What a Woman Wants (A Manley Maids Novel) Read online

  PRAISE FOR JUDI FENNELL AND HER NOVELS:

  “The opening . . . is one of the best hooks I’ve read. I don’t know who could set it down after the first few pages . . . an excellent choice.”

  —Joey W. Hill. national bestselling author

  “One of the most exciting and fun reads I have ever encountered.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Phenomenally written novel . . . One of the best stories I have read this year, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a happy ending!”

  —Sizzling Hot Books

  “Will keep the reader enraptured.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “I had a smile on my face and a sigh of contentment . . . lighthearted but full of emotion. The story stirred in me feelings of falling in love all over again. It was just downright enjoyable to read!”

  —That’s What I’m Talking About

  “A light and breezy read for all . . . [will] amuse the reader to the very last page. Well done, Judi Fennell!”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  “Rip-roaring fun from the very first page . . . This book is one for the keeper shelf.”

  —Kate Douglas, bestselling author

  “A tale that shimmers, shines, sparkles, and sizzles.”

  —Long and Short Reviews

  “Full of vivid imagination.”

  —Seriously Reviewed

  “Sizzling sexual tension, plenty of humor, and a soupçon of suspense.”

  —Booklist

  “Ms. Fennell has captured a new fan.”

  —Romancing the Book

  “Chock-full of surprises . . . with a beautiful twist of romance.”

  —Book Loons

  “Judi Fennell is a bright star on the horizon of romance.”

  —Judi McCoy

  “[Fennell] is proving herself to be a solid storyteller.”

  —RT Reviews

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

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  A Penguin Random House Company

  WHAT A WOMAN WANTS

  A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2014 by Judi Fennell.

  Excerpt from What a Woman Needs by Judi Fennell copyright © 2014 by Judi Fennell.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  BERKLEY SENSATION® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-0-425-26829-2

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-62547-7

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / March 2014

  Cover illustration by Daniel O’Leary.

  Cover design by Judith Lagerman.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  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.”

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  Contents

  Praise for Judi Fennell

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Guys’ Night . . . Plus One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Guys’ Night . . . Plus Three

  Sneak Peak at What a Woman Needs

  Guys’ Night . . . Plus One

  Chapter One

  It’s said that it takes a village. Here’s to my village:

  Mom, Dad, Jill, Chris, Joe, Janice, Lisa R., Michelle, Jenny, Sheila, Marci, Lisa T., Joanne,

  Pat, Dale, Lisa F., Jamie, Beth,

  Steph, Jenny, Lori, Dakota, April, Tracey, Ann, Daria, Roberta, Leis,

  and, as always, T, S, A.

  Love and huge, huge thanks to all of you.

  Guys’ Night . . . Plus One

  SEAN Patrick Manley stared at the straight flush, nine high, in his hand. He really hated that he was going to win this game. Oh, he didn’t mind taking his brothers to the cleaners, but taking his hardworking sister’s money wasn’t anything to gloat about. Still . . . she had asked . . .

  “All in.” He kept his poker face steady and slid the balance of his chips to the center of the table.

  Bryan and Liam raised their eyebrows, but Sean didn’t say a word. Mary-Alice Catherine had wanted to play “like one of the boys” and this was how they played: cutthroat. No slack because she was a poker novice—or their younger sister.

  Bryan glanced at his cards, flicking the edges as usual. Distracting habit, which was obviously why Bryan had affected it. “I’m in.” He stacked his remaining chips alongside Sean’s pile.

  Sean hid his smile. He didn’t mind taking Bryan’s money.

  Liam leaned back in his chair and tapped the back of his cards with his index finger, unreadable as ever. “Mary-Alice, are you sure—”

  “Don’t, Liam,” Mac said, bristling as usual at th
e use of her given name. “Play the hand as you normally would.”

  Liam tapped his cards. “Fine.” His stack joined the pile.

  Sean eyed it, then his brother. He could never tell with Liam.

  Mac chewed on her bottom lip and fidgeted in her chair. Sean almost felt bad for her. Almost. But she’d bugged them enough to get in on their game. They’d tried to tell her that she couldn’t afford the stakes, but she wouldn’t listen. So, to shut her up once and for all, they’d let her in, figuring that once she lost the figurative shirt off her back, she’d stop bothering them. There were some things sisters just weren’t supposed to be a part of.

