He’ll make her a bet she can’t refuse…
Lily McIntire is in the creepiest mansion in town. Alone. At night. Because she’s an idiot—and can’t ignore a dare from her cocky and infuriatingly hot co-worker, Marcus Black. But she’ll be damned if she’s going to give him the satisfaction of winning.
Marcus has had a thing for Lily for ages, and he has no intention of losing this bet. His plan? Scare her out of the house, and into his arms. Once there, scaring her turns into protecting her and soon after, into seducing her. And his plan is working…
Lily is having trouble relegating Marcus to the role of “asshat” as easily as before. He came to her rescue, and he’s actually funny. Charming. Sexy as sin on a stick. But Lily has a strict no-love-in-the-workplace rule, and even one night of the best sex ever won’t make her change her mind. So she’s calling everything off…
Surviving a night in the mansion might just be the easy part. Surviving Marcus’s increasingly convincing advances is going to take everything she has. Losing is not an option…
NOTE: This title was previously published November 2013 on Flaunt as a novella but has been significantly revised and lots of yummy new scenes added to give readers a full-length category romance full of humor and sizzle.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Find love in unexpected places with these satisfying Lovestruck reads…
Sleeping with the Boss
Tell Me Something Good
Merger of the Heart
Masquerading with the CEO
Flirting with the Competition
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Jessica Lemmon. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Previously released on Entangled's Flaunt imprint – November 2013 and has been enhanced with new material.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.
Lovestruck is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Liz Pelletier
Cover design by Heather Howland
Cover art from iStock
ISBN 978-1-63375-373-0
Manufactured in the United States of America
Second Edition July 2015
For Niki
The sister I never had, but got to choose.
Chapter One
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Lily McIntire pulled to a stop in the crumbling driveway of 102 Willow Street in Fantom, Ohio. Dust settled around her car, revealing the decaying building in front of her, its slats weather-beaten, front door padlocked, and porch stairs splintering. You know, the place where she’d be getting absolutely no sleep tonight.
She chewed on her lip and reconsidered leaving the sanctuary of her car. But she had to. A gauntlet had been thrown, and thrown by a man she refused to lose to. Again.
Dammit.
“Probably just full of spiders, anyway,” she said aloud as she unbuckled her seat belt. Her voice came out paper-thin and not infused with the courage she so desperately needed, but she ignored that. She also ignored the fact that she hated spiders, and any number of creepy-crawly things, all of which were probably living in communal harmony inside the decrepit building. “Look at the bright side,” she grumbled, climbing out of the car. “Spiders are better than what is allegedly lurking around here.”
This might have been the one and only case where spiders were preferable.
It seemed dangerous to admit even to herself that she was scared half out of her wits just being there, let alone staying overnight. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to give Marcus Black the satisfaction of winning the stupidest bet on earth.
One night in Willow Mansion would get her a four-day, five-night trip to Hawaii. All expenses included. And after two years of busting her hump as one of two lead designers at Cameron Designs, she had earned it. The dare Marcus threw at her feet? It was a no brainer. And if she lost, she’d owe him one date. One work date. She could do this. She would do this.
Straightening her shoulders, she tromped to the front of the house, kicking loose gravel and crunching a stray leaf here and there. The foliage had changed from green to burnished gold a few weeks ago. Some leaves still stubbornly clung to the trees, but the majority lay strewn in the overgrown grass and clogging the warped gutters overhead.
Lovely.
Other than a few obvious building code violations, the house didn’t appear too oppressive in the streaming sunlight. And under the wide, bowing maples, dappled with late September sunshine, Willow Mansion was almost…well…charming. Not that she’d recommend refurbishing it into a summer home or anything, but one night wouldn’t be that bad. A pleasant breeze kicked Lily’s hair and stuck a few stray strawberry-blond tendrils to her lip gloss. She tugged them away and smiled at the relic before her with newfound appreciation. Maybe all the rumors about the mansion had been wildly exaggerated.
A creak sounded overhead, and she diverted her attention to the upstairs windows. An ancient shutter shifted on its hinges, let out a grating whine, and fell from its precarious perch. She leaped to the right, a pathetic squeak trembling in her throat as the shutter crashed to the ground and sent a spray of pebbles onto her shoes. Heart hammering against her ribs, she glanced upward again and reconsidered going inside. Spiders or ghosts were now the least of her worries. Having a ceiling collapse in on her, on the other hand…
“Get me through this,” she said to the Man Upstairs through clenched teeth. “And I’ll never drink tequila again.”
Yes. Tequila. All bad ideas started with tequila. And usually ended with them, too.
After work on Wednesday, she’d allowed herself to be talked into a celebratory shot-and-beer night by her (mostly) well-meaning coworkers. They’d just won the bid on Reginald London Superstores. The first would open in Ohio in June of next year, and their winning interior design drawing had been chosen over at least twelve other big-name firms. London was a huge coup for Cameron Designs, and the account would bring in more profit than Lily’s best friend, Joanie Cameron, had seen since she and her husband, Clive, launched their firm a little over two years ago. Lily was beyond proud of her friends, who deserved every good thing that came their way. It had taken them nearly three months of late nights and working on weekends to complete the proposal, but their team prevailed as the little-foursome-that-could.