About Last Night... Read Online Free PDF Page B

producers of honey in the Southeast. Dissatisfied with his product
    sales, Phillips had decided to shop around for a new advertising firm, and Stillman & Sons, which at the moment consisted
    solely of himself, was being given the opportunity to swipe the account from a larger competitor. But Derek was having one
    little problem: inventing a campaign designed to entice consumers to buy more honey. Honey, for crissake—a sweet condiment
    best known in the South for spreading on toast and biscuits; consequently, market growth was not projected to be explosive.
    Computers and wireless phones and home stereo systems were flying off the shelves. Branded sportswear and gourmet
    appliances and exercise-equipment sales were booming. Large vehicles and exotic vacations and swimming pools were
    experiencing a huge resurgence. With all the sexy, progressive products in the world, he was chasing a darned honey account
    to save the family business.
    When the elevator dinged and the door slid open, his exhaustion nearly immobilized him, but he managed to drag himself and
    his bags across the red thick-piled carpet to the empty reservations counter. Just his luck that everyone was taking a break. He
    looked for a bell to ring, but he guessed the hotel was a little too classy for ringers. Live flower arrangements the size of a
    person graced the enormous mahogany counter shiny enough to reflect his image—in his opinion, just another overdone element
    of the posh resort whose decorating philosophy seemed to be "Size does matter."
    He wondered briefly how much green the bride and groom were dropping for the wedding. Between the rehearsal dinner, the
    ceremony and the reception, all of which were supposed to take place at the resort, he suspected his buddy would have to
    perform an extra face-lift or two to foot the bill. Derek scoffed, shaking his head. Marriage—bah. He gave his pal and the
    Murphy woman six months, tops.
    "Hello?" he called, trying to tamp down his impatience. He was not above stretching out behind the counter to sleep if he had
    to.
    A door opened on the other side of the elevators, and his mood plunged when Pinky herself emerged from the stairwell, pale
    and limping, hair everywhere, coat flapping. "Oh, brother," he muttered. The last thing he needed was to spend one more
    minute with the leggy siren.
    Stepping up next to him, she said, "Derek, I insist you take the room."
    One look into her blue eyes gave him a glimpse of Steve's future—the woman would be a handful, even for Steve. He might
    have felt sorry for his pal, but, he reasoned perversely, the man who had led such a charmed life to date probably deserved a
    little grief. "Janine, go back upstairs."
    She frowned and planted her hands on her hips. "I thought people from the country were supposed to be polite."
    His ire climbed, then he drawled, "I get testy when I run out of hayseed to chaw on."
    Her eyebrows came together and she crossed her arms, sending a waft of her citrusy perfume to tickle his nose. "What's that
    smart remark supposed to mean?"
    He did not need this, this, this … aggravation, not when his body hummed of fatigue, stress and lingering lust. Derek felt his
    patience snap like a dry twig. He leaned forward and spoke quietly through clenched teeth. "I'll tell you what it means, Pinky. It
    means I left my firm in the middle of a very important project to fly here and stand in for my runaway brother in a ceremony I
    don't even believe in, only to catch some kind of plague and have my reservation canceled and have my sleep interrupted by a
    stranger crawling into my bed!"
    She blinked. "Do you have blood pressure problems?"
    Heat suffused his face and he felt precariously close to blowing a gasket. She and Steve deserved each other, and they'd
    never miss him. So after one calming breath, he saluted her. "I'm going home. Please give Steve my regrets." He turned, then
    added over his shoulder, "And my condolences."
    He picked up his suitcase,