  “Okay, so how do I raise you guys if I don’t have enough chips?”

  “Mac, just put the rest of yours in. Don’t go upping the ante. You can’t afford to lose any more.” Sean smiled at her.

  He was surprised when she tossed him a look of pure anger. Who knew she had it in her? She’d always cajoled them into doing her will as a child. The fact that she’d been treated like a princess all her life by them, her knights chivalric, probably had something to do with it, so this behavior was out of character for her.

  “Just answer the question. What rules do you guys have for that?”

  Bryan ruffled his cards again. “We throw something big in. Like Sean’s place for a week or my Maserati or Liam’s island getaway. Since you don’t have anything comparable, just call.”

  Mac looked at her hand again, now nibbling on the opposite corner of her mouth. She swept a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m raising all of you.”

  Sean started to protest, but Bryan raised his hand. “What’s the wager, Mac?”

  Mac placed her cards facedown on the green felt in front of her. “If I lose, winner gets four weeks of housekeeping for free.”

  “And if you win?” Liam asked.

  Mac folded her hands over her cards. “If I win, you each owe me four weeks’ work, free of charge, for Manley Maids.”

  “What? Are you crazy? I’m not going to be someone’s maid for four hours, let alone four weeks.” Bryan rammed back in his chair as if someone had electrified the poker table.

  “Oh, well, if you don’t think you can beat me . . .” She looked at Liam.

  Liam studied her through narrowed eyes. “Four weeks, huh?” He tapped his cards. “I’ll call. With the Kiawah place for the same time period.”

  Sean studied Liam. A bluff? Nah. The rent for the vacation home wouldn’t break his brother, but Liam wouldn’t risk servitude. He had to have a winning hand. If it was better than his straight flush, Sean would only be out the cash and the hotel stay, not be in danger of putting on an apron. “Me, too. A week at the resort when it’s up and running.” If it got up and running, but he wasn’t planning on losing. Not with this hand. And not the resort, either.

  Bryan looked at the three of them as if they’d lost their minds. “So, one of us is going to end up with two vacations, maid service, and the use of a Maserati for four weeks?”

  “Unless I win,” Mac said, drumming her nails on the felt. Typical newbie response. She was too anxious.

  “You calling?” Sean nudged Bryan with his elbow.

  “Hell yeah.” Bryan threw a full house onto the table. “Come to Papa.” He reached for the pile of chips.

  “Hold on, Bry.” Liam flicked his hand to the table. Four threes stared back at them. “Sorry about that, Mac.” Liam stood.

  Sean wasn’t surprised about not getting an apology from Liam. The brothers each had had their turns winning. The money was immaterial; they enjoyed outplaying each other and getting together once a month. But Mac . . .

  Still, he had to set Liam straight. “Good hand, Lee, but not good enough.” Sean flourished the straight flush.

  “Shit.” Liam sat back down.

  “Son of a bitch.” Bryan always insisted on having the last word.

  Only Mac didn’t react. But at least there’d be no question of her joining them again.

  Sean started stacking the chips, planning when he could take off long enough for the vacation he’d just won from his brother. Sooner rather than later, since there wasn’t much he could do on the Martinson project until the whole inheritance mess was finalized.

  Silence descended on the table as he stacked the chips. Over three grand. Not bad.

  His brothers were trying not to look at Mac. Sean, too, but he did catch the flicker of her lips. Probably trying not to cry. Yeah, a grand was a big deal to Mac, especially when she was pouring everything she had into her cleaning business. Maybe he’d slip it to her when Liam and Bry weren’t looking.

  “Sorry, Mac, but that’s how the game’s played.”

  “Yeah, Mac. We warned you,” Bryan added.

  “I know.” She cleared her throat. “It’s just . . .”

  “What, Mac?” Liam leaned an elbow on the table.

  “It’s just that . . . doesn’t a jack beat a nine?”

  “Jack?” Liam’s face turned green.

  Sean’s stomach turned to ice. “Jack?”

  Bryan’s mouth opened, but, for once, he was speechless.

  “Yes. Jack.” Mac fanned her cards onto the table. Five hearts, in ascending order.

  Jack high.

  “I believe, dear brothers, you all need to be fitted for Manley Maids uniforms.”

  Chapter One

  THE doors to Hell—aka her familial estate—were wide and welcoming.

