Come As You Are
Lauren Blakely
Contents
Copyright
Also By Lauren Blakely
About Come As You Are
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Epilogue
Another Epilogue
Also by Lauren Blakely
Contact
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by Lauren Blakely
LaurenBlakely.com
Cover Design by © Helen Williams
Photo: Rafa Catala
First Edition
* * *
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Also By Lauren Blakely
Big Rock Series
* * *
Big Rock
Mister O
Well Hung
Full Package
Joy Ride
Hard Wood
* * *
One Love Series dual-POV Standalones
The Sexy One
The Only One
The Hot One
* * *
Sports Romances
Most Valuable Playboy
Most Likely to Score
* * *
Standalones
* * *
The Knocked Up Plan
Stud Finder
The V Card
Wanderlust
Come As You Are
Part-Time Lover (June 2018)
The Real Deal (Summer 2018)
Unbreak My Heart (Summer 2018)
Far Too Tempting
21 Stolen Kisses
Playing With Her Heart
Out of Bounds
* * *
The Heartbreakers Series
Once Upon A Real Good Time (Fall 2018)
Once Upon A Sure Thing (Fall 2018)
Once Upon A Wild Fling (Fall 2018)
* * *
The Caught Up in Love Series
Caught Up In Us
Pretending He’s Mine
Trophy Husband
Stars in Their Eyes
* * *
The No Regrets Series
The Thrill of It
The Start of Us
Every Second With You
* * *
The Seductive Nights Series
First Night (Julia and Clay, prequel novella)
Night After Night (Julia and Clay, book one)
After This Night (Julia and Clay, book two)
One More Night (Julia and Clay, book three)
A Wildly Seductive Night (Julia and Clay novella, book 3.5)
* * *
The Joy Delivered Duet
Nights With Him (A standalone novel about Michelle and Jack)
Forbidden Nights (A standalone novel about Nate and Casey)
* * *
The Sinful Nights Series
Sweet Sinful Nights
Sinful Desire
Sinful Longing
Sinful Love
* * *
The Fighting Fire Series
Burn For Me (Smith and Jamie)
Melt for Him (Megan and Becker)
Consumed By You (Travis and Cara)
* * *
The Jewel Series
A two-book sexy contemporary romance series
The Sapphire Affair
The Sapphire Heist
About Come As You Are
I couldn’t have scripted a more perfect night.
* * *
For one fantastic evening, at a masquerade party in the heart of Manhattan, I’m not the millionaire everyone wants a piece of. Fine—multimillionaire. But who’s counting all those commas? Not me, and not the most intriguing woman I've ever met, who happens to like dancing, witty banter, and hot, passionate up-against-the-wall sex as much as I do.
* * *
There's no need for names or business cards. And that’s why I’m eager to get to know her more, since my mystery woman seems to like me for me, rather than for my huge…bank account.
* * *
Everything’s coming up aces. Until the next day when things get a little complicated. (Newsflash — a lot complicated.)
* * *
***
* * *
He's charming, brilliant, an incredible lover, and right now I want to stab fate in the eyeballs.
* * *
I've had one goal I've been working toward, and lo and behold, my mystery man is the very person who stands between me and my dream job. A job I desperately need since my hard-knock life has nothing in common with his star-kissed one.
* * *
But it’s time to put that fairytale night behind me, and focus on learning what makes him tick. Too bad it turns out his quirks are my quirks, and his love affair with New York matches mine.
* * *
And as we spend our days together, I discover something else that feels like a cruel twist of fate — I’m falling for this naughty prince charming, and that’s not an ending I can write to our story.
For Candi—for everything, and for the stories.
1
Flynn
* * *
I’m used to whispers.
Little voices rustling around me. Asking, wondering.
That guy looks familiar.
Is he . . .?
Is that . . .?
Yes, I am that guy.
Sometimes they figure it out. Sometimes they don’t. If they do, a pitch comes next.
Today, the locker room attendant at my gym mutters under his breath—I think that’s . . .—then studies me like a philosopher studies the meaning of existence.
