Curvy's Cad: A Curvy Girl's Mistake? Read online

  Curvy’s Cad: A Curvy Girl’s Mistake?

  by Kristabel Reed

  Copyright © 2014 by Kristabel Reed

  Smashwords Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  A Wicked ePub® Original Publication

  ISBN 13: 9781310714436

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.

  This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Formatted by: CyberWitch Press

  Chapter One

  “You’re a sadistic bastard, you know that?”

  Eliza Lyons huffed, annoyed with Craig and annoyed with the damn key card she inserted for the fifth damn time into the slot. Finally she got that green light. With a triumphant sound, she pushed opened the hotel room door and jerked her suitcase behind her.

  Naturally, Craig followed.

  “For what?” Craig Grant looked entirely too relaxed for the conversation she was about to have with him. Relaxed and smug, she thought as the door banged closed behind him. “For telling you the truth?”

  “For taking pleasure in telling me the truth,” she shot back.

  As she snapped around to look at Craig, who didn’t seem ready to leave anytime soon, Eliza caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the dresser. Great. Her hair, currently copper, looked like she’d taken style advice from a porcupine. She closed her eyes and reached for a well of sanity she knew had to lurk somewhere inside. With a sigh, she dropped her purse on one of the beds and abandoned her suitcase in the middle of the room.

  Digging into a pocket for a hair band, she turned and tried to ignore Craig leaning against the wall. His arms crossed over his ridiculously muscular chest, one eyebrow raised over very dark brown eyes that watched her with amusement, and his dark hair was perfectly styled. No one should look that good.

  Not even in the Hamptons.

  But then he hadn’t traveled all afternoon, in a group of television producers, stagehands, and people who thought renting a limo for one should be their right. And when they hadn’t gotten their limo for one, had complained. The whole trip. The whole entire trip from Manhattan to the Hamptons.

  She was drained, grimy, and annoyed. And, if she was honest, annoyed with herself as well as Craig.

  “I wasn’t the one dating a married man, sweetheart,” Craig countered with the seductive tone she’d bet he used on spring break coeds.

  “Why don’t you haunt Audrey or Sabrina the way you seem to haunt me?” Eliza asked as she pulled her hair up into a pony tail.

  How long before she could kick him out? She wanted to shower. Or at least wash her face before collapsing onto the bed. And why had he followed her into her room? Didn’t he have bleached blondes to harass?

  To badger her some more on Mr. Jerk Married Ex?

  “Would you really have wanted me to keep it a secret?” He argued in that same reasonable tone he’d used since he’d said hello when she’d stepped foot into the lobby. “You never struck me as a home-wrecker vixen, but maybe I was wrong?”

  She wanted to grumble at him. She really did. But Eliza had had no idea her latest lover was married, and once she’d found out — from Craig — she’d been less than pleased. The small breakdown she’d had, had been more over her embarrassment that she’d been fooled by said lying married jerk and that Craig had been the one to inform her of that particular mistake, rather than over any real heartbreak — no matter what she’d told Audrey and Sabrina when they’d tried to comfort her.

  Giving Craig an exasperated look, Eliza rolled her shoulders, trying to ease the tension knotting her muscles. “That’s why I dumped his ass into the ex-jerk pile!” She smiled blandly and dug through her purse for pain pills. “But you still didn’t have to take so much extraordinary — like you’ve just banged a supermodel — delight in telling me of his marital status.”

  Craig smiled one of those killer, knee-weakening smiles. Her knees did not weaken, and she scowled at him as she walked by into the bathroom for some water. She didn’t know where her bottle went and needed to take these now before the headache bloomed into a Craig-induced riot-fest.

  “All right, Eliza,” Craig said from the bathroom doorway. He sounded his most conciliatory, which meant his most sarcastic. “You win. I apologize for telling you the truth.”

  She closed her eyes and wondered if she was capable of anything more than scowling at him. Shrugging, she set the plastic cup on the counter and turned.

  “Feel better?” he asked, far too innocently.

  No. No she was not capable of doing more than scowling at him today. Craig smirked back. She was far too drained for this conversation.

  “Can we get past Mr. What’s-His-Name?” Craig asked, still in that even, smooth, suave tone. “And get back to more important topics of conversation?”

  Like how to get him out of her room? If these more important topics included him leaving, Eliza was all for that. Nodding, she leaned one generous hip against the bathroom counter, folded her arms over her ample chest in a poor approximation of Craig’s pose, and waited.

  And if her expression was far too innocent and genial, Eliza knew it didn’t fool him.

  “Yes,” she said sweetly. Craig snorted. “Let’s move on.”

  Craig stepped back from the bathroom doorway and looked around the hotel room. “I’ve heard stellarly mediocre things about this lovely national hotel franchise you’re staying in.”

  Eliza closed her eyes but held back a sigh as she followed him into the main room. Stellarly mediocre, eh? All right…yeah.

  “Don’t start, Craig,” she said far more tiredly than she’d planned. “This is what production is paying for. Not all of us have Hamptons cottages right on the beach.”