  Well, there was a first time for everything.

  Livvy Carolla jerked her duffel out of the back of the Baja and slung it over her shoulder, flouncing the bottom of her peasant skirt around her, which sent the peacock that was meandering around the well-manicured lawn of her grandmother’s estate scurrying to safety.

  Who had peacocks roaming their lawn in suburban Philadelphia as if they were maharajahs or something?

  Her paternal blueblood relatives, that’s who.

  Home sweet freakin’ home. Wouldn’t Daddy dear pitch a hissy if he knew she was here?

  There was some satisfaction in entering the old man’s lair. Especially now that it was hers.

  Who would’ve believed it? That her reputation-protecting, society-conscious, paternal grandmother would outlive her reprobate of a son and leave it all—all—to the granddaughter she’d barely acknowledged.

  Mr. Scanlon, the estate’s attorney, had assured her that all she had to do was fulfill the stipulations in the will over the next two weeks, and the house and the accompanying funds would be hers to command.

  Ah, the irony. Her grandmother, from what her mother had told her in a rare lucid—make that sober—moment before Livvy had been taken away, had threatened to disown her own twenty-year-old son who’d dared impregnate a barely-high-school-graduate from the wrong side of town with zero money to her name and less than zero prospects other than trapping the local rich boy in the oldest way possible.

  So Merriweather Martinson had swooped in and finagled a way (translation: bought Mom off) into gaining custody of Livvy, who, at the tender age of five, had wanted nothing more than a loving family with food on the table, since Mom wasn’t capable of the latter and Dad had been . . . well, absent was a kind description. Then there was the car accident that had taken him from her life for good.

  So Livvy had found herself shipped off to boarding schools without so much as an acknowledgment of their blood ties or a kind word from her new guardian. Hell, the woman had never even cracked a smile, and Livvy’s letters begging for some kind of a connection, a visit, a trip home, something, went unanswered.

  Except for that one time when she was seven. That was it. The old lady had allowed her one visit, and then Livvy had never wanted to return.

  Yet here she was. All by virtue of that very same grandmother who’d wanted nothing to do with her. Too bad Mom wasn’t alive to see it, but
then, the twenty-four-year-old single parent hadn’t done much in the way of keeping in touch after selling her child, er, signing over custody, so perhaps Mom wouldn’t really care that Livvy was back at the scene of the crime.

  Ah, but it was water under the proverbial bridge. She’d survived, managed to keep herself employed, and lived her life on her terms. If not for a stipulation in Merriweather’s will, she wouldn’t even be here.

  But here she was, so best to get on with it.

  Taking one last bite of her apple, she gazed up at the monstrosity. That was how she’d always thought of this place. The Martinsons, her father’s family, were ancient English nobles who’d immigrated back in the eighteen hundreds, apparently bringing half their English manor with them, complete with mullioned Tudor windows and carved oak doors the size of elephants. Stone lions guarded the drive, and the gargoyles on the roofline blended into the backdrop of gathering clouds. Ominous. Foreboding. She’d been overwhelmed on so many levels during that one visit, and her feelings hadn’t changed. The place was ostentatious. Overdone. Obscene.

  And now it was hers.

  Livvy tossed the apple core into the flower bed—good compost—and grabbed Orwell’s travel cage from the back seat, being careful the cover didn’t allow any glimpse of the scenery. The African Grey went nuts when he was caged outside, so what the loudmouth didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her ears.

  She hiked up the white marble steps to the front door, her boots leaving scuffmarks. Oh well. Something for the butler to do.

  “Hello?” She pushed open the door to an empty hallway. Strange, twenty years ago the butler—Rupert? Jeeves?—had guarded the door like a mother bear. Clearly, things had slipped since her grandmother’s death.

  Grandmother. The word felt odd. Livvy closed the doors, realizing she’d never really thought of the old woman as her grandmother. But, technically, as the bearer of the worm who’d knocked up her mother then took off at the first sign of pregnancy, that was who Merriweather Knightsbridge Martinson was.

  “Anyone home?” Livvy peered around the massive foyer, vividly remembering the burgundy and cream striped walls crammed with gilt-framed, musty paintings of portly ancestors trussed up like Easter eggs. It’d probably been centuries since anything had changed here. These people were so hung up on their heritage that she could feel the heavy mantle of Martinson ancestry forming a chokehold around her throat.