by Julia Kent
SHOPPING FOR A CEO
BY JULIA KENT
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I’m thrilled to be the maid of honor in my friend’s wedding, but the best man, Andrew McCormick, is a chauvinistic pig with a God complex.
And I can’t stop kissing him in closets.
(Don’t ask.)
He’s the brother of the groom and the CEO of my biggest mystery shopping account, but suddenly he’s refusing to be in the wedding. He won’t talk about it. Won’t see reason.
He’s such a man.
And he still won’t stop kissing me in random closets.
(Thank goodness.)
I’m a fixer. That’s what I do. I can fix anything if given the chance. But when the game is fixed there’s only so much I can do.
The ball’s in his court now.
Game on.
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Shopping for a CEO is the 7th book in the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Shopping series. When CEO Andrew McCormick and mystery shopper Amanda Warrick find themselves in the unlikely position as maid of honor and best man in the Boston society wedding of the year, an undeniable attraction and dual stubborn streaks add fuel to the fire in this romantic comedy from Julia Kent.
Copyright © 2015 by Julia Kent
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
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PRAISE FOR JULIA KENT
From Authors
“This one has it all: hilarious laughs, a sexy (almost) billionaire and a hint of tears. The best of the series!”
—Celia Kyle, New York Times bestselling romantic comedy author
“Her stories are sensual, incredible, and outright hilarious—the PERFECT combination.”
—Sara Fawkes, New York Times bestselling author of the Anything He Wants series
“If you like ... romances … with lots of humor, this is the series for you!”
—Mimi Strong, New York Times bestselling romantic comedy author
“Julia Kent’s romantic comedies are so funny you’ll snort soda out your nose, so emotionally honest you’ll get misty eyed, and so charming you’ll be back for more. Loved the whole series!”
—Cheri Allan, author of the Betting on Romance series
Reader Reviews
“This book is not to be missed!!!”
“Wow Julia has done it again!! This book had me on edge with the suspense and overwhelmed with laughter at times! I even cried a little. I absolutely love this series!!! I can’t wait to see what’s to come next!!! This is a must read!”
“Every chapter made my heart beat faster in anticipation. Julia Kent once again pulls at our emotions and allows us to fall in love with the characters all over again.… Very well worth my heart palpitations.”
Reader Emails
“I just can’t imagine how you come up with this stuff, but am so glad you do!”
“I finally had to write to you and tell you that you are simply one of the most amazing authors. Your humor is perfect. I really do bust out laughing out loud. My family thinks that I am crazy when I do it but I can count on a good read from you especially when it has been a rough day. There hasn’t been a single thing that you have written that I haven’t fallen in love with the characters. They become real and some of your lines have become a part of our family language. Thank you for sharing your amazing gift.”
“Having another fantastic evening as I just finished your latest book and now the fam can go to sleep since the laughing/screaming out loud has stopped... Stomach muscles are sore. Better than sit-ups! :-)”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To my beta reader friends, I give you my deepest thanks.
To my awesome husband, I give you my heart and the rest of my life.
To my dear friend Gretchen Galway, I give you credit for Josh’s best line in the childbirth class. ;)
And most of all, to my readers, I thank you from the core of my soul. You have no idea how important you are to me.
SHOPPING FOR A CEO
Chapter One
“And when I took little Maisy to the veterinarian for the first time to have her anal glands expressed, the bill nearly made my anal glands explode!” my date says with a chuckle, reaching for his pint of Guinness. He finishes the last inch or so of the glass, lets out an enormous belch, then leans in, elbows on the table, cradling his jaw in his hands like he has a massive secret to share.
I lean back. As in, away.
“That,” he says, reaching for my hand and ensconcing it between both of his, “is when I turned to good old YouTube and decided to DIY.”
“DIY?” This guy has more jargon than a sociology grad student.
“I taught myself how to express her anal glands,” he crows proudly. “Just did it this morning.”
I look down at our hands.
I can live without one, right?
“It takes more vigor than you’d imagine,” he murmurs.
That is the worst come on line ever.
“Another beer?” the waitress asks, interrupting. She is my new best friend.
I nod vigorously and tug my hand away from his, praying for divine intervention. Or an electric knife to saw off my hand. A beer will have to do. If I get tipsy enough on this date, maybe I’ll forget that my hands just rubbed up against—
Hold on there. Pause.
You heard me right. I’m on a date. Except I’m not on a date. I’m technically working right now. On this date. I’m dating him professionally.
Wait—don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not...well, it’s not that kind of working date. I’m not making three hundred bucks a night to lick his toes or whip him or be a professional escort or anything like that.
(But that’s starting to look better and better....)
All I get is my regular paycheck, my meal, and an eighteen dollar mystery shopper’s fee for having Mr. Anal Gland Hands sit across the table from me and talk about Maisy the Wonder Schnauzer like she’s his girlfriend and I’ll be the third in their little poly human-human-dog threesome.