  “And not all of your production team has an invite to stay at my Hamptons cottage,” he shot back.

  She really wasn’t up to witty banter with Craig Grant today. It took far more energy than she currently had to stay on her toes around him.

  “But,” he added just when she wondered where he went with this topic of conversation, “you do.”

  Eliza blinked up at him then narrowed her eyes. “I’ll be fine, Craig, in this stellarly mediocre room.”

  She ignored his knowing smirk, and really she should just give in without a fight and say yes. What was the big deal in accepting his offer? It wasn’t like he didn’t know she’d rather be in his cottage than this hotel, mediocre or not. Who didn’t want to stay in a posh beachside house?

  Especially since Eliza was actually the assistant producer and had no desire to be the gopher girl for the director and actors who wouldn’t bother to realize she wasn’t their personal maid. And if she could hide out in Craig’s house, that distance would be so much better.

  But she was stubborn. Mostly because she was still a little annoyed with him. She accepted that about herself. Moving around Craig, she went to the desk and the packets left there for the TV staff.

  She looked at the packets one of the other assistant producers had been responsible for putting together. Maybe she was being stubborn for stubbornness’ sake. When it came to Craig, Eliza wouldn’t pu
t anything past herself. Then she really looked at the packet, still lying innocuously on the desk and narrowed her eyes.

  “This isn’t your normal cup of tea, Eliza,” Craig said as Eliza stared at the name on the second folder. “Don’t suffer just because you’re pissed at me.”

  Blinking to clear her vision of that second name, Eliza decided that being stubborn for stubbornness’ sake was foolish. Who needed to censor Craig when there were more important things to censor? Like roommates.

  She knew she should’ve paid more attention when her staff was discussing roommates. Someone with a poor sense of humor had put her in the same room as the social climber.

  She’d never get any sleep. Forget sleep, she’d never get five minutes of peace and quiet. Rachel was nice enough, and fairly good at her job, but the woman could talk. And now that they were in the Hamptons, it must be Rachel’s dream come true.

  No. Eliza was not, under any circumstances, going to suffer through this for one minute when she could have a lovely room overlooking a gorgeous beach that was nowhere near this hotel.

  “You know, Craig, you’re right.” Eliza nodded. “Why should I settle for this” — she swept an arm over the room and smiled sweetly at him — “when I can bother you at your place? That sounds like more fun than bathing with a child’s size bar of soap. You have maid service, right?”

  She asked that last innocently as she grabbed the green information folder. Eliza did not look at the second folder again. Picking up her purse from the bed, she looked over her shoulder and grinned. “Grab my bag, will you?”

  She didn’t miss his eye roll, and chuckled.

  The drive from the stellarly mediocre hotel, and Eliza might never refer to the chain as anything but again, wasn’t bad. They’d both dropped the subject of Mr. Jerk Married Ex, and if the atmosphere in the car wasn’t exactly relaxed and cordial, it wasn’t tense and uncomfortable.

  She’d always accepted him — Craig was a playboy, and that was that. Well, okay — he was also on the board of a multi-national corporation. And maybe, just maybe, he had a talent for the stock market. But wasn’t that the very definition of a high-rolling investment playboy whatever?

  She slid her eyes over him as he drove, watching him surreptitiously from her perianal vision. The $400 sunglasses, the tan even in late spring. Those ridiculously muscled arms. Yes, they snarked at each other and there had been times where it’d been more of a contest between them than any real snark. But he amused her.

  Truth be told, it wasn’t so much sniping as they were honest with each other.

  More so than Eliza wanted to admit to him. And for reasons that remained a mystery to her, Craig continued to hang around — because of, or despite, their banter. Well, Eliza amended as he turned onto his street, he usually hung around until the starlet of the moment pulled him away.

  Eliza never forgot when it did happen. Hmm, that hadn’t happened recently, had it? Maybe now he went on starlet dates behind her back.

  Craig’s house wasn’t the largest on the block. Eliza knew he could afford one of the bigger, swanker homes, but he’d never bothered to sell his or upgrade. She didn’t know why; deep, intimate conversations weren’t exactly in their repertoire, but she did love this house.

  For her, it was the perfect house. It wasn’t so big that she couldn’t tell she was in the house with someone else and the décor was almost exactly to her taste — bright and open without being so beach house cliché the interior started to look like every other house. Whoever had done the interior decorating had style. And she appreciated that style.

  Plus, there was the fact it was located on the beach. Couldn’t beat that.

  And if she’d never exactly told him how much she did like his place, maybe this interlude was the time to do so. He had, after all, been nice enough to offer her the run of his house instead of the hotel. Eliza narrowed her eyes behind her sunglasses.

  Why had he?

  No. No, she was not going to second-guess his motives or question his actions. Not now, not here, not after he’d been kind enough to offer her a place to stay that wasn’t with chatty Rachel.

  Eliza took a deep breath and admired his house. The brown and white house, some kind of Hamptons style, or maybe that was the name of it? Hamptons Style? Eliza loved it, whatever it was called. The white gleamed in the late spring sunlight, the windows shone, and the flowers and bushes lining the house were in full bloom.

