LITMIR.BIZ

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Her breath suddenly caught in her throat and she was forced to look away—or faint from lack of oxygen.

      Living in L.A., she’d seen her share of beautiful men. But she’d always managed to discount them all because they didn’t meet the image of perfection she kept in her head. Aidan Pierce came as close to perfect as any man she’d ever set eyes upon.

      Swallowing hard, she forced a smile. “Too young for you.”

      “I’m thinking of changing my rules. I no longer think it would look pathetic for me to date men under the age of thirty.” Miranda sat back in her chair and sniffed. “He wouldn’t be too young for you. Why don’t we go over and introduce ourselves? Offer to buy him a drink.”

      She moved to stand, but Lily grabbed her arm and pulled her back down. “No, stop it!” She felt a flush creep up her cheeks.

      Miranda sighed dramatically. “You know I adore you, darling, but you can’t live with me for the rest of your life. You need to get out in the world and enjoy yourself.”

      “And fixing me up with strange men is going to do that?”

      Miranda grudgingly picked up her copy of Vogue and flipped through the pages. “I’d hardly call him strange. When was the last time you had sex?”

      “None of your business,” Lily muttered.

      With Miranda’s attention distracted, Lily had a chance to observe Aidan Pierce silently. He was dressed casually, in cargo shorts, a faded cotton shirt rolled up at the sleeves and flip-flops. His hair was mussed in a way that made him look as if he’d just rolled out of bed to catch his flight. She could see the shadow of a two-or three-day beard on his chiseled jaw.

      A shiver skittered down her spine as she speculated about the body beneath the comfortable clothes. There were women in this world, in L.A., who knew what Aidan Pierce looked like naked—women who had probably touched him in all sorts of tantalizing ways.

      A tiny moan slipped from her throat and she covered it with a cough, then glanced over at Miranda. To her dismay, Miranda was watching her, a smug smile on her face. “What?” Lily muttered.

      “So you do find him attractive,” she said.

      “Of course. Who wouldn’t?” She looked over at Aidan again, only to see a beautiful young woman plop down on his lap. He squirmed uneasily beneath her, but she refused to budge. “See, he has a girlfriend. He’s taken.”

      Miranda went back to her magazine. “It’ll never last. I read in the tabloids that he dates all the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood and then dumps them a month or two later. His problem is he needs a real woman. Like you.”

      “I don’t think he’d be interested in me,” Lily murmured. Though Miranda had done her best to turn Lily into a beauty, Lily still felt…ordinary.

      Miranda twisted in her chair and leveled her gaze on Lily. “Have you learned nothing from writing that book? You can seduce any man you want, you just have to have confidence in your sex appeal.”

      Lily shook her head. “I didn’t write The Ten-Minute Seduction, you did.”

      For the past year, Lily had helped Miranda write a sex manual, a book that instructed women on the most effective way to seduce a man. Miranda was known for her bestselling legal thrillers, but for some unknown reason, she’d felt compelled to switch genres. Knowing her publishers wouldn’t approve, she’d sold the book using a pseudonym—Lacey St. Claire.

      “You know you wrote most of it,” Miranda said. “The book is really yours. And the copyright will be yours, too. So all the royalties will come to you.” Miranda held up her hand. “I won’t hear another word about it.” She put on a pout that was all too familiar to Lily. “I would have thought you’d have learned something. Anything.”

      Lily frowned as a slow realization dawned. “What do you mean?”

      Miranda shrugged. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

      “Was that all part of your scheming?” Lily demanded. “Did you make me write that book so that I’d know how to seduce a man?”

      Miranda pursed her lips. “Well, I didn’t expect it to be so good. I just thought I’d put it in a drawer and forget about it. But it was good, Lily. Your research combined with my experience made the book publishable. So sue me. I thought I was doing you a favor.”

      Crossing her arms over her chest, Lily slumped back in her chair. “The meddling stops right now, Miranda. You know how much I love you, but this has got to stop. Do you know how hard I worked on that book? I thought I was helping you and you were just tricking me.”

      “And when the book comes out next year, you’ll be a published author and you’ll have a man.” Miranda stood and tucked her purse beneath her arm. “I’m going to go get us a few drinks. You’re so much easier to manage on a flight after you’ve tossed back a few cocktails.”

      Lily watched as her godmother crossed to the bar. She’d dreamed of becoming published, but not this way, not with some sex book. For six months now, she’d been working on her own novel, a simple story about a young girl searching for her place in the world. But between Miranda’s schedule and her own insecurities, she hadn’t found much time to work.

      She watched as Miranda wandered over to Aidan and introduced herself. She nodded in Lily’s direction and Aidan gave her a brief look, then turned his attention back to Miranda.

      “I have got to get a life of my own,” she muttered. She would. As soon as they got back from Paris, she’d look for an apartment. And then, maybe, if a guy like Aidan Pierce glanced in her direction, she’d have the courage to walk up to him and say hello.

      1

      This summer

      “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, welcome to our premiere service between Los Angeles and New York. While we’re preparing for take-off, your flight attendants will be serving beverages. Our scheduled departure of 9:30 p.m. has been pushed back twenty minutes, but the captain assures us that we will be arriving in New York right on time.”

      The bell dinged and Lily pinched her eyes shut, her white-knuckled hands clutching at the arms of her seat. This was the part she always hated, the waiting, the time between the moment she strapped herself in and the moment the jet lifted off the ground.

      Though she’d nearly conquered her aversion to flying about a year ago, her trip to Paris with Miranda had renewed every fear and then doubled it. They’d lost an engine somewhere over the Atlantic and had been forced to make an emergency landing in Ireland. Lily had refused to get back on the plane and had taken a combination of boats and trains to Paris. When it came time to go home, she’d returned home the same way—the QE II across the Atlantic followed by a cross-country train trip. Since then, she’d refused to get on a plane.

      She glanced down at the self-help book that lay open on her tray table. She’d read six books in the past two months, seen a psychologist and a psychiatrist and attended two seminars that guaranteed success in conquering a fear of flying.

      “Airline travel is the safest mode of travel,” she murmured to herself, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Yeah, right. That would make her feel so much better when plummeting from twenty thousand feet.

      Had Lily been given a choice, she might have taken the train to New York. But Miranda had insisted that her fears were unfounded. She just needed to get back on the horse—which would have been a reasonable alternative in Lily’s mind. L.A. to New York via wagon train. When was the last time anyone died in a fiery wagon train crash?

      In the end, Lily was forced to agree. Her fears were childish and she needed to conquer them before they completely paralyzed her. But that didn’t mean she’d be unprepared for disaster. She grabbed the emergency card from the pocket in front of her and tried to focus on the information. Why didn’t they just give everyone a parachute? Then if anything bad happened, they could all jump.

      She

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