Good thing I’m mostly dressed.
As the short, stocky guy collects towels from the floor and tosses them into a hamper, he stares at me then pretends not to. He looks down then glances up again, and I swear I can see the pieces sliding into place as I slip the final button through its hole in my white dress shirt.
No, he’s not about to hit on me. He’s about to hit me up.
I s
ling my messenger bag across my chest, snick the locker closed, and run a hand through my still-damp hair. Grabbing my towel from the bench, I carry it over to him and toss it in the hamper. Lifting my chin, I nod at the dude and thank him for all he does in keeping the locker room at this high-end racquetball club sparkling clean.
He tilts his head, wags a finger, and turns his whispers into words. “Excuse me, but aren’t you Flynn Parker?”
Called it.
Bonus points that he identified me as me, and not as my identical twin. This guy has a good radar.
“Yes, I am.”
A smile lights his face, and he practically vibrates with excitement. “I’m Dale, and I need to tell you about an app I developed. I think you’d dig it.”
If I had a beer for the number of pitches my ears have heard . . . well, I’d be able to stock all the pubs in Manhattan forever. I’d be a beer supplier, rather than a high-tech CEO.
“Give me your best thirty-second pitch,” I say, as I fix on a smile. Here’s the thing—in my field, you never know when you’re going to be pitched something worth listening to. Hell, if the guy has an app that warms your slippers before you come home, I might be interested.
Or maybe I’d just throw on a pair of socks instead.
Dale rubs his hands together. “Get this. It’s called How’m I Doing? And,” he says, shaking his head like his app is blowing his own mind, “it rates your sexual performance.”
I blink. Adjust my eyeglasses. Did he really just say that? “Excuse me?”
“You turn it on when you get it on, and based on your speed and your rate of thrust and the noises of your partner, it scores you. Like, are you a five? Are you an eight? Are you a—wait for it—a ten?”
Shockingly, I’m familiar with how a scale of one to ten works. “Does it do . . . anything else?”
Dale furrows his brow. “Besides give you a grade on how well you take care of business? What else should it do? That’s hella cool. Imagine all the ways it could integrate with online dating sites.”
Imagine all the ways no one would ever want to, one, use it, and two, learn the answers. Plus, if you need to use it, I’m guessing your score is on the low end.
But my role isn’t to fund him. It’s to give some feedback on the fly. Considering how much I enjoy a clean locker room that doesn’t smell like the inside of a sock, the least I can do is provide a useful tip. The number of great ideas that have launched from the detritus of bad ones is enough for me to say to him, “Keep working on it, Dale. Keep refining it. And don’t be afraid to pivot, either, and take it in another direction.”
Preferably an entirely new one.
He scratches his head. “A new direction. Let me think about that. Maybe it can make recommendations. Positions to try. Tips on speed and such.”
Yeah, I’m going to leave him with that thought knocking around his skull. “Good luck, Dale.”
“Thanks, Flynn.”
I leave and walk the ten blocks to my office, saying hello to Claude the doorman once I’m in the lobby.
The mustached man with the blue cap and matching tie greets me. “Good morning, Mr. Parker. Did I ever tell you about my cousin Charlie, the amazing miniature golfer?”
“I don’t believe you did,” I say, wondering if this is where Claude shares a family yarn about the time his cousin landed a hole-in-one in that impossible windmill obstacle. If so, I’d like to know how to pull off that shot.
“He started a GoFundMe campaign so he can become a pro,” he says. “If you can contribute to his fundraising campaign, we can get him some new five irons, an elite coach, and some state-of-the-art golf balls. Would you consider it, Mr. Parker?”
If he’d said his ten-year-old niece’s softball team wanted a sponsor to pay for a field, or that his nephew’s middle school science class desperately needed to finance a trip to the planetarium, I’d say yes in a heartbeat. I’m not opposed to sharing my wealth.
I am, however, adamantly against bankrolling vanity projects. “While I wish your cousin the best of luck, I prefer to support non-profits that have specific charitable goals rather than individual goals.”
