The Playboy's Proposal (Sorensen Family) (4 page)

Graceful. Again.

She might have to start wearing a plastic raincoat. Her dry-cleaning bill was ridiculous.

Why, oh, why couldn’t she have half the social skills as Daisy, who was born hardwired with the ability to flirt with anyone, anywhere, anytime? Such as the lifeguard at the neighborhood pool Benny had stared at from behind her book all summer when she was fourteen. Daisy, at a confident and head-turning eighteen, had walked right up to him and started a conversation. Daisy and Scottie had spent the rest of the summer attached at the hip until they both left for college that fall.

Daisy had always been able to do that.

And as much as Benny loved her sister and wanted only her happiness, she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t resented Daisy the tiniest bit growing up. She was only human.

But she couldn’t continue to hate and resent every pretty woman who got the attention of the men that Benny was too tongue-tied to speak to herself. If only she could picture Luke as nonthreatening. Like her brothers. Or Chip the orderly. Or even the detestable Henry Ellison. Then she’d have no problem engaging him in actual dialogue, maybe even a few witty retorts.

Henry Ellison. He’d actually seemed almost likeable tonight with that cute niece who had the same golden-blond hair and brown eyes and that impish smile. Almost…human.

At least she had one thing going for her tonight. With his four-year-old niece in residence, Lover Boy wasn’t likely going to be having late-night parties or playing music at record high levels.

Maybe she’d even get a good night’s sleep before she returned to work tomorrow, ready for more inevitable humiliation.

Chapter Four

“Can we get McDonald’s for breakfast again, Uncle Henry?”

It was six thirty in the morning. On a Saturday. Wasn’t it a law that no one could be up this early?

Apparently, four-year-olds didn’t care much if it was Saturday or any other day of the week. Ella was wide-awake and raring to do something, while Henry needed to pour a full carafe of coffee down his throat before he could consider going anywhere.

“Let’s just have some cereal. We can go there for lunch.”

A few minutes later, with Ella eating Captain Crunch in front of the television and a full cup of coffee flooding Henry’s veins, he decided he was awake enough to get his mail and the package he was expecting.

Last night after he’d picked Ella up from day camp, the two of them had gone to dinner and a movie, arriving home after eight, when he’d had to carry the little girl, half asleep, to bed. Now that the kid was up and preoccupied for the time being, Henry felt better about leaving her alone for a couple of minutes.

The place was dead quiet, as he would expect on a Saturday at the death of dawn, and he was able to catch the elevator back up with no wait. While the floors ticked by, he looked through the mail, his package tucked under his arm.

The letter bearing the building HOA’s name and address caught his eye. It looked awfully official. He ripped it open, barely glancing up when he stepped off the elevator.

Thirty seconds later, he was standing outside the madwoman’s door. He pounded, not caring if she was still asleep.

She opened the door in under a minute, fully dressed in—what else—scrubs, light blue this time. Did she live in those things?

“Mr. Ellison?” She scrunched up her face at him in feigned confusion even though they both knew why he was here. “What can I do for you?”

“Ah, Dr. Sorensen. Terribly sorry to have pulled you out of bed, in pj’s again, no less.”

She narrowed her eyes. “They’re scrubs.”

“Yes, I see that.” He looked behind her, as if expecting to see an operating table. “Are you scrubbing in for surgery in there?”

“What can I help you with,” she managed between clenched teeth.

He held the letter up in front of her, noting the gleam of satisfaction that entered her eyes.

“I received an interesting letter this morning from our home owners’ association. It seems there have been some
complaints
”—he emphasized the word, watching her face for any sign of guilt, but it was now carefully blank—“about me. Maybe I can read you a little bit of this so you know what I’m talking about. ‘Tenant is in violation of section three, subsection (a), which requires all tenants to cease loud and excessive noise, including music, that interferes in another tenant’s quiet enjoyment of their property.’ Let’s see here… Oh, another good one, ‘tenant is required to park entirely within the borders of the owner’s space or be subject to fine.’”

“Sounds like you have a real problem there.”

“Yes. You could call it a
problem
. According to this and the monetary fine schedule for said violations, I’m on the hook for six hundred dollars. Not to mention that if there are further complaints, the fine goes up to twelve hundred, followed by possible eviction proceedings. Evicting me from my own home.”

“That’s rough,” she said with feigned sympathy. “Maybe you should save yourself the aggravation and just move out?”

