Doing the Right Thing

Doing the Right Thing

Barbara Elsborg

Addie Winter is single—just one more reason for disappointment in her permanently disapproving mother’s eyes. There’s nothing she wants more than to be loved but when her own mother can’t bring herself to love her, she wonders if anyone can. What she needs is a man—real would be ideal, but she’ll settle for pretend.

Anything to shut her mother up.

Will Mansell chokes on his drink when Addie offers to pay him to spend the night in her room. Tall, dark-haired and the epitome of Addie’s “hero”, he can’t believe his luck because women usually go for his blond-haired brother. Ed Mansell is a serial playboy with an electric smile who waltzes through life and through women. Lucky for Will and Ed, they don’t have the same taste in women. But that was before they met Addie.

Far from pretending, Will and Ed set out to prove Addie is worthy of love—but Addie finds too much love can be just as painful as none at all.

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Doing the Right Thing

ISBN 9781419924729

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Doing the Right Thing Copyright © 2010 Barbara Elsborg Edited by Sue-Ellen Gower

Photography by JazzieB and cover design by Syneca

Electronic book publication January 2010

The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

DOING THE RIGHT THING

Barbara Elsborg

Trademarks Acknowledgement

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Armani: GA Modefine S.A. Corporation

Barbie: Mattel, Inc.

BMW: Bayerische Motoren Werke; Aktiengesellschaft

Boxster: Dy. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche Aktiengesellschaft Corporation Calvin Klein: Calvin Klein Trademark Trust

Corona: Cerveceria Modelo, S.A. de C.V. Corporation

Dos Equis: Cerveceria Moctezuma S.A. Corporation

Dyson: Notetry Limited

eBay: eBay Inc

Eternity: Calvin Klein Cosmetics

Ex-Lax: Novartis AG Corporation

Google: Google Inc.

Greenpeace: Stichting Greenpeace Council Foundation

Hallmark: Hallmark Licensing, Inc.

Harrods: Harrods Limited, London

Harry Potter: Time Warner Entertainment Company, Books JK Rowling Ikea: Inter-IKEA Systems B.V. Corporation

La Perla: La Perla s.r.l. Limited Liability Company

Lego: Lego Juris A/S Corporation Denmark

Lexus: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha TA Toyota Motor Corporation M&M’s: Mars Incorporated

Manolo Blahnik: Blahnik, Manolo individual

Marriott: Marriott International, Inc.

Mars: Mars, Incorporated

Megatron Transformer: Hasbro Inc.

Porsche: Dr. Ing. h. c. f. Porsche Aktiengesellschaft Corporation Primus: Primus-Sievert Aktiebolag

Selfridges: Selfridges Retail Limited

Sky TV: BSkyB Ltd

Spiderman: Marvel Characters Inc.

Star Wars
: Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd.

Superglue: Chemence, Inc.

Superman: DC Comics

Versace: Gianni Versace S.p.A

Yo! Sushi: Yo! Sushi Limited Liability Company

You Tube: Google Inc.

The gym at the Delmonte Hotel was Addie Winter’s last resort. If she couldn’t find Noah there, she’d have to come up with a spectacular excuse to satisfy her mother.

“Sign the register, please.” A Lycra-clad trainer with sleek golden hair and a body to match handed Addie a pen. “Do you know how to use the equipment?”

“Yes, I’m fine, thanks.”

The last thing Addie needed was a beautiful woman making her look a complete idiot. Or a beautiful man. Well, she needed a beautiful man, but not one who thought she was an idiot.

When she pushed open the door of the gym and saw the only occupants were ranks of metal sculptures, none of which looked beautiful, disappointment swamped her excitement. Addie chose the machine that looked the least intimidating, hoping for a stampede of testosterone-charged men before she broke into a sweat.

The moment she started to walk, lights flashed in front of her.

Clean the nozzle

Yuk. She’d rather not.

Make a selection

Addie dithered. What did she want? She tried to focus on the changing screen.

Aerobic, cardio, decaf, regular?
She pressed buttons at random. The questions began again and the treadmill ran faster.
How much did she weigh?
In bloody kilograms? While she frantically tried to work it out—mental arithmetic under stress not being one of her strong points—the question changed and the speed increased.
How long did she want to
be tortured?
Addie was already panting. If Noah didn’t appear within the next ten minutes, she’d be incapable of breathing, let alone talking.
What level did she want?
How hard could running be? Still, better start low. Level two. Oops, had she pressed twice?

Start,
the machine commanded. Addie thought she already had.

As the belt continued to pick up speed, the whirring motor overpowered the sound of the radio. A gentle jog rocketed into an escape from the hounds of hell. Her fingers groped for and missed the red panic button, and she took off in an inelegant reverse flight, arms flailing to land in a crumpled heap on the floor. All the air whooshed out of her lungs. Thank God she was alone.

“Are you okay?”

