight.
Olivia didn’t need a date to make her feel as if the evening was a success. She’d let go of that need when Damien had turned out to be nothing more than a lying cheater. It had been eight months now since she’d discovered her fiancé’s deceit, eight months since she’d broken their engagement. It had also been eight months since she’d had a date, or been alone with a man, or allowed herself to be vulnerable.
And she was fine with that.
Or was she? Her lapse into fantasy a moment ago indicated otherwise. More than a fantasy, she wanted one night with the perfect man to purge thoughts of Damien from her mind. Covering up his memory with the feel of another man in her arms could go a long way to healing her soul. An indulgent smile lifted the corner of her mouth as Olivia made her way to the escalator. She grabbed the railing and held tight as the conveyor took her downward, toward the crowd.
A soft tug at her side pulled her attention from that line of thought. The tug came again, stronger this time. She looked around the escalator. She was alone. It took a moment before she realized the source of the tension came from the hem of her gown. The tulle of her long, black dress was slowly being consumed by the stair riser of the escalator.
The bodice of her strapless dress dipped along with her smile. She tugged the bodice up with one hand and fought the disappearing fabric with the other. The escalator ignored her attempt to free herself as it swallowed her dress.
Olivia pulled harder against the fabric. Her hands grew clammy, and her breath caught. The mechanism might very well pull the entire dress from her body. In a heartbeat, her thoughts shifted from her current calamity to an even more humiliating situation. Why hadn’t she chosen to wear her one pair of Victoria’s Secret underwear tonight instead of her more comfortable cotton briefs? The entire ballroom might see her in her functional, black strapless bra and black cotton panties if she didn’t do something fast.
“Might I be of assistance?” A deep voice broke through her panic.
Her head came up to see a handsome, dark-haired man a few steps away.
Olivia knew she had only two choices: allow her dress to be eaten by the escalator until she found herself disrobed in front of all these people, or damage her dress. Only one of those options seemed logical, not least because of her unfortunate choice of underwear. “Yes, of course,” she said with a hint of panic in her voice.
Mr. Tall, Dark, and Sexy reached down, grasped the edge of her gown, and pulled. The sound of ripping satin and tulle interrupted the steady hum of voices for a moment, until he held the jagged edges of her gown in his hand. He continued to hold the fabric as he glanced at her feet.
“Nice shoes,” he said with an appreciative smile.
Olivia tucked her feet farther inside her damaged skirt, hiding her bright-blue pumps. Pretty, bright-colored shoes were her weakness. She might wear nondescript clothing on a daily basis, but her slightly outrageous shoe collection was one thing she hadn
’t ever been able to restrain.
“Sorry about your dress,” the man said, bringing her back to the moment. He released the edge of her gown, then reached for her hand, assisting her in stepping from the escalator as they arrived on the landing of the ballroom.
Olivia looked down at her ragged hem. “How am I going to hide this?” A six-inch chunk of her dress was gone. “I need to be onstage to start the auction with the emcee in a few minutes.”
Mr. Sexy gave her a questioning glance.
“It’s my . . .” She met his gaze, and her throat went dry. “I’m the director. Of the Tomorrow Foundation,” Olivia explained. For a moment she felt as though he, a total stranger, had the power to understand the extent of what tonight meant to her.
“Give them your sweet smile, and no one will notice your dress.”
Heat came to her cheeks. “Thank you for your help, Mr.—”
“Max.” He extended his hand in greeting. “Max Right.”
She took his hand, allowing the warmth of his fingers to wrap around hers. “Thank you, Max. I should let you get back to your date.”
He gave her a boyish smile that started a nervous flutter in her belly. “I’m flying solo tonight. May I buy you a drink after your moment in the spotlight?”
There was no doubt about it—the man was handsome. But with that unpretentious smile, he came off as kind of normal. Boy-next-door normal. “The wine and champagne are free with your admission ticket.”
Still smiling, he asked again, “May I buy you a drink after the auction is over?”
Olivia’s heart seemed to stop in her chest. This had to be a joke. Unless . . . She narrowed her gaze. “Are you a friend of Damien’s?”
“Damien who?” he asked with a puzzled expression.
Maybe she was wrong about his intentions. The man’s startling, gray eyes appraised her with a mix of intrigue and interest. “You know nothing about me other than that I’m a little reckless on an escalator when wearing a long dress.”
He shrugged. “If you’re the director of the Tomorrow Foundation, I know you help people who can’t always help themselves. What else do I need to know?”
Usually she needed to know a whole lot more about any guy she dated, especially after Damien—except this wouldn’t be a date. He’d asked her to have a drink with him. “Sure.” She forced the words past her usual automatic no as she picked up the edge of her ragged hem to walk.
From the stage, Olivia welcomed the audience and encouraged them to take their chairs. Max didn’t sit. Instead, he leaned casually against the wall off to the left of the stage. When their gazes met, he smiled.
Ambient noise stilled. A normal, good-looking man had asked her to have a drink with him. It was almost as if the universe had heard her earlier thoughts and responded by granting her wish.
While she played a video her team had prepared about the Tomorrow Foundation on the Jumbotron, she stepped into the shadows and observed the man who’d saved her from certain embarrassment. He looked to be in his early thirties, which matched him well with her own twenty-nine years. He was tall, more than six feet, with powerful shoulders and a slim physique. But his eyes—a dark steel gray that looked almost silver in the dim ballroom lighting—made him extraordinary.