That’s right. I’m getting paid to do this.
My boss, Greg, got a new account for online dating service evaluations for his company, Consolidated Evalu-Shop, and I’m currently on the prototype date. I have to create the series of questions that future mystery shoppers will answer when they go through all these customer service shops to determine whether the dating service works as the owners expect, and to help improve customer service, client retention, and overall efficiency.
I’m the sacrificial virgin.
Okay, not technically a virgin, but...you know what I mean.
“DoggieDate: The place where dogs find love” is an online dating service for dog lovers.
Snort. Go ahead. Say it.
The motto needs some work.
I’m mystery shopping DoggieDate’s entire customer service and online algorithm matching system. This is my first date. According to their system, Amanda Warrick, age twenty-seven and noneofyourbusiness pounds, with a college degree, an interest in chihuahuas and labradoodles, the owner of Spritzy the teacup chihuahua, and a lover of seafood is an eight-three percent match with....
Mr. Anal
Gland Hands, forty-nine, thrice-divorced, a triathletic vegan, an Internet Marketer, owner of Maisy the schnauzer and...
Unpause.
“You know, Amanda,” he says, grabbing my hands again. Ron. His real name is Ron. He has a combover like Donald Trump and arms like cords of steel, tanned deep and hairless. “If you’re anything like me, you’re sick of this dating game. How about we strip off all the bullshit layers and just get right to the heart of seeing if we’re compatible?”
Pause again.
This isn’t the first time I’ve done online dating. It’s just the first time I’ve done it professionally. I’m not invested in the outcome here. I’m just doing my job.
But.
I know what Ron’s about to say, so pull up a chair. This’ll be a doozy.
Unpause.
“So tell me all your secret sexual fantasies.”
I totally called it.
“All of them?” I ask, leaning forward. “Because I’m not sure we have enough time for that.”
His eyes light up. They’re the color of the bay after a big storm, the kind of brownish grey that only comes from stirring up a lot of crap.
I sniff the air. You smell that? It’s the scent of desperation.
Or Maisy’s anal glands.
It’s hard to tell the difference.
I need to focus on work, though. This isn’t a real date. If it were, I’d trigger a rescue text from my best friend Shannon and claim she’s in the ER and take my escape. Given how often Shannon really does end up in the emergency room, I’d have about a one in ten chance of not lying.
“Tell me all about Maisy!” I say, suddenly chirpy.
Poor Ron recoils. “She has nothing to do with my sexual fantasies!”
I didn’t imply as much, but the fact that he’s so quick to say that freaks me out.
“No, no, of course not,” I say in a soothing voice. The waitress brings my beer and I drink half of it in one long ribbon of alcoholic perfection.
Ron unclenches. He has super-short hair (except for the Trump combover right along the bangs) and is clean shaven. Those grey-brown eyes are framed by nothing but loose eyelid skin.
And then it hits me.
He has no eyelashes. No eyebrows, either. That’s why he looks like he’s so interested in everything I say.
“I just meant,” I continue, “that I love my little Spritzy. That’s why I joined DoggieDate. I’m wondering what Maisy’s like.”
Ron relaxes. “Actually,” he says with a conspirator’s grin, “she’s only half mine.”
Half? How do you have half a dog? Is Maisy a made-up dog? Does Ron use a fake dog to troll for women?
Or worse, maybe there really is half a dog somewhere. In a freezer. Like Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims.
“My ex-wife and I share custody.”
“Ohhhhh,” I say slowly, tipping back the second half of my beer. The waitress notices and before I’ve put the bottle down she catches my eye.
The Sisterhood Of The First Date Code is enacted. Third beer on the way. Good thing I’m taking a cab home. On my boss’s dime, no less. There is no way I’m going through twenty dates like this without beer and a cab.
That’s right. Twenty. I have to date twenty dog lovers, male and female, in an effort to create as thorough a survey as possible for the hundreds of mystery shoppers nationwide who will evaluate DoggieDate.
Anal glands be damned.
“How do you share custody of a dog?” I ask, intrigued. My third beer appears and I stifle a belch. Only men can burp on dates.
Women have to slowly leak out their CO2, like a deflating float at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. God forbid you let one rip.
“She gets Maisy every other week. We trade off holidays. We each get her on our birthdays.”
He’s serious.
“Who pays doggie support?” I joke. “Do you meet in a McDonald’s parking lot to hand her off in neutral territory?”
“No. Whole Foods. And I make more, so I give Alicia eight-two dollars a week to help cover Maisy’s Reiki treatments.”
Oh, God.
“Okay, great,” I mumble, nodding vigorously. Okay, great is code for You’re batshit crazy.
It then occurs to me: this is the entire point of these mystery shops. DoggieDate is designed for dog freaks.
If Ron is the norm, then I am, technically, the freak here.