Claude chuckles. “If you saw my cousin you’d see he’s something of a charity case.” From his post behind the black marble counter, he slaps his thigh and guffaws at his own joke. “Thanks for listening, though.”
I give him a tip of the proverbial hat and head into the elevator. As the doors start to close, I breathe a sigh of relief. At last, I’m free from this morning’s pitch-a-thon.
“Hold the door.”
An arm thrusts forward, sending the doors swishing open again. A frazzled man in a rumpled suit wheels a suitcase behind him, the telltale sign of a salesman. Surely he has a great set of steak knives that also make julienned fries to sell me.
The guy looks me over and furrows his brow as the elevator chugs upward. “Hey, you look familiar. Are you who I think you are?”
“Han Solo, circa 1977?”
He snaps his meaty fingers. “I got it! You’re the guy in the personal injury ads that run on the local cable access channel.”
Thank fuck.
I laugh, shaking my head. “No, but I get that all the time. Great guess.”
I make my getaway on the next floor, escaping safely into the confines of my office for the morning, and I don’t emerge until afternoon rolls around and it’s time to hightail it to a hotel in midtown for a technology conference. When I get there, I head to the backstage of the ballroom for my keynote address on leadership.
A cute redhead dressed in black rushes over to me. “Hi, Flynn. Let me make sure your handy-dandy mic is on,” she says, fiddling with the small clip-on device that’ll send my voice slinging across the room. Up close, I can see she has a spray of freckles across her nose and a sparrow tattoo on her neck. “Once I give the signal, don’t say anything inappropriate.”
I mime zipping my lips.
“Also, we’re tight on time so there won’t be any Q and A,” she says, and I could kiss her. No Q and A means no one can ask me about ShopForAnything and how the great white shark appeared in my calm tropical business waters a few weeks ago, jaws wide open, determined to eat my company for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a midnight snack. It’s the press’s question du jour, fascinating to every member of the business media.
“Too bad,” I say, like I’m bummed. Hey, maybe I can pass for an actor.
She raises her index finger and nods. “Now, your mic is hot,” she whispers.
And I don’t whisper back, So are you, even though she is, because, hello, that’s rude. Hitting on a cute chick at a conference is, one, uncool, two, douchey, and three, not my style. Besides, striking up conversations with women who know who I am is about as satisfying as watching a parade on a cold day.
Come to think of it, I don’t care for parades in warm weather either.
But the backstage woman is great, so I flash her a smile, and mouth thanks as the emcee introduces me.
“And now, it is with great pleasure and pride that I welcome Flynn Parker for our closing keynote address. His business reputation is unparalleled, having founded one of the most successful tech start-ups of all time and sold it for multimillions, earning him a reputation as a true internet superstar and visionary. He’s now become a key player in an exciting new technology sector. Please join me in welcoming him to the stage.”
Because I’ve given more keynotes than I can count, I stride onto the stage without breaking a sweat, and thirty minutes later, the audience claps and cheers.
“How’d I do?” I ask the girl with the sparrow tattoo once I’m offstage.
She shushes me and reaches for the mic. “You were still mic’d.”
I shrug. “Could have been worse. I could have said, ‘Free pizza tomorrow at the lobby of my office.’”
She wags a finger at me, whispering, “There’s no more appealing combination of words in the English language than ‘free’ and ‘pizza.’” She peers arou
nd the front of the stage. “Good luck making it through the crowd. Looks like they’re already lined up waiting for you to exit. Want an escort?”
I wave off the offer. “Nah, I’m good.”
If I stopped listening to ideas, I’d lose my edge. Edge is everything in business. It separates the visionaries from the has-beens. It’ll separate me from ShopForAnything if I play my cards right. That’s why I listen to every one of the pitches volleyed my way.
Once the crowd thins, I head out of the ballroom, making my way through the hotel’s lower floor.
“Hi, Flynn.” The bold, outgoing voice sounds like it belongs to a TV anchor, or maybe a politician.
I turn to see a brunette in a navy pantsuit walking by my side. Her dark hair is slicked back in a clip, and I’m going to bet my money on local TV reporter.
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