LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter One

      Acquire social lubricant. Check. Step three of this theoretical man-landing mission was complete. She’d already put on panties that would make her feel confident and sexy, then found a bar in the right part of town that was sure to contain the right sort of people.

      Now she just needed to relax so she could engage a potential mate.

      Evie James looked down into her pink drink and frowned. She didn’t feel particularly socially lubricated. Or lubricated in any fashion, really.

      She was nervous. Shaky and neurotic and nervous. This was what years of hiding in her office had gotten her. What years of dating the same boring man who hogged the covers and treated the female orgasm like an elusive, nonexistent unicorn that didn’t bear hunting for had gotten her.

      She didn’t know how to pick up men. She knew how to program apps. How to manage a team of creatives. How to sell and market what she created, to a whole roomful of people if necessary, and she had a few million dollars in her bank account that stood as a testament to that. On a personal note, she also knew how to find a moving service to get your rat-bastard ex’s shit out of your apartment and have it delivered to his mother’s house in boxes marked “things to clutter up your basement when your man-child returns.”

      Yeah, she knew how to do that.

      But picking up men? New men she had never talked to before? Men she wanted to do sexual things, not business things, with? Not so much.

      Not that she was actually going to do any sexual things with a guy tonight. She just needed to see if she could get one to take her bait. So to speak.

      She sucked up more pink drink through her straw and waited for some magic to happen. None.

      She tugged her iPad out of her purse and opened up the basic mock-up of the app she’d been using as a guide. Flirt magazine had commissioned her to create this app that would be a field guide for fashion, flirting and hooking up.

      Right now, the app needed some beta testing. And she was the one testing it. Because hell, if it could work for her it could work for anyone.

      She clicked on the “10 Dating Tips” article and skimmed to number four.

      Put yourself out there! You don’t have to wait for a man to approach you. That went out with corsets and stays. The rules of the dating game are in your hands.

      Her shaky, sweaty hands.

      Sweet.

      She looked around the bar. It was so dim. She wasn’t sure how anyone was supposed to tell how attractive the people around them were. Though, maybe that would work in her favor. Whilst she’d followed the “How to Get a Smokey Eye in Three Easy Steps” guide religiously while getting ready, she was privately afraid she looked like she’d been punched in the face.

      So maybe the dim lighting would work in her favor.

      The guy across the bar was actually pretty nice looking. He was wearing that standard blue business shirt, collar open, his tie probably ditched in whatever fleet car he drove. A company car, she was willing to bet. He had an eight-dollar haircut. That she was sure of. She could see the razor tracks from twenty feet away, but

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