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Night After Night ...
By Kristin Gabriel Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
Copyright © 2004 Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
All right reserved. ISBN: 0-373-69196-3
Chapter One
MIA MALDONADO knew there was trouble the moment she heard "Blue Suede Shoes" blaring from the stereo speakers. Elvis always meant a crisis was brewing, so she proceeded warily through the front hall of the house, ready for anything.
The living room, which doubled as an office for her interior design business, was empty. Another bad sign. She'd leased the Tudor-style home a year ago, hoping the affluent Philadelphia neighborhood would bring wealthy, decorating-impaired clients to her door.
It had worked, too - until she'd started dating her design firm's best carpenter. She had a bad habit of falling too hard and too fast for men like Ian Brock. Men who looked so good in a pair of tight jeans that she overlooked their other genes - the ones that made them lie, cheat ... and steal her sanity.
When she'd lived in Chicago, her heart had been broken so many times that she'd made a donation to the new cardiac wing at one of the city's hospitals in the name of all her mistakes. Mistakes like Bryan, Andrew, Jeff, Wyatt and Justin. Then she'd moved from Chicago to Philadelphia, ready for a fresh start.
But Ian was proof that she still hadn't learned her lesson. He'd dumped Mia three months ago, taking her heart and most of her clients along with him. Now she was determined that he'd be the last romantic mistake she ever made. From here on, Mia was going to follow her head instead of her hormones.
At least her best friend hadn't abandoned her yet. She'd met Carleen Wimmer a year ago, when they were the only two people at a matinee screening of Gone With The Wind. By intermission, they'd been sharing a large tub of buttered popcorn and commiserating over the fact that men like Clark Gable didn't exist anymore. By the end of the movie, Mia had offered Carleen a job as her office assistant.
Soon after, they decided to pool their limited resources by having Carleen move into the house. Kindred spirits, they shared a love of old movies, Thai cuisine and expeditions to flea markets. Carleen's gentle, cautious nature was the perfect complement to Mia's leap-before-you-look approach to life.
But Mia would lose her roommate next month when Carleen married Tobias Hamilton, a Philadelphia blue blood who could trace his family back to the Mayflower. He didn't seem to care that his fiancee had grown up in a trailer park instead of on ParkAvenue.
Mia was happy for Carleen, even if Tobias was a little ... bland. Maybe bland was good. Bland didn't run off with the first teenage bimbo to come along. Bland didn't break your heart. She was certainly in no position to criticize anyone else's love life. Not when her own had so recently ended in disaster.
She just hoped it wasn't contagious.
Mia turned down the sound on the stereo, then noticed the empty candy bar wrappers on the desk in the corner. Chocolate and Elvis. That meant it was serious. Carleen was on a strict diet so she could fit into the vintage wedding dress worn by all the Hamilton brides.
She shed her coat and purse, shoving her latest dating debacle to the back of her mind so she could tackle whatever awaited her. She found Carleen seated at the kitchen table, hunched over a carton of chocolate almond ice cream. Half of it was already gone.
"What's wrong?" Mia asked without preamble.
Carleen looked up at her, black mascara smudges beneath her green eyes. "I've ruined everything."
Mia grabbed a spoon from the drawer, then sat down across from her. "It can't be that bad."
"Oh, yes it can." Carleen dipped her spoon into the ice cream. "It's all over."
"What's all over?"
Carleen sucked in a shaky breath. "The wedding. Your business. My life."
Mia pulled the ice cream carton toward her, telling herself not to panic. "All right, let's start from the beginning. What happened?"
Carleen brushed back a wisp of blond hair stuck to her tear-stained cheek. "Toby left the country today. He's on an airplane right now, headed for Germany."
"Why?"
"Because his mother hates me." Her lower lip quivered. "She's only met me once, but she hates me all the same. Beatrice Hamilton thinks I'm not good enough to marry her only son."
"Hold on," Mia said. "Are you telling me his mother sent him off to Germany?"
Carleen shook her head. "No, but she's behind it. Toby has always been fascinated by show business. Recently, his mother arranged for him to meet a screenwriter at one of her fancy parties and now Toby's going to produce his movie. They're filming on location in Frankfurt for the next three weeks and he says he has to be there."
"But he'll be back in time for the wedding, won't he?"
"I hope so." Carleen pulled the ice cream carton back to her side of the table. "I'm telling you, Mia, that woman is determined to drive us apart. I tried to talk to Toby about it today when I took him to the airport, but we just got into a huge fight. He wouldn't even listen to me. He's more upset about Harlan than his mother."
"Whoa, back up a step," Mia said. "Who's Harlan?"
She heaved a long sigh. "I should have mentioned him first. Harlan Longo. You know, that millionaire who likes to play scientist?"
"Yes," Mia replied, more confused than ever, "what about him?"
"Well, I signed up for his three-week sleep study to save Mia's Makeovers. He's offering a three-thou-sand-dollar stipend to his research subjects and you mentioned just the other day that we needed to find money to advertise or the business is doomed."
Mia blinked at her. "You signed up to help me?"
Carleen's face softened. "It was the least I could do. I'll never be able to repay you for everything you've done for me. Giving me a job. Taking me in when I didn't have anywhere else to go. Treating me like a member of your family." A smile trembled on her lips. "You're the sister I never had."
Mia swallowed the huge lump in her throat, then chased it down with a spoonful of ice cream. "We're friends, Carleen. You don't owe me anything."
"Then think of it as my going-away present," Carleen replied. "Toby is talking about moving to California after we're married. He wants to live in Hollywood. I couldn't be happy knowing I left you behind with all those unpaid bills piling up. I had to do something."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Night After Night ... by Kristin Gabriel Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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