Olivia shook the thought from her head as the video ended and she stepped back to the podium, introducing the popular Seattle auctioneer. Grateful to relinquish the stage and the microphone, Olivia made her way down the stairs. She’d intended to sit in the back of the room and simply observe the night as it moved past, but Max strode forward to greet her once more.
“No one even noticed your dress,” he said in a voice only she could hear as he leaned forward to take her hand, shaking back a lock of dark hair. He placed his hand on her arm, leading her silently toward a table at the edge of the room.
A giddy sensation washed across the bare skin of Olivia’s arms as he held a chair out for her and took the seat beside her. He poured a glass of champagne and handed the crystal flute to her. “Here’s to an evening of discoveries.”
“Cheers.” She touched her glass to his and took a sip of her champagne with her breath tight in her throat. She hadn’t been this close to a man who looked at her with such interest in a long time. She was certain Damien had never looked at her with such intensity. “Do you come to these kinds of events often?” Olivia asked as a server slipped a plate of steak and sea bass in front of each of them.
Max didn’t spare a glance at his meal. Instead, a slow, dazzling smile swept across his features. Its effect on his face was almost as dramatic as its effect on Olivia’s nervous system. Her heart gave a hard bump as he leaned closer. “This is the first auction I’ve ever been to.”
“I’m honored you came to help support the Tomorrow Foundation.” Olivia picked up her fork, not really intending to eat. She pushed her sea bass around on the plate while she focused on the auctioneer and the current item up for bid. The energy in the room grew contagious as attendees bid well above the asking price for a weeklong vacation to Lake Chelan in a cabin that slept fourteen.
“That might have been what drew me here tonight, but I’m finding a much more compelling reason to stay.”
Olivia’s cheeks warmed. “What kind of work do you do, Max?”
“I’m a mathematician.”
She set her fork down, abandoning her meal for a moment. “Like a professor?”
“Let’s just say I like numbers.”
“You’re good with math, and you like numbers. You, Mr. Right, are a veritable fountain of information.”
His eyes held a mischievous glint. “And here I thought women liked mysterious men.”
Mysterious men, yes. Cheating, lying bastards, no. Which one of those was the charming Mr. Right?
CHAPTER TWO
Max leaned back in his chair, studying the woman before him. The next auction item up for bid was a week’s vacation in Paris. “What would you do if you went to Paris for a week?” he asked Olivia.
“You mean besides taking in the sights?”
He nodded. “Anything outside what most travelers would do?”
She startled as though he were asking her something naughty instead of trying to further their conversation. “I don’t know you well enough to tell you that.”
He laughed, defusing the sudden tension between them. “I simply wanted to know what kind of things you like to do when you travel.”
The slight wrinkle in her forehead smoothed. She pressed her lips together in thought. “Honestly?”
“Always.”
Her pupils dilated. “I’d sip a latte, eat a slice of pastry, and people-watch at a quaint Parisian café.” She fixed him with a curious gaze. “What would you do?”
“That’s easy.” He leaned toward her, watched her soft intake of breath as he drew near. “I’d leave Paris and take a hot air balloon over the countryside. What better way to see France than from the air?” He met her gaze. “Have you ever been in a hot air balloon?”
She shook her head. “I’m kind of a ‘feet on the ground’ kind of girl.”
“Interesting.” Maybe those pretty little shoes of hers had never had the chance to do anything more than stay firmly planted on the ground. Max allowed himself a speculative smile. She was so much more than he had counted on tonight. He hated to be so vague about his work. Who wanted to start off a conversation with, “Hi, I’m designing a matchmaker algorithm. Want to be part of the experiment?”
Yet there was something about Olivia Tyler that fascinated him. The sensation was exactly the type of thing he tried to replicate in his work. If he could master whatever this was that he was sharing with the woman before him . . . his invention could help people all over the planet find the kind of loving matches they longed for—the way he’d helped his sister. There were other lonely people out there just like her. Maybe just like him.
Max leaned back in his chair and studied Olivia. His attraction was likely due to her position with her
foster-adopt agency. He liked women who liked kids. But there was more to her than that . . .
Her hair, coiffed in a tight French knot, contributed to her restrained appearance. A loosening coil hinted at riotous curls threatening to break free around her shoulders. His gaze traveled down the curve of her chin to the creamy skin of her throat. For just one second, he contemplated leaning down and setting his lips on the curve between her throat and her shoulder. He wondered what she would taste like. What would she do if he did something so bold?
Instead of acting on the impulse, he raised his gaze to her soulful eyes—an infinitely changing prism of brown and gold. A frisson of electricity traveled through him as the rest of the auction passed in a blur of anticipation. When finally the auctioneer thanked everyone for coming and bid them all a good night, Max stood and offered her his hand. “Are you ready for that drink now?”
A hint of color touched her cheeks. “I did promise.” Her voice trailed off, as though there was something more she wanted to say but didn’t.
He waited for her to make some sort of excuse as to why she could no longer honor that promise, but she took his hand. A flame of anticipation rippled across Max’s flesh as he folded his fingers around hers. The incredible, irresistible attraction that had drawn them together flared anew.
“There are a few things I need to take care of in order to close down the auction. Would you mind waiting?”
“Not at all. Good things are worth waiting for,” he replied with a grin. “Where to first?”
“First I must thank the high bidders in tonight’s auction. Then I’ll need to find my event planner. She and my assistant can wrap things up. After that, I’m all yours for the rest of the evening.” A blush came to her cheeks when what she’d said registered. “I mean—”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
She looked taken aback by the question. “Uhhh . . .”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“Why would you say that?”
Max smiled again. “If you had a boyfriend, he would have accompanied you tonight. I know I would have if you were my girlfriend.”
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