Blame It on Cupid

BLAME IT ON CHOCOLATE

“Written with a deliciously sharp sense of humour

and her usual superb sense of characterisation,

RITA® Award-winning Greene’s latest romance is a

sweetly sexy, thoroughly satisfying, and simply

sublime literary confection.”

—Booklist

“Ms Greene is a wonderful story teller who pulls

you into the lives of her characters…Blame It onChocolate is intriguing, engaging and full of drama and wit.You’ll have a very hard time putting this story down.”

—CataRomance.com

“…terrifically likeable hero and heroine. The sexual

chemistry between them sizzles, the romantic plot is

emotionally compelling and the subject matter at

the heart of the story is interesting.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

“The characters are likeable, the plot is realistic,

and the book is fantastic. I highly recommend

Blame It on Chocolate.”

—Romance Reviews Today

“The characters are truly believable, the dialogue is

funny, and the situations this couple find themselves

in are ones anyone can relate to.”

—Romance Junkies

“A warmhearted romance with endearing

characters, simmering sensuality, and a very

interesting subject matter. A book to curl

up with on a cold night.”

—Rendezvous

Other works by

Jennifer Greene

BLAME IT ON CHOCOLATE

BLAME IT ON PARIS

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To: Moose, Brody, Havi, Magic

It’s about the unconditional love.

Thanks, guys

NORMALLY NOTHING SCARED Merry Olson. People teased her about it all the time. On the same morning, you could throw her a flat tire, bad hair and burned eggs, and she’d still be perky. Her dad claimed she could find the silver lining in a tornado. But man, one look at the house and she felt rattled clear to the bone.

The trip from Minnesota to Oakburg, Virginia, had been tediously long, especially driving alone, so she expected to arrive exhausted. She just never expected to feel culture shock as if she’d landed on a completely alien planet.

Taking a huge, bolstering breath, she climbed from her snow-and-salt-crusted blue Mini Cooper and grabbed her cell phone. At twenty-nine, she was hardly tied by the emotional umbilical cord to her dad, but she knew darn well he’d worry himself crazy until he heard from her. She worried about him the same way when he traveled alone.

Waiting for her dad to answer, she glanced at her car. Merry never doubted that her Cooper could make it through anything—the car was far more reliable than she was—but right now, no question, the baby was sagging in the rear end and heaped to the gills.

Upending her entire life in a week had been a major challenge, but not impossible. For years friends and family had labeled her ditzy, but where they meant an affectionate insult, Merry secretly took pride in the tag. She lived life loose. That was a deliberate choice, not an accident. She’d never taken a job she couldn’t quit, never allowed herself to get so attached to a place that she couldn’t leave. She’d never settled long with anyone or for anything.

What other people called flaky, she called freedom. And maybe she had a few personal reasons why she was so zealously footloose, but that wasn’t the point. The point was now—when she’d needed to be able to change her whole life quickly, she’d been able to do so.

Her Mini Cooper did look a bit odd. The passenger seat alone was weighted down with two suitcases, a pillow and a jumbled collection of shoes—forty pairs, to be precise. The backseat was completely stuffed with a table-sized Christmas tree, already decked out with pink lights and pink satin ornaments, and a mess of various-sized boxes wrapped in pink and silver and gold.

Considering it was January tenth, a long way past Christmas, the tree especially had to look a little weird to a stranger. But Merry had her priorities, and she hoped to Pete that looking sane to other people was never one of them.

“Dad?” Finally, he answered on the fourth ring. “I got here, safe and sound. A mighty long drive, but really no sweat…”

A zingy ice sleet stung her face, but she didn’t mind. The chipper temperature was exhilarating after all those cramped hours in the car. Besides, she’d left two feet of snow in Minneapolis, so if this was the worst Virginia could hand out in the winter, living here was going to be a piece of cake.

When she glanced at the house again, though, she suffered another shiver chasing up her spine.

“No, Dad, I haven’t seen the lawyer yet. Or the child. There hasn’t been time. I thought I could drive it through, but I had to stop for a few hours sleep last night. So I literally just pulled in the driveway to get a look at the place…”

With the phone still tucked to her ear, she whirled around, hoping the look of the neighborhood would be more reassuring. Instead, she suffered another shuddersized shiver.

Apparently it wasn’t just the one house. There was a whole block of them. They were all minicastles, with sculpted yards and fancy architectural features and three-car garages. The only vehicles in sight were BMWs and Volvos and Lexus SUVs.