LITMIR.BIZ

      KATHERINE GARBERA

      lives near Chicago with the man she met in Fantasyland and their two kids. She started writing to prove to herself that she could do it and found herself addicted to it. Creating worlds where everyday people find love and balance it with already full lives appeals to her. She loves revisiting the places that have influenced her and has once again returned to Orlando, which is an especially fond place for the native Floridian. Readers can visit her home page on the Web at www.katherinegarbera.com.

      This book is dedicated to Mavis Allen, for her insight and her laughter.

       It’s a real pleasure to be working with you!

      Acknowledgments

      This book is a different direction for me, and I have to thank many people for the opportunity to try it. Joan Marlow Golan and Mavis Allen, who pointed out my first version of the hero was a little weak and then encouraged me to try something new.

      Teresa Brown, Pam Labud and Catherine Kean, who helped with every Orlando question I had. Any mistakes are my own. Eve Gaddy, who spent endless hours on the phone with me talking about this story and how to make it stronger, plus just offering her support—the words thank you really aren’t enough! And thanks to Nancy Thompson, who double-checked some facts on Orlando for me. I wish we could still meet for lunch at Dexters!

      As always, thanks to my family for their love and support, without which I’d probably accomplish nothing.

      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

      Epilogue

      One

      Lust wasn’t something Corrine Martin was comfortable admitting she experienced. It didn’t fit with the image she’d carefully cultivated—cool sophistication from the top of her blond head to the toes exposed by her slinky gold sandals. She’d done a good job of ignoring the surging feelings and the man who inspired them—until tonight.

      Maybe it was something in his wizard-green eyes. Or maybe it was just that she was tired of having him stare through her as if she wasn’t there. Whatever the reason, tonight she’d thrown caution to the wind and had purchased Rand Pearson for three corporate dates.

      Of course, she’d only bid on his services as a corporate spouse. She even had an airtight excuse for doing it. She needed an escort to the upcoming business meetings she’d be expected to attend.

      The ballroom at the Walt Disney Dolphin Hotel had been transformed into an old-fashioned buy-a-bride auction. All the money raised tonight would go to the Collation for the Homeless, an Orlando-based charity that fed and sheltered the homeless. This was Corrine’s first year attending. She’d bid on and won the services of Rand Pearson.

      Though they’d been working together for the last five months on a training project, she really didn’t know him. He’d been one of only three men on the auctioning block representing the company he was a partner in—Corporate Spouses. The company provided business-etiquette lessons as well as dates for executives for business functions.

      Corrine’s boss, Paul Sterling, the CEO of Tarron Enterprises, had won a similar package the year before. Corrine had been Paul’s secretary until his promotion to CEO when Paul had promoted her to a midlevel manager. Corrine loved the challenge her new role provided.

      But she needed to show her boss that she wasn’t in danger of becoming one-dimensional and focused only on her job as a middle manager at Tarron Enterprises. And on a more personal level she needed to remind herself that she was still a woman.

      Rand Pearson made her feel dangerous and alive. She didn’t like it, but she knew she needed to deal with it and get her life back on track. She had her eye on the vacant vice president position and knew that she’d need to be focused one hundred percent at work.

      “Dance with me, Corrine?” Rand asked, coming up to her. His tuxedo was obviously custom-made, making him look like royalty, which, if gossip was true, he’d descended from.

      “Why?” she asked. She’d never had any finesse when it came to men. They made her nervous. Probably because of her experiences in foster care during her teen years.

      “When a man asks you to dance, Cori, yes or no is the appropriate answer,” he said, with that gleam in his eyes that made her want to do something shocking. Which was how she’d ended up bidding on him.

      She sighed and reminded herself that she was known as the ice queen for a very good reason. Life was safer that way. “My name is Corrine. And I know that.”

      “Do you?”

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