Early to Bed Read online

  "I want you, Lily."

  Lily stared at Tony, feeling her muscles melt.

  "Tell me that you don't want me," he continued, "and all our future dealings will be strictly business."

  Her skin was icy and hot all at once. "I can't tell you that."

  He lowered his head again and closed his teeth around her bottom lip, then soothed the small pain with his tongue. "Then tell me you want me to make love to you."

  She thought of lying to him, but then he leaned down and scraped his teeth against her neck. "You don't play fair," she said, a shiver running down her spine.

  He smiled—a very slow smile that ruthlessly made use of his dimples. "I play to win. Tell me you want to make love with me."

  She gave up trying to resist. Wrapping her arms around him, she conceded, "I want you. I really shouldn't, but I want you so much."

  He let out a groan of triumph. "Good thing...because you've got me. You've had me from the moment you crawled into my bed."

  Reaching down and pulling the string on his sweatpants, Lily said playfully, "Then let me

  see what I've got...."

  Dear Reader,

  I love writing WRONG BED books! What greater trouble can you plunge your heroine into than putting her in bed with the wrong man? And that's just the beginning of the fun!

  Fresh from a success seminar in Tahiti, Lily McNeil is a new woman. The failures in her past are history. Not only has she shed twenty-five pounds, but she's also permanently erased the little black cloud that has hovered over her head since she was ten. And to prove to her skeptical family that the old Lily no longer exists, all she has to do is acquire Henry's Place, a small family-run hotel in Manhattan. So what if she has to lie to the owner to do it? No problem. The new Lily can handle it.

  All Tony Romano wants is to keep his hotel running. When the sexy-voiced Lily McNeil offers her consulting services and promises that, she can solve all his problems, he knows that she's lying through her teeth, but he figures he can handle her. He'll pick her brain, then send her packing. Tony's plan begins to unravel the moment he wakes up to find Lily sleeping in his bed. Then he wants to handle her, all right. And he does. Now all he has to do is figure out how to hold onto his hotel—and keep Lily in his bed permanently.

  I hope you have as much fun reading Tony and Lily's story as I had writing it.

  All the best,

  Cara Summers

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

  To Jane Frances Manor, my cousin and one of my

  biggest fans. Thanks for your unfailing praise and support!

  I love you, Janie.

  ISBN 0-373-69170-X

  EARLY TO BED?

  Copyright © 2004 by Carolyn Hanlon.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

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  Printed In U.S.A.

  _______1______

  You can have whatever you want.

  Lily McNeil chanted the phrase silently, just as they'd taught her to do in the week-long success seminar she'd recently attended in Tahiti.

  Your past does not have to equal your future.

  That was phrase number two in her daily mantra. Somehow, the idea that she could transform herself into someone her family could respect had been easier to believe on a sunny beach with all those bright blue waves pounding on the shore.

  Of course, the monsoon presently hammering Manhattan was having a debilitating effect on both her hairdo and her ego. And the fact that the taxi driver had dropped her off across the street from her hotel was a slight problem. Rain and wind lashed at her as she waited on the curb for the traffic to clear.

  You live under a black cloud.

  No. Tightening her grip on her rolling suitcase and her briefcase, Lily dashed across the street. She'd been ten when her stepbrother Jerry Langford-McNeil had first flung the black cloud taunt at her. For years after that, she'd carried the image around in her mind of a dark, rain-filled mist hovering over her wherever she went.

  No more. No way. No how. Black clouds were in her past—and her past did not have to equal her future. In the past, her father had never approved of anything she'd ever done. But she was about to change all that.

  True, her confidence had slipped a notch when the company plane had failed to pick her up in Tahiti. But she'd managed to charter another plane to bring her to New York. And she was here. Mission accomplished. Dripping, she pushed through the revolving doors of Henry's Place. Then she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass.

  The old Lily was staring back at her—unfashionable, insecure, and overweight.

  No. She was not that person anymore. Stopping short on the worn oriental carpet that ran up the stairs to the lobby, Lily squared her shoulders, drew in a deep breath and pictured herself the way she wanted to be. Visualization was the key to success. That's what the energetic motivational guru had preached on his island. Her five-hundred-dollar hairstyle might be a lit-tle under the weather. She risked a peek in the mirrored wall to her right and felt her stomach plummet. Okay—a lot under the weather. As for her clothes—she closed her eyes and suppressed a shudder. They could be replaced.

  She risked another peek, just to make sure that the twenty-five pounds she'd struggled so hard to lose over the past six months hadn't somehow crept back onto her frame. They hadn't. Relief streamed through her. She might look like a drowned rat, but at least she was now a slim one.

  Your past does not have to equal your future. Squaring her shoulders, Lily opened both eyes and faced herself in the mirror. She'd changed on the inside, and that was what was important. More important, her father, J. R. McNeil of McNeil Enterprises, had given her a job and she had to prove to him that she could do it.

