The Accidental Genie Read Online Free PDF Page B

push-up bra? Fun bags that closely resemble a can of freshly popped dinner rolls all oozing out the sides?”
    “Ohhh, but it’s such pretty material—all that gauze . . . So delicate, and look at the intricacy of the waistband of your MC Hammer pants. I mean, you just don’t run into that kind of embroidery anymore these days,” Charlene, Jeannie’s assistant muttered in her best divert-the-crazy-in-this-situation tone.
    Usually her lyrical Australian accent soothed Jeannie. Tonight, it just made her want to throw her mate on the barbie. Clearly, they weren’t getting the picture here. She had a 911 on her hands.
    Charlene tweaked the leg of Jeannie’s harem pants and forced a bright grin. “And those shoes, mate?” She nodded her thumbs-up. “To. Die. For. So authentic.”
    Jeannie let out a puff of pent-up air and planted her hands on her hips in a frustrated gesture. “Right, because in my desperate ploy for attention, I definitely want my attention-grabbing outfit to have only the most intricate embroidery.”
    Charlene gnawed on her lip—one of her many nervous reactions when she didn’t know what to say. “You know, I could’ve stayed home. I had plenty of work to do for that beast of a bride, Willow Sanders. I didn’t have to come over to make sure Betzi didn’t suffocate the twins with a pillow or give them too much canned dog food. You do remember what happens then, don’t you? It leads to oose-lay oopy-pay.” She whispered the words, her eyes flitting to the floor in shame. “It took us three cleanings with that carpet cleaner and four gallons of solution to get the mess all up the last time she fed them her leftovers from The Dawg House. I was just trying to help,” she huffed, clearly offended by Jeannie’s harsh tone.
    “You know how you can help, Charlene?” Jeannie asked, her voice tight, her temper flaring.
    Charlene’s face instantly brightened, her wringing hands stilled. Sweet and genuine, she answered, “Name it. I’m in. Whatever you need, and I do mean whatever.”
    Jeannie narrowed her eyes in the vicinity of the alleged werewolf Sloan Flaherty, gorgeously quiet while he watched the women interact. Waving a hand in his general direction, she snorted. “Tell me what to do with
him
.”
    Betzi dropped the magazine on the couch and smiled in Sloan’s direction with a coquettish slant to her lips. She smoothed her pixie-cut dark hair behind her ears and slipped to the edge of the cushion with a wink. “I’ll tell you what I’d like to
do
with him, but it’s probably not fit for polite company. Oh, and Ms. Charlene Gibbons, who blushes if you use the word
vagina
. Now, usually, that wouldn’t stop me, but seeing as you ran rampant with this fascinating, though maybe a little outdated, maneuver in order to nab a man—I’m sticking to the employer/employee code and keeping my all-out lust for hot stuff on the inside.” She made a circle with her finger around her lower torso. “But a warning for all future endeavors. The next time you go on a long overdue man spree, leaving me and my lady parts behind to babysit Benito and Boris, and you don’t bring me home any leftover doggie bags of the male persuasion, I’m breaking up with you and going to work for that pig Aleksi.”
    Jeannie’s eyes rolled upward. She gritted her teeth and fought for composure. Not an easy task in harem pants. “I cannot believe you’d threaten me with that cheesy Russian rip-off of Sandra Lee. He makes those crescent rolls from scratch like Pillsbury is suddenly making Big Macs. And I did
not
go on a man spree. I told you what happened,” she insisted, peevish in tone.
    That Betzi and Charlene were having trouble believing her explanation for showing up here in this getup with a man she couldn’t get more than a few hundred feet from without being forced directly back toward his vicinity by some invisible force came as no surprise.
    She was having trouble believing it, too. But