Cherished (Masters and Mercenaries #7.5)(3)

They tried not to have the same names in their books to avoid confusion, but when one wrote ménage, hero names became difficult to come by. She swore her next set of ménage boys would be named Fred, Maurice, and Algernon. That was all she was going to be left with. It was a good trade.

Serena’s eyes narrowed. Yes, there was some interest there.

“It’s not going to work and you can’t trade your husband for use of the name Cash in your next book,” Chris argued.

Oooo, she hadn’t thought of that one.

“Dibs,” she and Serena exclaimed at the same time.

Chris’s eyes rolled. “Seriously? That was a joke name. And I don’t think your family is going to buy Adam as your loving fiancé if he’s sleeping in Serena’s room.”

Minor issues. “He can sneak out of my room at night.”

“We’re taking the baby with us,” Serena explained. “I need both of them. Tristan is a handful. He doesn’t like to sleep. Like ever.”

“Okay, we can say that Adam’s your manny.” She could write a backstory. After all, she was a novelist. She could craft a whole fictional story to obfuscate the truth that she was kind of sad and alone. “That’s how we met. I like that a lot. It’s a meet-cute story. I fell for him because of his amazing diapering technique.”

“Do you even hear your own cray cray anymore?” Chris asked, shaking his head.

“Adam isn’t going to Hawaii as the manny, Bridget,” a masculine voice said.

Damn it. She turned and Jake was frowning down at her. Yep. He scared her. She tried to give him a grin. “Come on, Jake.”

Jake wasn’t buying it. “Nope. There are now a bunch of unattached Doms at Sanctum. I’m pretty sure Ian imported them from Special Forces land. Oh and the doc and the lawyer. Pick from them. Any of them will do, but there’s no way you’re getting the dude who changes half the diapers. It’s not happening. Also, your father’s met Adam. He’s our client, though you should know we both think your dad’s a complete * but he pays his bills on time.”

Well, his PA, who he was very likely sleeping with him, paid his bills on time. Perfect.

Serena sent her a sympathetic look. “You know who you want to ask.”

Doctor Will, with the perfect pecs and biceps that she wanted to lick. “Yes. I wanted to ask Chris, but he’s already met two of my cousins and insulted their taste in shoes because they’re awful. They know we’re never, ever going to sleep together. So I’m screwed. Maybe I can tell everyone I’m a lesbian. I could hire a hooker.”

She could also interview the hooker and get some research out of this cluster f*ck. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea…

“Because that’s not going to take away from your sister’s wedding or anything.” Serena shook her head. “You could tell everyone Amy was mistaken.”

Another way to derail her sister’s wedding. Her family was a cesspit of gossip and judgment. There was one way and only one way out, and that was to find someone to go with her, and her father would probably recognize a hooker from a hundred yards away. He was an expert, after all.

“Okay. It can’t be too hard, right? I’m offering a free trip to Kauai. My father’s sending a jet and paying for the ridiculous suite. All I have to do is take his intolerance, bigotry, and hatred, and I will be greeted with a gift basket on arrival. Wouldn’t any man want a piece of that?”

Of course, taking a neurosurgeon would solve everything, including her desperate lust for one particular doctor.

She looked around but Will was nowhere to be found. Damn it.

She couldn’t. It would be stupid, and the truth was it wasn’t like she was his type. She’d seen the subs he preferred to work with. Thin. Deeply submissive. Not the “just for fun” girls. He would hear her bratty mouth go off and run the other way. She was sure the first time she flipped someone off on the road he would dump her. That was if and only if he would go out with her in the first place, which wasn’t going to happen since he already had a trio of gorgeous women to choose from and his pick of the subs at Sanctum.

“You could ask one of the new guys,” Chris offered. “Unless you want to ask Jesse. You’ve worked with him a couple of times.”

She couldn’t not notice the use of the word “work.” Most people in the lifestyle would have used the word “play.” But she didn’t play. She “worked.” She used the time they gave her at Sanctum to research, never for herself but rather for the characters in her books. When she sat and interviewed the Doms who would talk to her, like Jesse and Alex McKay and Mitchell, she wasn’t looking for someone for herself. She was merely thinking in terms of backstories and characters and good scenes.

Will Daley made her think of what it would be like to have her own Dom.

And that was precisely why she was going to stay away.

Decision made. “All right then. I think I’ll talk to some of the baby Doms since Serena is so very selfish and you are incapable of looking like you want to sleep with me.”

Serena pouted a little. “It’s not selfishness.”

She let her friend off the hook and leaned in for a hug. “I’m teasing you. I honestly couldn’t handle Adam anyway. We would fight over the mirror.”