  "Beware the Ides of March."

  With a start, Lily whirled to see a tall ethereal-looking woman standing at the top of the short flight of stairs. She wore a gauzy caftan in faded shades of blue, and her slivery white hair flowed down over her shoulders. She might have been a witch sprung right off the pages of a Harry Potter book. But the voice didn't go with the rest of her. It had an "I don't take any crap" tone that sounded more like a five-star general's. The contrast aroused Lily's curiosity, but then she met the woman's eyes and felt a chill right through to her bones.

  "Beware the Ides of March," the woman repeated.

  Any mention of the Ides of March brought two memories to Lily's mind. First of all, the fifteenth of March was her birthday, and she'd just celebrated it two weeks ago. And anyone who'd studied Latin in school would recognize the warning that the soothsayer had given to Julius Caesar when he'd marched into Rome. Of course, the soothsayer's pro
phecy had been dead on. As if on cue, lightning flashed and a huge clap of thunder rattled the glass doors.

  Lily jumped.

  "Hurry!" Raising one jeweled hand, the witch beckoned to her. "Disaster is near."

  Lily climbed the short flight of stairs to the lobby. If this was the way the hotel greeted its guests, it was no wonder that Henry's Place was in dire financial straits. And it had such potential. Its location within walking distance of the theater district as well as Central Park was prime.

  Though her father had shown her the file on the hotel the Romano family had been running for almost fifty years, the picture that the lobby presented was worth much more than the thousand words of his report. Decaying was the word that came to mind. Why in the world was Anthony Romano, the family spokesperson, refusing to sell to McNeil Enterprises when they obviously couldn't take care of the place themselves?

  In the end, the answer to that question wouldn't matter. During her week's stay at the hotel, her job, as her father described it, was to gather all the information she could to ensure that McNeil Enterprises' next offer would not be refused. Find the weaknesses so we can exploit them.

  "Leave your bags here." The witch waved a hand at the mahogany reception desk that formed an L against one of the walls.

  Lily immediately set down her suitcase and briefcase and followed the woman. She would have felt a lot better about the job her father had given her if she hadn't had to lie about why she'd really come to Henry's Place. She'd told Anthony Romano that she was heading up a new department at McNeil Enterprises that offered consulting services. She could provide him with an analysis that would allow him to revitalize the hotel. She was even supposed to offer him a financing plan. Of course, it would be a fake. Her real job was to ferret out information that would allow her father to force the sale.

  The old Lily would have balked at the deception, and she would have described the job as spying. But the new Lily had to prove to her father and her step-

  family that she was fully capable of assuming a leadership position at McNeil Enterprises.

  On the bright side, she might actually be doing the Romano family a favor. Their hotel looked as if it might not survive much longer in its present condition. As she followed the witch/soothsayer to a far corner of the lobby, she couldn't help noting the marble floors were chipped in some places, gouged in others. The carpets covering them, though they must have been charming in their heyday fifty years ago, were badly in need of repair. As for the furniture—the tiny, exquisitely carved settee creaked ominously when her soothsayer sank down on it.

  It was only then that Lily noticed the white pillar candles and the crystal ball on the small table in front of the settee. "Sit." The woman waved her to a chair across from her.

  Still wondering how the five-star general's voice could come out of that fragile body, Lily did as she was told.

  "Give me your hand."

  Lily hesitated.

  "Hurry. You don't have any time to waste. The future is yours to shape."

  Lily stared at the woman. The words were such a close paraphrase of her motivational guru's words that she found herself extending her hand. As soon as the long slender fingers closed over hers and turned her palm up, she felt another chill move through her. For a moment, the lobby became so still that Lily could hear the wind whistling outside the doors as if it were searching for a way in.

  "Right here is the problem." The woman traced a finger along her palm. "A line of deception. Today you begin a web of lies that could lead to great unhappi-ness for you and others."

  For the second time in as many minutes, Lily felt her stomach sink. How could this woman know that she had come to Henry's Place on a spy mission? Had she failed before she'd even begun? Oh, that would make her stepmother and her stepbrother very happy.

  "Why are you doing this?"

  Why? That was a question she'd asked herself every day on that island retreat. But the answer always came back to the same thing. This was her one chance to win her father's approval.

  "Look at how short the line is." The woman glanced up for a moment and met Lily's eyes. "You're not very good at deception."

  Maybe not. The problem was that she hadn't been good at anything in her life. She hadn't been the son her father would have preferred. Two years ago, she hadn't been able to go through with a marriage that would have merged McNeil Enterprises with Fortes-cue Investments.

  "Ah," the woman said. "This other line—right here—is your love line. You have a lover in your future—tall, dark, handsome."

  Right. For the first time since she'd entered the hotel, Lily felt her tension ease. Finding a lover was standard patter for fortunetellers. The woman was obviously a hoax.

