Excerpt: Man For Me - Vilma Iris | Lifestyle Blogger

Brett Sebastian is the very best kind of friend.

Who else would get me a job at one of the biggest corporations in America?

And hook me up with his uber-rich cousin to boot?

And let me cry on his shoulder every time said cousin blows me off?

Okay, it’s pretty obvious that Brett cares about me in a different way than I do for him, but he seems fine with how things are, and our friendship works.

Until one fateful night when I’m mooning over his cousin, and Brett utters four words that should make me happy for him, should make me relieved, should balance out our uneven relationship:

“I met a girl.”

Suddenly my world is crashing down around me, and I’m forced to ask myself—am I only interested in Brett now that he’s taken?

Or have I been looking at the wrong man all along?

Book Type:

Contemporary Romance

Buy Now:

Connect with Laurelin Paige:

This post contains affiliate links, meaning I’ll receive a small commission should you purchase using those links. All opinions expressed are my own. I receive no compensation for reviews.

Excerpt: Man For Me
By Laurelin Paige

Excerpt: Man For Me

From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Laurelin Paige comes a new story in her Man In Charge series. MAN FOR ME is out tomorrow, but you can read a sneak peek now!

Everything going well?” I asked the bartender as I slipped behind the counter. His name was Denim.

Denim.

I’d be appalled at his parents for giving him such a ridiculous name if I wasn’t so sure that it was a name change he’d taken for himself.

Actors.

Correction: Millennial actors. The other actors weren’t quite so eccentric.

The city was full of them moonlighting as waitstaff, and since my job description as receptionist somehow included every random task not otherwise assigned in the PR department, I was frequently the point person for the service staff at parties such as this.

Obviously, I wasn’t the best at this part of my job, since I’d been getting busy with my boss instead of remaining in sight and available. But honestly, I would have been overjoyed to have this particular task doled out to someone else. I’d frequently asked for just that over the last few years, only to have my request put off time and time again. So now this was just another thing in my life that could fuck right off.

“Peachy,” Denim said flatly, and charming as he wasn’t, I didn’t take it upon myself to manage him the way some others in my position might have.

I hadn’t really come by to check up on him.

He eyed me as I rooted around in his wine fridge. “Anything I can get for you, Ms. Waters?”

“Nah. I got it.” I pulled out an already opened, mostly full Moet & Chandon and made sure the Nectar Imperial flavor was a demi-sec—it was—and then shut the fridge door with my hip. I held up the bottle for Denim to see. “A guest requested this.”

Never mind that the guest was me and that I wasn’t really a guest.

“Do you need some flutes?”

“Nope! I’m good.”

“Ah, so that’s the kind of evening this is going to be,” said another familiar voice as I slipped back to the other side of the bar.

I turned to see the only other face I wanted to see at the moment—really, the only other face I wanted to see at most moments.

“That’s the kind of evening this already is, Brett,” I whined, the way a girl does when she’s having a bad time and she sees the person who knows her better than anyone else in the world.

He frowned as he used his thumb to clean up my smudged mascara. “Want me to beat him up?”

I forced myself not to shiver at his touch. “Yes, please.”

“On it.”

He smiled, and the bright white of his teeth somehow managed to accentuate the green of his eyes. It was hard to know where to look, which was often the case. Every part of his face was attractive, from his dimpled chin to his chiseled cheekbones to his thick eyebrows to the scruff covering his angled jawline.

Hands down, he was the hottest man I knew. Even after years of knowing him, I wasn’t immune to his looks. The only reason I hadn’t chased after him was because he wasn’t running. If I wanted him in my bed, I had a feeling he’d follow me like a lost puppy. That was his only problem—which wasn’t really a problem in general, just where my libido was concerned—he adored me, and f’d up broken girl that I was, I required a certain degree of assholery to turn me on.

Scott Sebastian, case in point.

Of course Brett wouldn’t really beat Scott up because A) he wouldn’t hurt a fly, B) Scott was his boss as well as mine, and C) Scott was his cousin—relevance in that order—but it was a nice sentiment all the same.

I held up the bottle. “I’m going to drown my misery with expensive champagne that I didn’t pay for. Want to join me?”

Brett peered over one shoulder than the other. “I can’t. I think I need to schmooze a little longer.”

See? Brett was one of the good ones. He wouldn’t even try to talk me out of shirking my own duties, despite the fact that he had gotten me the job and held rank over me.

Since I was not one of the good ones, it wasn’t beneath me to try to change his mind. “You’re tucked in the corner by the bar with me. You’re already not schmoozing.”

“Well, I’m also trying to hide from Adrienne Thorne.”

I threw my head back and groaned, for his sake as well as mine. The blue-haired sexagenarian called the office at least once a week trying to land an appointment with Brett. His personal assistant had stopped taking her calls, and so she’d started calling the main line, meaning I was now the one making up excuses for why Brett couldn’t see her. “You should just tell her we’re never going to work with her and get it over with.”

“I have, Eden. Several times. She thinks she can change my mind.”

Because Brett was so nice that being dumped by him probably felt like an invitation to try harder to win him.

Poor guy. He couldn’t help being good-natured.

“Want me to beat her up?” I smoothed my hand down his tie, more to cop a feel than to straighten it.

Yeah, he wasn’t the guy for me, but he had a great body. Sue me for appreciating it.

Subscribe for Updates:

Share This Post

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

On Instagram