I’m borrowing my mom’s teacup chihuahua, Spritzy, for the dates where the men and women want to have our dogs meet. Ron didn’t want that. He said the humans needed to make sure we were compatible before taking the very serious step of letting the dogs meet.
Dog Reiki? The man pays eight-two dollars a week for dog Reiki but he sticks his hands all over his dog’s brown starfish to save money?
And I’m the freak.
I guzzle the third beer and the waitress gives me a look. She comes over with the check. Ron ignores it.
Oh, Ron.
“I’d like an orange-flavored seltzer,” I ask the waitress. She nods and walks off.
Ron snickers.
“What’s funny?” I ask.
“Flavored seltzer. You know what they use to flavor those.” One corner of his mouth hooks up as his hand brushes against the check folder. He still doesn’t pick it up. I’m on an expense account, so it’s no big deal. Plus, technically, this is work, so why do I care that the guy won’t get the check?
And yet this is a little too close to a date for my comfort.
It has nothing to do with the fact that I haven’t been on a real date—one I’m not getting paid to attend—in months.
Not a thing.
“Amanda?” Ron gently nudges my hand.
“Oh, yes?” I’m in la la land, already distracted.
He smiles. “Beaver anal glands.”
“Beaver huh?”
The waitress sets my bottle of flavored seltzer water on the table. Ron points to it. “The flavoring. They express beaver anal glands to make most of those flavors.”
I pour the bottle into the glass of ice and laugh.
As I take a sip, our eyes meet.
He shrugs. “Look it up. For real.”
I drink the entire glass in one long motion.
And then I burp the ABCs.
Chapter Two
To my utter surprise (not), Ron ditches me, his phone buzzing suspiciously about two minutes after my spectacular belch. I’m not being hyperbolic: that burp was so good that some frat boys at a nearby table gave me a standing ovation.
Ron’s rescue text is so obvious it might as well have had flashing red and blue lights attached to it.
He leaves me with the bill. I pull out the company card and give the waitress a fifty percent tip. She deserves it.
Three beers pool in my bladder and taunt me as I try, repeatedly, to make quick notes about the date to help me write up my survey.
No luck. Can’t write. I need to evacuate the beaver funk.
Wait. That sounds very, very wrong....
As I weave to the bathroom, I run through the date in my mind. Dog lovers have different needs from your average desperate single looking for love. Because I am your average desperate single looking for love, I know what I’m talking about.
And DoggieDate has definitely figured out a distinct niche of the dating pool.
A pool I plan never to swim in.
This restaurant is on the Boston waterfront, right along a string of buildings that face the seaport. The bathroom is marble-lined and covered in fake Tiffany lamp fixtures, with glass beads and lots of prism reflections throughout the little enclosed room. I finish my business, scrubbing my hands extra hard as I wash them, and wonder if Ron was telling the truth.
Beaver glands for fruit flavoring in water? Now I’ve heard everything.
I waltz out of the restaurant, a little loose from those beers. The frat boy table gives me scattered thumbs up, one of the guys following me with his eyes the entire way out. I know this because the doubl
e glass doors show his reflection as I walk toward them.
I still got it.
At least, when it comes to impressing twenty-year-old college boys with my belching techniques.
Early spring on the seaport in Boston is fabulous at night if the snow has all melted and you have a warm breeze, which I do tonight. I walk outside and stare at the rippling water, inky black with gilded tips, the moon shining on them, making the waves look like knife edges popping up to and fro. My thick sweater wrap is just enough to prevent me from freezing.
Not as warm as a date’s arm slung around my shoulders, but my sweater hasn’t recently wiped any dog butts, so I’ll take it.
I sit down on a small bench that runs perpendicular to the water and try to find a ride home with the app on my smartphone. I hate these devices. I want my old flip phone, but Greg insists we use these things now to do our mystery shops.
Greg also insists I pretend to date men like Ron.
One down, nineteen dates to go.
In the search for my phone, I find my lipstick. Plum Passion. Who names these things? For the hell of it, I re-apply the color. Not that it will do me any good. After a (fake) date like that, what I need to attract a dog lover is Biscuit Beige. How about Puppy Pink? Burgundy Beagle?
No. Wait.
Frosted Spay.
I lean back against the bench and close my eyes, enjoying a light breeze that lifts the ends of my hair. I’m back to my natural color—boring brown—after years of doing hairstylist mystery shops that involved coloring it. I want to kick off my high heels and throw on some yoga pants, but instead I wiggle to make my Spanx more comfortable and settle for just taking a full breath.
This fake dating stuff is for the birds.
Er, the dogs...
My purse vibrates slightly from a text. I know I should read it, but I’m pretty certain it’s my mother, and right now, I just want to enjoy being unencumbered by anyone else’s expectations for a few moments. Nights like this require a breather, no matter how fleeting.