Body Language
Some languages need no interpretation Ellie Peters has a great apartment, a cool job as a UN interpreter, and a terrific dog. Now all she needs is the right guy to share it with and life will be perfect. But everything she's worked for is threatened the day her obsessive-compulsive, disinfectant-loving mother announces she's divorcing Ellie's father and moving in with her! And to add insult to injury, Ellie's just learned that her ex-fiance, Michael, has become her new boss!Michael Deavers remembers all too well the sparks that flew between him and Ellie. He'd love to rekindle what they once had, but he learned from their brief engagement that he's just not a commitment kind of guy. Though with Ellie once again under his nose, it's hard to remember why he ever had cold feet.Now Ellie is desperate to get Michael out of her head, her mother out of her hair and her life out of the gutter…but old flames die hard, and this interpreter hasn't counted on the language of love.
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“I still desire you.”
The word desire sent quivers running up and down Ellie’s spine, like a feather on bare skin, creating need within her. And Michael certainly knew how to fill that need.
“I think we should order dessert. I’m hungry for something chocolate.” Chocolate had the power to make the pain go away; it was also an effective cure for sexual frustration.
Michael’s grin was borderline erotic, and it sent her pulse racing. “I seem to recall that when you were hungry for chocolate that usually meant you were hungry for something else.”
Shit! It was true. When she was horny, she craved chocolate.
“I don’t remember anything of the kind. And I just realized I can’t have dessert. I’m on a diet.”
Well, at least her trainer would be proud of her.
“You don’t need to lose weight. You look perfect to me.”
“I am perfect. Perfectly impervious to your charms, Michael Deavers, so don’t try sweet-talking me into anything. I’m not buying it. Sex is purely an animal instinct—”
“We can go back to my place.”
The devil was tempting….
Staying Single
“A wry, witty and charming tale about getting even.”
—Romantic Times
“Well worth the read! I eagerly look forward to more of Millie’s books.”
—Kathy Boswell, The Best Reviews
“Staying Single has it all! It’s funny, witty, [and] fast-paced with engaging secondary characters.”
—Romance Readers Connection
Mad About Mia
“Once again the irrepressible Criswell provides readers with a funny and heartwarming story.”
—Booklist
“Lighthearted and good-natured reading.”
—Romantic Times
“Great characters…An entertaining, fun, and witty read.”
—Old Book Barn Gazette
More Praise for Millie Criswell
“Criswell…makes her delightful contemporary debut with a funny and sexy romance…a worthwhile read.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Trouble with Mary
“Romantic comedy has a new star and her name is Millie Criswell.”
—New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich
“Millie Criswell’s writing is simply brilliant! Romantic comedy is the perfect showcase for her extraordinary talent.”
—Suzanne Coleburn, Belles and Beaux of Romance
Books by Millie Criswell
Suddenly Single
Mad About Mia
Staying Single
The Trials of Angela
What To Do about Annie?
The Pregnant Miss Potter
The Trouble with Mary
The Marrying Man
The Wedding Planner
True Love
Defiant
Dangerous
Desperate
Primrose
Sweet Laurel
Wild Heather
To Alexandra Marie Criswell, the new love of my life!
This one’s for you, sweetie! Love, Grandma
CONTENTS
“Never relinquish your own apartment unless you have an engagement ring firmly on your finger, or you’re broke.”
CHAPTER ONE
ELLIE PETERS WAS HAVING a midlife crisis.
Well, not exactly midlife, since she was only thirty-two years, three months, and seventeen days old. But she lived in midtown Manhattan, so the “mid” part was definitely valid.
And as crises went, hers was major!
“We need to find a place to live, Barn, and we need to find it fast. Brian will be back from L.A. next week, and we’ve got to be moved out of here by then.”
Her idea, not his.
Brian foolishly thought they could still work things out, even after he’d called Barnaby “God’s stupid mistake” and suggested to Ellie that she take the dog to the pound, and all because he’d peed in his Bruno Magli loafers.
It had been an accident, for crying out loud!
Ellie’s bulldog, who had a face only a mother could love (if said mother was blind), digested this news by letting loose with a very ungentlemanly fart, and then whimpered, obviously knowing that it was her ex-boyfriend’s hatred of him that had sent Ellie and Brian’s relationship into the toilet, forcing her to look for a new place to live.
She may have dumped Brian, but it was his apartment she’d been living in these past six months, and that had been really poor planning on her part.
“Don’t worry, Barnaby,” she said, patting the dog’s head affectionately. “Good dogs are much harder to find than good men. And Brian was too anal for his own good, anyway.
“I mean, what person in their right mind flosses after every meal?” As the image of yards and yards of dental floss hanging over the edge of the waste-basket emerged—floss she’d been forced to pick up and dispose of properly—YUCK!—Ellie shuddered in distaste, knowing she’d made the right choice.
It was so much better to be the dumper rather than the dumpee, for a change, she decided.
“At any rate, we are going to be much better off without Brian, Barn.”
Seeming to agree with her assessment, Barnaby licked her face, producing an inordinately large amount of drool, which Ellie wiped off with the sleeve of her Georgetown University sweatshirt—her alma mater—before going back to peruse the classifieds.
Apartments in New York City were ridiculously expensive. She was no Donald Trump, and Ellie’s job as a translator at the United Nations didn’t pay her enough to find something as elegant as where she was living now, within a stone’s throw of Central Park.
