âYou just have to learn the lingo.â
Nina looked at her friend Lizbeth, puzzled. âLingo?â
âYeah, take this ad,â Lizbeth said, pointing to the magazine. âThis guy wants someone whoâs âcommitment-mindedâ and âindependent.â That means youâd be willing to clean his apartment and you wonât mind spending hours in a bar with his friends watching football on the big screen.â Lizbeth ran her finger down the page. âAll the rest of the stuff in this ad just means the guy will never remember to put the seat down. What you need is a man who enjoys golfing, sailing, theater and working out. That means heâll be self-employed, wealthy, intelligent and buff.â
Nina shook her head, smiling. âCome on, they canât all be that bad. Hereâs one that looks pretty good. âFriendlyâââ she read.
âHorny.â
âLikes to cuddle?â
âWants sex,â Lizbeth translated.
âSo whatâs wrong with that?â Nina quipped. âAt least I know we have something in common.â
Dear Reader,
Iâve always loved to read the personal ads. Even though Iâve never answered one, as a single woman Iâve never given up hope that someday I might come across an ad that just cries out for a response. Perhaps a man from my past is looking for me, or maybe it will be one of those missed connections, where I meet a strangerâs eyes across a crowded freeway.
Thatâs where the idea behind THE PERSONAL TOUCH! came fromâfive different couples brought together through five very different personal ads. In Mr. Right Now, Nina Forrester still holds out hope that thereâs a Mr. Right just waiting for her. And if she isnât meant to meet him yet, sheâll settle for Mr. Right Now. But when she meets dynamic Cameron Ryder, she soon finds out thereâs a third alternativeâfalling in love with Mr. Completely Wrong!
I hope you enjoy my twentieth Temptation novel. And to all my readers whoâve been with me since that very first book in 1993, a special thank-you for your support and enthusiasm.
All my best,
Kate Hoffmann
P.S. I love to hear from my readers. You can reach me c/o Harlequin Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, M3B 3K9, Canada.
Books by Kate Hoffmann
HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION
758âONCE A HERO
762âALWAYS A HERO
795âALL THROUGH THE NIGHT
Mr. Right Now
Kate Hoffmann
To Birgit Davis-Todd and Brenda Chin, for their continued encouragement, unerring instincts and editorial wisdom.
Contents
1
âI LIVE IN A CITY of seven million people. Three and a half million of them are men. Of those, there have to be at least a half million who are single. And out of those, there must be a few thousand who are decent guys.â
Nina Forrester leaned over the counter and held her coffee mug under the stream of just-brewed coffee. When her mug was full, she shoved the pot back in its place and took a careful sip, moaning softly as the caffeine seeped into her bloodstream. Though she hadnât had a drop of wine all weekend, she had inhaled a two-pound bag of peanut M&Ms last night and the chocolate hangover was killing her. âWhy canât I meet just one of those guys?â
âBad weekend?â Lizbeth drawled, feigning sympathy.
Nina peered over the rim of the mug at her friend and co-worker, Lizbeth Gordon. Bad weekend? Not if crying through Out of Africa six times, gulping down handfuls of M&Ms, and waxing her bikini line qualified as bad. Sheâd had worse. There was that time she ate an entire frozen Sara Lee triple-layer fudge cake during the first hour of Titanic. And the Saturday she spent rearranging her underwear drawer, first by color, then by fabric, then by age. âI didnât even leave my apartment,â Nina admitted. âAnd Iâm starting to have sexual fantasies about the Chinese restaurant delivery man.â
Lizbeth slipped her arm around Ninaâs shoulders and clucked her tongue. âHoney, donât you think itâs about time you found yourself a nice stallion and went for a little ride? Itâs been a long time since youâve visited the stable.â From anyone else, the suggestion might have sounded ridiculous, but intoned in Lizbethâs lazy Southern accent, it sounded perfectly reasonable.
âWhat is it about you and horses?â Nina asked, pulling away and stalking out of the coffee room toward her office. âLast week you were telling me to get back in the saddle. When did Mr. Ed suddenly become your personal sex guru? According to you, National Velvet and My Friend Flicka are subversive sex manuals.â She stopped at her office door. âThose were my favorite books when I was a kid,â Nina said wistfully. âMy life was all about horses. I didnât even look at boys.â
âHuge, powerful, muscular, well-hung horses,â Lizbeth said, fanning her face with her hand. âGawd, I used to love those books, too.â She giggled and pressed her fingers to her lips. âIf Mama only knew sheâd have burned them all.â
Nina laughed. âYou were perverse even back then!â
âAnd you were flat as a board and had a mouthful of braces.â Lizbeth shuddered, tossing back her dark hair and smoothing her hands over her slender figure. âAdmit it, youâd never want to go back to that time. Me? I was slightly chubby, a little shy and everything I wore was made of a petroleum by-product. Itâs a pure wonder I turned out as well as I did.â
âGee, and I thought you were born wearing a cashmere diaper and silk booties, dressed to seduce every boy baby in the nursery,â Nina muttered.
If they hadnât been best friends, Nina was certain sheâd hate Lizbeth. Any girl would. Lizbeth was stunningly beautiful. Nina wasâ¦cute. Lizbeth had three or four boyfriends dangling on any given day of the month, while the pints of Häagen-Dazs in Ninaâs freezer lasted longer than most of the men in her life.
And if personal humiliation wasnât enough, Nina had to face her professional inadequacies as well. As the lowly fact checker for Attitudes magazine, Nina spent most of her workday on the Internet or on the phone or at the library, checking the veracity of every article that passed through her office. Lizbeth had charmed her way into