“And give the coward who set this all in motion the satisfaction? Not in a million years. I prefer to appeal the decision and ask for a hearing with the board so I can confront this coward face-to-face.”

“Coward? Or perhaps they’re smart enough to know that if some ignoramus is too stupid to know they should turn their blaring music off by one in the morning, or not take someone else’s parking spot, or not park so close to another tenant’s car they have to climb in from the passenger side, then confronting said ignoramus becomes pointless. A waste of their valuable time.”

That’s it. He’d tried to be nice. Tried to talk to her in a calm, level, and somewhat respectful tone. “Is that right? You think that playing games like siccing the HOA on me or leaking this crap to online gossip rags is going to win you any friends, lady?”

“I don’t want to be friends, I want to be able to come home and not wonder what my inconsiderate, egotistical neighbor has in store for me,” she said, her voice rising. “And as for leaking ‘this crap’ to any gossip rags, I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

“Right. It’s just a coincidence stories about my late-night partying hit the web the very next morning after you crashed the party.”

“I can’t be the only one who finds your selfish antics immature and frustrating.”

He studied her, trying to decide whether to believe her or not. Before he could push it farther, a soft, less certain voice broke in.

“Uncle Henry?”

Both of them turned to see the small girl in her bunny pajamas standing in the hall, staring at them with uncertainty and a little fear on her face. Holy hell. Now she was causing him to traumatize his young niece.

“Happy?” he hissed under his breath.

She gave him a scowl, then turned back to the little girl. “Ella? Your uncle and I are just having a little discussion. Nothing for you to worry about,” she said in the familiar soft voice she’d used in her office. “How’s your nose feeling?”

“It’s fine. Are you and Uncle Henry going to yell at each other much longer? Because I need him to pour me more cereal.”

“I’ll be right there, honey,” Henry said, not taking his eyes from Benny Sorensen. For a woman who couldn’t put two words together the other night in the presence of Dr. Suck Face, she could be surprisingly verbal with him.

What the woman needed was a distraction. She needed something or some
one
to take her attention off every little thing he did. Someone who could fill her time with human companionship, dinners, and dates…

He stepped back and studied her.

She wasn’t a bad-looking woman, not at all. If you could get past the lips pursed in disapproval, and the eyes that had their laser-beam quality burrowing a hole in his head. If she stopped pulling her hair back in that unflattering ponytail that left frizzy pieces flying all over her head, maybe tweezed those brows back a bit, and smiled once in a while, she could be actually pretty.

Okay, maybe he’d gone too far. She could be…less terrorizing.

In fact, her eyes were such a bright, iridescent blue that if she could stop glaring at everyone or, in the converse, dropping her gaze down whenever Dr. Suck Face looked her way, they could be almost…captivating.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She peered uncertainly at him.

“No reason.” He smiled. “I think I’ve just come up with a solution to our little problem, however. Would you like to hear it?”

She glanced at her watch and back. “If you can tell me in four minutes or less. I have early-morning hours at the clinic.”

“You work on Saturdays?”

She shrugged. “We hold after-hour care on the weekends. We rotate so it comes to be about once a month. Today’s my turn. You now have three and a half minutes.”

“Okay. I have a little proposition for you. I couldn’t help but notice the other night that you have a certain…affinity to that other doctor. The guy with the blonde attached to his mouth?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I knew you were spying on me. Well, for your information, Dr. Seeley is merely a colleague, and I have no interest in him other than profession—”

He raised his hand. “Save it. If it’s one thing I know, it’s how to read a person. To see what they want sometimes before they know it themselves. That’s why I’m so good at my work. In advertising,” he added when she didn’t bite or look particularly impressed. “And I know that you have the hots for the good Dr. Seeley.”

“Two minutes left,” she said, her eyes narrowed to near slits now. But he also could see a faint blush on her face, making her forehead glow almost red. “I hope you have a point.”

“I do. In exchange for you dropping this”—he waved the notice in front of her— “vendetta you have against me, and telling the HOA that you are withdrawing your complaint and any legal threats you made to them—since they sure as hell have never been this proactive in enforcing the rules in the three years I’ve lived here—I’ll get you a date with the esteemed Dr. Seeley.”

She snorted. “Yeah. Right. First, not that I’m admitting to having any feelings whatsoever for Lu—Dr. Seeley, but you must be crazy to think I’d drop anything on some tenuous promise that you couldn’t possibly deliver.”

Now it was his turn to gloat. “Try me. I can sell anything to anyone, and I can certainly sell you. Believe me, if anyone knows what a guy like Dr. Seeley—or any guy, for that matter—wants in a woman, it’s me.”