  It was beautiful and perfect, and she loved standing at the arched windows and looking over the Long Island Sound.

  “Same room?” Craig asked, already wheeling her suitcase across the hardwood floor and toward the stairs. “I know you like the view.”

  Eliza grinned and nodded, but didn’t comment as they climbed the stairs. She did love that view, where she could curl up on the window seat with a book and a glass of wine and let the day drain from her.

  “Nice water view,” he said with an expansive gesture at the windows as they entered the room. “And right next to mine, if you have nightmares tonight.”

  Craig winked at her as he settled into the desk chair. Eliza resisted a snarky reply. He’d offered his house, gave her the view she preferred. She could be nice and not kick him out. Even if he settled in as if he planned on staying a while.

  “Why do you make such poor choices in men?” he asked just as she tossed her purse onto the window seat.

  Eliza froze. With her jaw clenched, she slowly turned and watched him. Analyzing her dating habits, was he now? Like he could talk. “If we continue with this conversation,” she said as evenly as she could, “it’s only going to devolve into an insult-hurling contest. It’s not like you make the most brilliant romantic choices, either.”

  She glanced at him and said mildly, “Remember Sonya? The girl was ten cents short of a dime.”

  Craig offered an unrepentant grin. But he leaned forward, clearly not finished. She sighed and braced for the rest.

  “That’s not what the question was about.” He looked up at her, his dark eyes steady and serious. “I’m not asking because I want to harp on Mr. Married Ass.”

  Eliza moved from the window seat to the bed and sat on the edge. The sun shone too brightly for her preferred place by the windows, and she had a feeling she needed to see Craig for this conversation.

  “Then what’s this conversation about?”

  “I think I have somebody for you,” Craig said. His eyes were still serious and calm, with none of the normal smug suaveness around him. “Someone that’s at least a lot better than the last guy.”

  “You’re trying to set me up?” Eliza asked, stunned. This was not what she’d been expecting, and she scrambled for a snarky reply. But she was so surprised, all she could say was, “I don’t know, blind dates and I…” She shook her head. “We don’t mix well.”

  “You know this guy,” Craig said, still watching her. For a heartbeat she forgot how to breathe; his look was so focused, so intense on her. “So it wouldn’t exactly be blind.”

  Swallowing hard, Eliza forced air in her lungs. It would definitely not do to let Craig know how much his look, that steady, penetrating gaze, affected her. Leaning back on her hands, she tilted her head in curiosity and hoped for nonchalance.

  “Oh?” she said, when Craig had yet to offer the name of this mystery man. “Okay, you have me curious. But I swear.” She pointed a finger at him. “If he has any resemblance to the Elephant Man, you’re never going to live it down.”

  “I like curious.” Craig nodded, ignoring her caveat. “It means you’re open to it.”

  Stalling wasn’t his style. Her eyes narrowing in suspicion, Eliza asked, “So? Who’s the guy?”

  They had a lot of mutual friends in common, but she had no idea which one Craig decided would be oh so perfect for her. And it wasn’t exactly like him to play matchmaker.

  “Me.”

  Chapter Two

  Me? Him? Craig? Eliza blinked stupidly across the bedroom at him and wond
ered if he really had two heads or her vision swerved. I’m dizzy — would someone please stop the spinning?

  Then she shook her head and sighed. Standing up, she wandered toward the bank of windows and frowned. “I thought we were done with insulting jokes today, Craig,” she said wearily, half turning to face him.

  Craig stood, tall and commanding and more serious than she’d ever seen him. Eliza blinked again. Craig wasn’t supposed to be serious. He was a flirty playboy she never took seriously. Always with the ready smile and dancing brown eyes but never, ever serious.

  He stepped closer as if to show her just how significant this conversation was about to get. Eliza took a step back.

  “This isn’t a joke.”

  She blinked again. “Sure it is,” she insisted. Her voice lacked strength.

  Clearing her throat, she watched him but he didn’t move, didn’t crack a smile; his eyes watched her with an intensity she’d been unaware he possessed. It made her shiver, and Eliza dearly hoped that shiver was in confusion, not arousal.

  “I might be your friend, and even that might be in question some days,” she added with a smile in a poor attempt to lighten whatever mood he’d evoked. “But I’m hardly your type.”

  “You’re a woman,” Craig said, still oh so serious. “So you’re my type.”

  Eliza relaxed and smirked. Ah. Dry spell then. “I’m a little too curvy for you,” she said, pointing out what she considered the obvious.

  He interrupted before she could continue. “I love every inch of your figure.”

  His look was hot and hungry and did things to her insides she never expected to feel coming from Craig. Her lungs struggled for air and her blood raced hot and fast through her veins. Eliza swallowed hard and tried to remember this was Craig standing before her.

  Craig looked at her as if he wanted to toss her onto the bed and show her exactly what that look was all about. Show her slowly and with tongue and teeth and hands and mouth. Show her until she forgot her name and was a puddle of aroused goo at his command.