Pleasure at Midnight ; His Pick for Passion Read online

  “I’ll be home soon. I promise.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Olivia drawled into her pillow. “That’s what you said last month and the month before that. Meanwhile I’m here, sinking deeper and deeper into an abyss of case files and wearing the soles off my Jimmy Choos while I wait. I don’t think I believe you anymore.”

  “That’s cold, Olivia. Really cold. Even for you.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m too sleepy right now to care.” Her gaze landed on the time stamp in a corner of the screen and she sighed long and hard. The downside was that she’d lost several minutes of potential sleep time, but the upside was that if she drifted off in the next couple of minutes, there would still be plenty of time to sleep like the dead before noon rolled around and Eli turned his ringer on. Now if she could just get rid of Chatty Cathy. “Was there something else you wanted?”

  Elise had the nerve to look hurt. “Well...no, I guess not, but—”

  Olivia snuggled inside a mound of pillows and covers. “Okay, well in that case, sis...”

  “Well, damn. Will you at least call me later?”

  “I will. I promise.”

  “Today?”

  “Yes, Elise,” Olivia promised sleepily. “Now, for God’s sake, goodbye.”

  For ten blissful seconds after she pressed the end button, absolute quiet reigned. Grateful for the reprieve, she wrapped her arms and legs around her body pillow, buried her face in the dark, chilly space between it and the mattress and willed herself to drift off to sleep.

  Then, far off in the distance, a lawn mower roared to life.

  “Oh, no...” The sound came closer, or at least Olivia imagined that it did. “Oh, nooo...” Curled into the fetal position now, with a pillow clamped over her head, she tried to block out the noise with sheer willpower. When that didn’t work, she tossed the pillow aside and flopped onto her back in defeat. “Damn you, Elise,” she growled at the vaulted ceiling.

  As hard as it was to begrudge her sister her luxurious new globe-trotting lifestyle, the longer she was away, the more Olivia was tempted to put her foot down and insist that Elise come home immediately. Running Carrington Consulting—the boutique private-investigation agency that they had started together five years ago—solo was becoming more and more chaotic by the day. Even with Elise working a small portion of the firm’s incoming cases remotely, the demand for their services was currently experiencing the kind of spike that made physically sustaining a two-woman operation all by herself nearly impossible. Olivia was all for true love and never-ending honeymoons, but after a year of jet-setting, Elise had to return to the real world sometime, didn’t she?

  Not that she didn’t absolutely adore her brother-in-law, Olivia hastened to remind herself, because she did. How could she not? Broderick Cannon was tall, dark and gorgeous, and he was rich enough to whisk her sister off for an exotic getaway at a moment’s notice, which was always a plus in Olivia’s book. As a former navy SEAL and the CEO of Cannon Corp—an underground securities firm that did most of its work in classified overseas locations—his fearless, larger-than-life personality was the perfect complement to Elise’s reserved, look-before-you-leap demeanor, and his professional expertise had come in handy countless times.

  In more ways than one, theirs was a marriage made in heaven, except that Olivia hadn’t quite counted on Elise practically handing over the reins to Carrington Consulting and disappearing in the process. The idea of hiring a part-time associate was sounding better and better every day. Until now she had purposely avoided thinking about it, but if Elise didn’t come home soon, she just might have to start.

  But not today.

  Today, she thought as she rolled back onto her stomach, plopped the nearest pillow over her head and reached for her body pillow again, not even the steady growl of a nearby lawn mower was strong enough to beat back her fatigue. Determined to get at least a couple of hours of sleep before she had to get up and hit the ground running again, she closed her eyes and imagined that one of the Chippendales was outside, mowing the lawn naked, and that she had a front-row seat for the event.

  In no time at all, she felt herself dozing.

  Copyright © 2019 by Terra Little

  ISBN-13: 9781488034336

  Pleasure at Midnight & His Pick for Passion

  Copyright © 2019 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:

  Pleasure at Midnight

  Copyright © 2019 by Pamela Sadadi

  His Pick for Passion

  Copyright © 2019 by Synithia R. Williams

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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