Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Tuesday Reynolds’s dreamy life in Manhattan has gone belly-up. Ditched by her college sweetheart and with her Wall Street banking job at risk, she’s off to London to prove herself to a new CEO. Plans change when Tuesday meets Ben Kelley, a wealthy, scowly, and movie-star-handsome stranger. He’s just missing one thing to make his professional dreams come true.
What does Ben need? Oh, just a fake fiancée to impress a duke and duchess. What’s in it for Tuesday? Enough money to put a down payment on an apartment back in New York, a new wardrobe, and a weekend in the country at the stately home of the duke and duchess. The Bridgerton vibes are absolutely off the charts.
Everything between Ben and Tuesday is completely professional, until the rehearsals for their weekend romance start to feel…almost authentic.
It’s official. Tuesday’s life has been hijacked by a rom-com scriptwriter. But the best love stories aren’t the ones on the big screen. Maybe they’re the real ones that sneak up on you when you least expect it
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
For the last ten years, I’ve been living a life in Manhattan most people can only dream about. Cool apartment on the Upper East Side? Check. Soaring career at a bank on Wall Street? Check. Handsome boyfriend who proposed with his grandmother’s ring? Check and mate.
In the last week, things have changed.
I’ve been thrown out of my home. The bank announced a merger, which means my job is on the line. And my fiancé ran off to Iowa with a ballerina named Fifi.
But there are still things to be positive about.
The bank has sent me to London to “demonstrate my talent” for the new CEO and to get myself on the new management fast-track program. At least it won’t put a strain on my nonexistent relationship.
Then there’s the fact I’m in London. That’s London, England. It’s my first trip abroad, and I’m not half-assing it with a long weekend in Cabo. I’m across an ocean. On a different continent from Jed and Fifi. That’s gotta count as a win.
I’m prepared for the unexpected—it’s on my travel checklist just below remember passport—but even the most fastidious planner wouldn’t have anticipated checking into her London hotel and finding herself surrounded by . . . women. Not that I expected not to see women. I’d just subconsciously anticipated seeing members of both sexes, like I normally do. There isn’t a man to be seen.
Instead, there are all kinds of women—blond and brunette, short and tall, thin and curvy. All smiling almost giddily at each other, chatting away conspiratorially and laughing like they’ve each had a cocktail, even though it’s only just past noon. Not that I’m judging. New York brunches are nothing without a mimosa.
I slide my passport onto the check-in desk and pull my eyes away from four women by the door, all my age, huddled together over a map.
“Good afternoon. Is it a business or personal trip?” the neat blond woman behind the desk asks.
“Business,” I reply, half wondering whether I missed something when I checked the hotel’s website after the bank’s travel department booked me in here. I file through the likely explanations in my head: It’s an all-women hotel, ensuring women feel safe when traveling; a bachelorette party has taken over the entire hotel; a huge, women-only birthday party has spilled out into the lobby. I crane my neck to see whether any of the other receptionists are men.
“Are you working the convention?” The receptionist’s eyes are dancing, and her smile is wide and genuine. She looks positively giddy herself.
“Er, what convention?”
She reaches forward and tugs at something on the desk. In front of me, she sets down a ten-inch-high cardboard cutout of Daniel De Luca—a man, at last, and one I’m very familiar with. “The Daniel De Luca convention, of course! It’s our third year.”
“Daniel De Luca?” I ask, like I don’t know she means the British movie star famed for his Hollywood romantic comedies. He’s underestimated as an actor, in my opinion. His finest work was in the thriller Watching Me. He was robbed of the Oscar nomination. “There’s a convention?”
“DDL Con. You didn’t know?” She looks at me like she’s just awarded me a big check I wasn’t expecting. “Yes, there’s a five-day and a seven-day package,” she says. “If you have time outside of work, you should sign up. It starts tomorrow, so you haven’t missed anything.”
A loud rattling sound behind me catches my attention, and I snap my head around to see a short woman in a polka-dot sundress just like the one Mary McDorney wore in Every Day when she and Daniel De Luca went to a polo match together. The woman is pulling up a retractable banner, but she’s having trouble securing it. At first glance, it looks like she’s trying to dry hump an overly large picture of Daniel De Luca’s face.
Not exactly what I expected from London, but international travel is supposed to broaden the mind.
I turn back to the receptionist. “I’m not sure I’ll have time, but thank you.”
I’ve flown over on a Saturday to give myself time to recover from jet lag and settle in before the start of my five-week stint as the bank’s new project manager, working directly with the CEO. I’m planning to find a great coffee shop, figure out how long the journey to work is likely to take, and get to grips with the public transportation system; I’ve got a list of all the things I need to do tomorrow before I show up at the bank on Monday. I want to be prepared—I can’t lose my boyfriend and my job at the same time. My life would veer into pathetic territory, and I’m not going to let that happen.
“Oh. Poor you.” The receptionist tips her head and pushes her bottom lip out, like missing the convention is the worst thing that could happen to a woman like me.