  "Lovers from different worlds never have it easy. But if you have the courage to give yourself to him, he will love you for who you are," the woman said.

  A fantasy, Lily thought, but she couldn't drag her gaze away from the older woman's. How could a stranger—someone she'd just met—know that having someone love her for herself was her deepest, most secret fantasy?

  "Dame Vera, here you are. Sir Alistair and I were so worried when we couldn't find you."

  Lily felt a little as if she were wrenching herself out of a trance, but she managed to tear her gaze away from the older woman's and shift it to the two people who were approaching. The young woman had dark hair, nearly black, that fell in a straight line to her shoulders. The name tag on her crisply ironed white shirt read Lucy. The man she'd called Sir Alistair was tall with finely chiseled aristocratic features that went with the wine-colored smoking jacket. Lily guessed his age to be somewhere between sixty and one hundred. He looked vaguely familiar—like an old friend she hadn't run into in years.

  "You could hardly expect me to remain in my rooms. The bathroom was flooding." Turning to Lily, she murmured in a stage whisper, "Think Titanic an hour and a half into the movie."

  "I fixed the leak temporarily," Lucy said. "Tony will see to it first thing in the morning. And of course, we'll have a cleaning crew in." Pausing, she sent an apologetic smile at Lily. "Dame Vera is one of our permanent residents, and she loves to tell fortunes."

  Vera rose from the settee. "I don't tell fortunes. I see into the future. It's a gift that carries with it a great deal of responsibility. Disaster is near and the fate of Henry's Place hangs in the balance."

  Dame Vera? The name had a memory tickling at the edge of her mind.

  "You don't have to worry. You'll always have a home here," Lucy said in a soothing tone.

  "A new owner might not see it that way."

  Lily shifted her gaze away from Dame Vera's piercing stare in time to see shock appear on Lucy's face.

  "Tony would never sell this place. He promised Uncle Henry that he would keep it. It's our family home— and yours, too."

  "Time will tell," Dame Vera said, slipping back into her booming soothsayer voice. "In any case, it wasn't necessary to bother Sir Alistair."

  "She didn't bother me, my dear," the man said. "I came over to see if—"

  "You came over to check on me." Vera glared at him. "I don't need a keeper."

  Sir Alistair. The name along with the British accent finally rang a little bell in the back of Lily's mind. Sir Alistair Brooks was a British film star she'd seen in a number of late-night movies. And Dame Vera? Lily peered more closely at her. soothsayer.

  "The day I get so forgetful that I can't find my way back to the rooms I've been leasing for more than half my life, you can book me a suite at Bellevue," Vera continued.

  "I knocked on your door because one of your old movies is on the late show," Alistair said. "Blithe Spirit. Elvira was one of your greatest roles, and I have a nice bottle of Merlot."

  Vera snorted. "What you have is a lecherous mind. And you know I prefer champagne."

  "One of these days, you're going to agree to let me educate your palate."

  Vera slipped a hand through his crooked arm. "I've been drinking
champagne since—"

  "I know, I know—since Sir Richard Harris drank it out of your slipper. Well, he's gone, but I'm still here. And I don't believe they have suites at Bellevue," he said as he led her toward the elevator.

  "If that's your way of suggesting that I move in permanently with you, you can dream on."

  "Always, my dear," Alistair replied.

  Lily had to suppress the urge to applaud as the elevator doors slid shut on the couple.

  "I hope she didn't bother you," Lucy said as she leaned down to pinch out the candles. "There was quite a leak in her suite, and I'm the only one on duty

  tonight."

  "Don't worry about it," Lily said. "That's Sir Alistair Brooks, isn't it? The British film star?" Growing up in boarding schools, she'd clocked a lot of hours watching old movies while other kids" were home for the holidays.

  "Yes," Lucy answered, giving her a surprised look.

  "And Dame Vera Darnel. I didn't put it all together until I saw them walk away. They appeared together in film versions of Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night's Dream. I must have seen both of those at least twenty times. And about ten years ago they did a stint together on Day by Day." The daytime soap had been a favorite in the boarding school she'd gone to.

  Lucy smiled at her. "Not many people recognize them anymore."

  "They're guests here?"

  "Permanent ones. Their suites occupy the eighth floor—right above the family suites on the seventh floor. They were my Uncle Henry's first guests, and the fact that they signed a ten-year lease fifty years ago gave him the financial security to open the hotel. They've been leasing here ever since."

  "Is the leak a bad one?" Lily asked.

  For the first time, worry replaced the smile in Lucy's eyes. "I'm sure that Tony can handle it. The plumbing has been acting up a bit more than usual lately. I'm sorry that I wasn't here to welcome you when you arrived."

  "No problem," Lily said. But it occurred to her that she would have to include the incident with Dame Vera and the problem with the plumbing in her report to her father. Feeling guilty, she rose and followed the younger girl to the reception desk.