Sexy and Funny, Hilarious Erotic Romance Bundle (52 page)

“Good choice,” I said, then explained about the phone call I’d just received.

He seemed really hung up on the fact the job was
underwear modeling
. We got past that, by working through the concept that underwear covered the same stuff as a swimsuit, and he wouldn’t be worried about my modeling swimwear.

“Why wouldn’t they get a professional?” he asked.

“They want regular girls.”

He snorted. “No, they don’t. It’s the whole celebrity endorsement thing. You’ve got your image all over the place, in your underwear from that one time, and now they want a piece of you. If you’d sent in your pictures last week, they wouldn’t have even called you back.”

“You know about the half-naked photos?”

“How could I not? People keep telling me. I had an old college buddy call me out of the blue.”

“I’m sorry I embarrassed you and Mom and Kyle.”

“Kyle doesn’t know. And he’s not going to.” He gave me a long stare, the look in his blue eyes softening by the second. “And don’t you dare be embarrassed. You’re a beautiful girl, and you look beautiful in those photos. Plus you didn’t do anything wrong.”

His love nearly made me cry.

I looked around, double-checking that we were still alone in the store. “Dad, is this it? Is my life starting to happen?”

“Your life has been happening for a long time now.”

“You know what I mean. Life outside of Beaverdale.”

His eyes went wide, and he joked, “Take me with you?”

The garbage truck passed by outside the window, its weight making the whole building rumble.

“Mom would never let you go, and you know it.”

He grinned and said, “Let me have a look over the modeling contract, and I’ll tell you what I think.”

I called the woman back and asked her to fax me a contract to the bookstore.

By the time the contract came in by fax, my father was already back at his shop with all his radio-control helicopter parts, so I faxed it to him.

He strolled back in around lunch, saying, “This is not written to be in your best interests at all.”

My face got all disappointed, as did the rest of me.

“You won’t let me be a model?”

He gave me a cute Dad-knows-best look. “I know you’re excited, but you can’t jump into opportunities blindly, or they have a way of becoming disasters.”

My cell phone beeped with an incoming text from Dalton. “Speak of the devil,” I said. “Here’s a message from my current disaster. Did you know there really is a hot spring on the Weston Estate? Dalton took me to see it.”

“Hot springs sometimes disappear and reappear after earthquakes.”

“I know, Dad. You bring that up every time someone talks about a hot spring. And you know what else? That’s the same thing Dalton said.”

“Smart guy.”

“He claims he isn’t.”

“Playing dumb can work to your advantage. Not that you’d ever try it.”

“Hah! I got you to help with my contract, didn’t I?”

He frowned over the papers. “You should have an agent for this. This matters. As far as the other stuff goes, dating and whatever, you’re only twenty-two. Date whomever you want. It’s not like you’re ready to get married.”

“Really. You don’t say.” I put my hand on my hip, the attitude working its way through my suddenly-in-demand, voluptuous body. “And at what age am I ready to get married?”

“Twenty-nine. You’ll wear a big, white dress. Too expensive, of course. Your mother and I will pay for everything, and we’ll book the same hall as we had for our wedding.”

I honestly didn’t know whether to chew him out for being so bossy, or hug him and kiss him for having given it so much thought.

“Dalton seems nice enough,” he said, nodding.

I threw myself into his arms. “You’re a good daddy.”

“All I want is the best for you.” He patted my back. “What temperature do you have the air conditioning set to? Seems a bit chilly.”

He went off to fiddle with the settings for the HVAC system.

Some customers came in, and I helped them with their shopping. My father slipped out, the contract in his hand.

Once I was alone again, I remembered the text message on my phone that I hadn’t read yet.

Dalton:
This lunch the catering truck made us today is insane.

Me:
You’re making me hungry!

Dalton:
Haven’t had lunch?

Me:
I’ll get something from the coffee shop soon.

Dalton:
Don’t bother! Vern is bored out of his mind here today. He’s going to bring you over lunch.

Me:
How would you feel about dating an underwear model?

There was a long delay with no response. Over half an hour. Then I got this:

Dalton:
I don’t know what you mean, but I’m not seeing anyone but you.

Me:
An underwear company called me this morning, about modeling their new plus-size line. Do you think I should do it?

Another delay, maybe ten minutes.

Dalton:
I don’t want you to get hurt.

I typed a whole bunch of responses and deleted them all without sending. I appreciated his concern, but I wished it didn’t make me feel like he thought I was an idiot. It was bad enough I had my father working on the contract, like I was some child who didn’t understand consequences.

If Dalton had been dating someone skinny, who got asked to model non-plus-size clothes, would he say the same thing?

I guess the worst part about my father and Dalton both being apprehensive was how they introduced more doubt to my mind. Right after I’d talked to the woman, my mind had whirled with dreams coming true. I’d get pampered, take instructions for a photo shoot or two, then gather my big stack of cash and buy the brand new house that was for sale down the street from where I lived. Then it would be goodbye to the grotty old rental house with “character” and scary spiders in the basement, and hello to long, hot showers in my new house. Shayla would still be my roommate, and we’d have a formal dining room and tons of fancy dinner parties.

Oh, and my books! I’d line the formal dining room with bookshelves.