She nodded. “Oh, that’s right. Because you’re a man whore. Of course you know what all men want, in your diverse and vast experience. However, I’m afraid Dr. Seeley is on a different level than you.”

He remembered the stocky blond guy who probably played quarterback in high school while running for school president and maintaining a 4.0 GPA. Your typical all-American high-school hero who’d grown up to become your all-American grown-up hero as a doctor—to children, no less. “Trust me. I know what that guy wants. What kind of woman he wants. And I know that with a little effort on your part—scratch that, a lot of effort—I can make you into that woman.”

The last dig might have been too much, the way she puffed out her chest like she was going to launch herself at him. But whatever she’d been about to say got caught in her throat, and instead, something else crossed that face of hers. Something that told him maybe they might have a deal.

Hope.

…

She’d known the moment he knocked on her door she should just ignore him. Refuse to engage with him until he’d had the chance to cool down after reading the letter—a copy of which she’d seen yesterday. But there’d been curiosity, an almost masochistic instinct to see his anger at an inconvenience that, for once,
she’d
caused
him
.

And it had been entertaining, up until Ella had come out into the hall to see what was going on.

But now, with this so-called proposition of his, she was at a loss. Was he even serious? Or was this some cruel joke to string her along until she’d dropped her complaints?

She studied him, his smooth polish even at this absurd hour in the morning. He’d retired his expensive refined suit for more relaxed jeans and a T-shirt that, unfortunately, made him look impossibly more debonair, which, if she didn’t hate him so much, would be disarming. But she loathed him with a deep and growing fire, the way he just thought he could smile that charming smile of his and get people to do his bidding. She’d seen the articles about him, the women, the parties that would inevitably follow him not just because of his professional success, but because of his standing as heir to Brighton Jewelers—one of the oldest and most reputable jewelry companies in the country.

But…she had to admit, he did make a convincing argument. He not only knew what men wanted, but he knew how to play people, to create the perfect package for whatever snake oil he was selling. Hadn’t she just been commiserating over how she was going to be alone unless she made a change? He could be a guru of sorts—if she could learn to tolerate him.

“I’m not looking to be dressed as some bimbo Barbie. Slapping on makeup and prancing around the office isn’t going to do anything but humiliate me.”

“Lord, don’t I know it.”

She wanted to kick him. “Forget it.” She should have known that even talking to him was a mistake. She stepped back, ready to slam the door in his face.

“Wait. Benny. Hear me out. I’m sorry, sometimes you just leave yourself open and I can’t resist the opportunity. But I promise, I’ll work on that—and keeping the music down to a respectable level and giving you access to your parking spot. Look, I know better than anyone that a decent hairstyle and a little lipstick aren’t going to make any difference if you can’t say two words without falling down in a faint, or running into a wall or whatever you do when he speaks to you. I’m going to give you the whole Henry Ellison treatment. When I’m done, you’ll be able to not only slay Dr. Seeley with your wit and unbounding charm, but you’re going to have him wrapped around your little finger after I verse you in the fine art of flirting.”

“You’re promising me a lot. But you have to be crazy if you think I’m going to drop my complaint now that I actually have your attention.”

“I’m so certain of my prowess, that I guarantee you’ll have a date with the good doctor by”—he scanned the contents of the letter—“August Twenty-Ninth. The day of the HOA hearing. That’s a little over a month away. If I can’t make you the walking dream this guy wants by then, then I’ll agree to pay whatever fees the board rules on at that hearing, and I won’t fight you any longer. But if I do prevail, then you’re going to march in there and tell them you made it all up. Do we have a deal?”

Five weeks. Five weeks where she could pick his brain, learn the subtle art and skill of not just flirting, but socially engaging any man and not dissolving into Jell-O at his feet. That was, if she could stomach being in the same room with this guy without killing him.

It was a lofty promise. But what did she have to lose? As things were going now, Luke Seeley was never going to see her as a woman. A woman he wanted. Not a cute, nerdy klutz good for a little laugh every now and then. A woman to love.

“And you’ll keep the music down and let me use my parking spot?” He nodded. “All right. Deal.”

He raised his hand toward her. He actually wanted to shake on it? She accepted it begrudgingly. “So. What do we do first?”

He dropped his gaze down her body, skimming over the loose but comfy scrubs and down to her favorite worn sneakers. “First you need to stop dressing like a seventeen-year-old tomboy. What time are you off work today?”