ebook of the month...the idea

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS ::  ebook

First published in April 2007

Boardroom Hotshots collection

eBook out now!

The idea:
  

I love a good magazine quiz.  Half of me thinks it would be fun to see where I fit, the other half desperately wants to fake the thing to get the best result!  (I don't play fair in Monopoly either ;)).

Anyhoo, the idea of the magazine quiz is where this idea began.   In fact each chapter begins with a run down of the TOP TEN WAYS to get your man, all of which at some point my heroine - a journalist - has written.


But then I made sure that while my heroine Abbey wrote such lists, she wouldn't deign to follow one if her life depended on it.   I gave her a famously rampant feminist for a grandmother, one whose influence couldn't easily be shed.  I then threw her in the path of Flynn Granger, a playboy of the highest order.  And made sure the only way for eaither of the to get what they wanted most was with one another's help.

Then all I had to do was sit back and watch the spark ;).

The excerpt:

 

Abbey put a finger over her lips and gingerly picked up the phone and pressed it to her ear.

‘Alpha Magazine,’ she said, putting on her most sultry voice to the poor wrong number on the other end, while Becky giggled in the background.  ‘To whom may I connect you to?’

After a pause, in which Abbey was sure the caller had realised his mistake and hung up, a deep familiar voice drawled, ‘This is Flynn Granger for Abbey Parrish.’

Abbey slammed her hand over the mouthpiece.  It’s Flynn, she mouthed and Becky slapped her own hand over her mouth, before removing it and flapping it at Abbey and mouthing back, Talk to him!

Abbey banged the phone on the desk a couple of times.

‘What are you doing?’ Becky whispered, her eyes round as dishes.

‘Making it sound like I’m connecting him,’ Abbey said, her voice sounding as panicked as she felt.  Why had she allowed Becky to ply her with Bacardi?  Or make her wear such a tight skirt instead of her favoured loose fisherman pants?  Or choose her as a best friend in ninth grade and make her play hooky from high school to drool over Brad Pitt at the movies?  Or –

A faraway voice called out, ‘Hello?’ and Abbey realised it was coming from the other end of the phone.

She cleared her throat, pressed the phone back to her ear, and said with as much finesse as she could muster,  ‘Abbey Parrish speaking.’

‘Abbey, it’s Flynn Granger.’

‘Flynn,’ she said with great verve as though they were long lost friends.  Becky snorted with laughter and Abbey had to look away.

‘Whoever you’ve hired as your receptionist, she’s a keeper,’ he said.  ‘Rousing telephone manner.’

‘If Alpha gets up and running she’ll be here through it all.  You can count on it,’ she said, shushing Becky with a madly flapping hand.

‘Mmmm.  Especially considering she’s working still at nine o’clock at night.  Not easy to find such dedicated help nowadays.’

‘Right,’ Abbey said, now hitting her forehead over and over with the palm of her hand.  ‘How right you are.  What can I do for you, Flynn?’

‘I’m interested,’ he said, and Abbey’s head slapping and heart stopped as one.  She literally had to thump her ribs to get the latter back up and running again.

‘Interested?’ she repeated, nodding furiously at Becky who was now kneeling in the middle of the room with her hands clasped in prayer.

Flynn laughed, an intimate rumble that tickled at Abbey’s ear, sending a shiver all down her left side.  ‘I’m keen on your proposal,’ he said.  ‘Though I do have some follow up questions.’

‘Okay, of course you do.  That’s very sensible of you,’ Abbey said, her mind spinning that this was actually happening.  The eleven cents a minute she was paying on her Southbank offices suddenly didn’t feel like such a tight squeeze.  Heck she might even turn on a desk lamp before the night was out!

   

Re-released as part of the Boardroom Hot-shots collection.
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