What the doubts did was rain all over these dreams. I’d have bookshelves, but wouldn’t enjoy them because I’d be sobbing on the bathroom floor over hate mail and awful things about me on the internet. If people started to dig—really dig—they’d find a gossip goldmine.
People
magazine would want to write a feature story about me, and then everyone would know everything.

The door jingled, and Vern came into Peachtree Books, looking every bit a butler with a silver-lidded tray in hand.

With a flourish, he revealed the lunch sent over from the movie set. It looked like spaghetti and meatballs, but the healthy version, where half the pasta was stir-fried vegetables.

“What are these?” I asked, sampling a green vegetable that looked and tasted like asparagus, but rolled into a circle at the tip, like the fiddlehead on a fern.

“Fiddleheads,” he replied.

Of course.

“I’ll watch the door while you eat,” he said, and he started browsing through the new releases on the front table.

I took a seat back at the table where I usually unboxed new orders, and scarfed down the meal as I texted Dalton.

Me:
These meatballs are really good. Thank you!

Dalton:
I’ll show you meaty balls.

Me:
I’ll bring the peaches for dessert.

Dalton:
Stop it. This scene doesn’t call for wood.

Me:
Are you in that room we visited last night?

Dalton:
Yes. And I keep thinking about you on your knees, with your sweet lips on my…

Me:
I do love meatballs.

Dalton:
Back to your previous question. If you want to be an underwear model, then I say go for it. Opportunities are good. One should always make the leap when Fate winks.

Me:
Leap?

Dalton:
Leap! Gotta go. Very long day and long night ahead of us.

I said goodbye and was putting the phone away when I got one more message.

Dalton:
I can smell you on my skin, you little minx. XOXO

With a huge smile on my face, I put away the phone and chased the last bit of noodle from the plate. I’d never had someone send me lunch at work. The beautiful flowers he’d sent me were now enjoying their final day, looking gorgeous in their decay.

Flowers or lunch, or even just a text message, it all showed he was thinking about me. I’d been so concerned about him getting into all my thoughts that I forgot I’d gotten into his.

And now I lived in his mind, along with his script lines, his fancy life, and his awful memories of a lover who killed herself, a vindictive stepdaughter/sister, and a mother who overdosed on his money.

He had a lot to worry about, so I vowed to myself that no matter what happened with the underwear modeling, I wouldn’t add to his problems.

Friday.

On Tuesday morning, I’d gotten the call about modeling an as-yet-unnamed underwear line.

By Friday, the details had been ironed out, thanks in no small part to my father’s savvy negotiating.

It had been his idea to lend not just my image, but my name to the underwear line. That’s how I found myself acting as the “consulting designer” on the Peaches Monroe line of plus-sized bras, panties, and body shapers. Me! A fashion designer! Specifically, I received a FedEx packet of fabric samples and chose five colors from the ten samples; I was assured my involvement was very important.

I would be paid for a few days of modeling—decent money, but not buy-a-house cash—but the real perk was getting equity in the company itself. If things went well, I could stand to get a bunch of money, plus a lifetime supply of underwear, of course. No more wearing the ratty old ginch and saving the pretty lacy ones for special occasions. No, ma’am. Starting in a few months, I’d have Date Panties on every damn day of the week.

Was I nervous about the upcoming photo shoot?

In a word, eep!

My flight to LA, where the company was based, was booked for Saturday morning. On Friday, they called to tell me the “good news.” They’d increased the marketing budget, and were whipping together a national TV commercial, to be shot the next week while I was in LA.

That put a damper on my plans to spend time relaxing in LA with Dalton. He was wrapping the film shoot Sunday, and would meet me down in California a few days after I got there.

I’d be staying in his gorgeous house in the Hollywood Hills, “warming” his bed by sleeping nude in his fancy Egyptian Cotton sheets until he arrived.

We hadn’t discussed what would happen after my vacation days ended, but I imagined it would be more of this, with both of us flying between the two cities as our schedules permitted.

A few days earlier, I’d been sure he was about to dump me, and now I was thinking about The Future. What had changed? The modeling contract.

Becoming a model changed everything.

See, my theory is that people don’t just get confident by acting confident and believing in themselves. You have to accomplish things, reach goals. Once I became the manager of the bookstore and had staff (even if it was just Amy and the occasional part-timer or student getting work experience), I gained the confidence of someone who was a boss. I acted like a boss because I was a boss.

Now I’d had my photo taken for
Vanity fucking Fair
, and was about to be rocking my curves and wobbles for an underwear line.

And that wasn’t nothing!

I was in a celebratory mood, and Shayla was taking all my good news with more grace every day.

“Good things are happening for us,” she’d say, as if the rising tide that was lifting my boat would also lift hers. And maybe it would.

She was so enthusiastic, in fact, that instead of staying quiet Friday night and getting a good night’s sleep before I took a long bus ride to the nearest city and then flight to LA, I agreed to some drinking Friday night. Not
partying
, mind you, but specifically
drinking
. Starting with cucumber gin and tonics at our house.

The house started filling up around eight o’clock, when I was still playing Tetris with my suitcase contents. Did I need to bring a blow dryer, or would Dalton have one at his house? I didn’t want to text and bother him with such a dumb girlie question, since he was working late, and I’d already asked so many questions already.