Addie looked up to find a fair-haired guy staring down at her.
Damn.
He was trying not to smile, but his tight lips and twinkling eyes gave him away.

“Doing a few sit-ups.” She sat up, her head swam and she lay down again.

He hesitated and then moved away to step onto a machine that moved arms and legs in opposite directions. The label said cross-trainer. As opposed to happy-trainer?

Smiley-guy had a great face. Dark blue eyes. Square chin. Lovely body and he was tall.

But he had floppy blond hair, which was no use at all. She could hardly expect him to dye it. Addie staggered to the mats and slumped onto a large pink gym ball. She’d lie on that for a while and pretend to be exercising something invisible while her organs rearranged themselves.

Addie stared at the ceiling trying to figure out what the hell she was doing. She’d never fool her mother and she wouldn’t fool herself, either. Prince Charming never turned up in real life and if he did, it wouldn’t be in
her
life. She ought to give up this crazy plan and leave before— The door swung open. Addie glanced across to see two dark-haired guys walk in. Her heart, still in recovery after the unexpected sprint, now attempted the high jump. Both men were tall—with dark hair. They had good bodies—

and dark hair. What was wrong with them? Addie stared at their backs. No forked tails.

Overwhelmed by the prospect of having a choice, Addie hadn’t noticed the ball deflating beneath her until, once again, she lay flat on her back, looking like a upturned Barbie turtle. She picked up the lump of pink plastic, folded it into an untidy mess and tucked it behind a rowing machine. When she turned, the blond one grinned at her.

Addie slunk to the opposite side of the room and stepped onto an angular machine that reminded her of Megatron, one of her brother David’s “Robots In Disguise”

Transformers. He was twenty-seven and they still lined his windowsill.

Lesson learne d, Addie selected level one. She pressed down her foot as hard as she could, but the platform didn’t move, not even after she used both feet and bounced. The fair-haired guy stepped onto Megatron’s twin, shot her a little smile and flicked a switch on her display. Addie almost kneed herself in the mouth.

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

She registered his shining eyes and happy face. Addie could have asked him to be Noah, she wanted to ask him, but he was no use, unless the death of his mother had sent him prematulrely blond. She considered that as she slogged up Everest, and then dismissed it. Gray might work, blond didn’t.

The other two were doing alternate biceps curls with dumbbells. Addie gave up on the mountaineering, unable to conquer the foothills, and joined them. She picked up an EZ curl bar and the weight dropped straight off one end, just missing the nearest guy’s toes and making a huge dent in the floor. Addie stared at it in horror, wishing it was deep enough for her to drop into and disappear.

“Sorry,” she gasped.

The two men ignored her. It was the blond guy who came to help.

“Not your fault,” he said. “Someone left off the collar.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Addie began to melt at his grin and then snapped upright. No matter how much she might wish otherwise, Mr. Very-Nice-With-Gorgeous-Blue-Eyes didn’t fit the profile.
She forced her attention back to the other two. The glimmer of a wedding ring turned choice into no choice. No ring on the one whose foot she’d almost crushed, though that didn’t mean he wasn’t married. Addie positioned herself so she could look at his face and froze. Beneath his annoyed frown, she saw every paperback hero she’d ever loved. His dark hair was straight and well cut. He was tall and tanned. He had dark gray eyes and the shadow of stubble on his chin. Forget the too tight T-shirt that bore the words,
Idaho No Udaho
. It had taken Addie a moment or two before she got it, particularly having to read it in reverse, but she didn’t care what it said. She’d found Noah.

While she struggled to get the words right in her head, she pranced from machine to machine. When the words were right, her feet took her in another direction.
Coward
, Addie scolded herself. How difficult could this be, compared to what she’d been doing all those weekends she was supposed to be in Manchester with Noah? While her friends and family thought she was having fun with her boyfriend, she’d paid a fortune to throw herself off cliffs, flip into freezing, wild water from a canoe and crawl down ever-narrowing underground tubes.

Despite the fortune she’d forked out for those adventure courses, Noah had never rescued her. Now she had to rescue herself, but the prospect of asking a simple question made her heart pound in her chest with the violence of surf crashing on a north Hawaiian shore. If she didn’t do something soon she’d drown in a pool of sweat—not attractive—or have a heart attack. Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea, so long as Noah knew CPR. Somehow Addie guessed the blond one would save her.

As Noah sat at another machine, she took a deep breath, stepped toward him and smiled. He ignored her. Addie’s smile withered, died and fell off her face. In her rush to escape, she kicked his water bottle, sending it spinning over the wooden floor like a puck on an ice rink. Addie ran to pick it up, knocked it again with her foot and after it stopped against the wall, she returned it with a burning face.

“Sorry.” Now she’d managed to apologize, she kept going. “Er…I…er…need to ask a favor. When you’ve finished exercising, could I buy you a drink in the bar?” Addie stared at the dent she’d made in the floor.