A Courtesan’s Guide to Getting Your Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

of that,” Mick said, rising with her, his smile now decidedly devilish. “You know, you haven’t even asked me what I’m doing at the BMCS.”
    Mick was correct. She hadn’t asked. For the last fifteen minutes, she’d half listened to him describe his life of adventure while she’d been wrapped up in her own embarrassment—and embarrassingly sex-saturated thoughts—all while watching the clock and knowing she wouldn’t have time to get the diaries locked away. What if the stress caused her to develop a tic? That would be perfect. Blue lips. Duct-taped glasses. A facial tic. She’d have to beat the men off with a club.
    They began to walk together from the café.
    “You’re not the least bit curious?” he asked, looking down at her.
    Piper rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’m curious. What are you doing here?”
    “I’m on loan to the museum,” he said in the deep, melodious brogue that had haunted her for a decade. “For the next six months, I’ll be on sabbatical working as a consultant to the board of trustees.”
    Piper stopped walking. “What did you say?”
    “It’s part of the faculty exchange agreement with the university.”
    Piper felt her blue lips go slack.
    “You don’t look thrilled,” Mick said.
    She shook her head, attempting to process the information. “Wow. That’s so great. Really.” The tears were seconds from spilling down her cheeks. “I have to go.”
    *   *   *
    Mick studied her from across the conference table, perplexed by what he saw.
    The last time he’d seen Piper she was the girl with the brown French braid, the huge green eyes, and the heart-shaped chin. In his mind he saw her clomping through campus on her scuffed clogs, usually reading, sometimes bumping into people, sporting a wardrobe of baggy Levi’s, turtleneck, and a moth-eaten Fair Isle sweater. She always wore preppy glasses. No earrings. No bracelets. No lipstick. No nothing.
    Twenty-year-old Piper Chase-Pierpont was known back then as the best friend of Brenna Nielsen, a Nordic beauty of good Minnesota stock, long-legged, blond, and sporting an attitude. He’d always found it funny that the two of them had glommed onto each other the way they had, giggling from the front row as they stared at his ass.
    But from the start he knew that Piper was more than the beauty queen’s sidekick. She was brilliant, cute, and shy, but her reticence was punctuated with moments of dry humor and dead-on insight that intrigued Mick.
    And through the years, if his mind happened to wander to Piper Chase-Pierpont, he’d imagined she’d grown into her looks, that she’d ditched the drab preppy look and admitted to herself that she was fine .
    He told himself that if he met up with Piper again, he’d find her sleek and sexy and in full control of her bad-ass female self.
    He’d been wrong, apparently.
    She sat directly across the conference table as the museum staff meeting dragged on into perpetuity, reminding him why he’d steered clear of desks and offices for so long. Piper had been doing an excellent job of avoiding eye contact, or even acknowledging his presence. According to one of the other curators—a little neddy-boy arse-kisser named Linc Northcutt—an ink pen had exploded in Piper’s mouth sometime over the weekend. That explained the blue lips. It didn’t explain everything else he was seeing.
    She looked hollow-eyed and fatigued, yet her cheeks were in a constant state of blush. She clutched that briefcase so tightly to her belly that you’d think she was carrying around the original Dead Sea Scrolls. She wore beat-up Birkenstocks and some housecoatlike thing she’d probably found at a fancy organic free-trade boutique that managed to convince otherwise intelligent women to spend a fortune on a burlap sack.
    She deserved better.
    Piper glanced up at him. Mick jolted to attention. But she looked away immediately. He could see the red stain of embarrassment spread down her throat to her chest.
    Mick