Slightly Settled

Slightly Settled
Wendy Markham

Top Two Don'ts for the Office PartyDon't dress in a revealing manner. (Translation: Don't wear the sexy scarlet, size-eight dress you couldn't fit into three months ago. The one that flaunts your firmed-up cleavage and newly discovered collarbones.)Don't make a spectacle of yourself. (Translation: Don't get drunk and make out with a really cute stranger for the whole company to see; he could turn out to be your boss's roommate.)I didn't follow those tips, and here I am with a hot new man in my life, Jack.But my friends are asking if I really want to bump into my boss in his boxers in the hallway of their apartment. After all, I am aiming for a promotion. And now, not only does my ex want me back, but the guy I used to think was Mr. Right just kissed me!Three months ago I couldn't hold on to one guy. Now three want me. When did my life become so complicated?

CRITICAL PRAISE FOR SLIGHTLY SINGLE BY

Wendy Markham

“…an undeniably fun journey for the reader.”

—Booklist

“Bridget Jonesy…Tracey Spadolini smokes, drinks and eats too much, and frets about her romantic life.”

—Publishers Weekly

“This is a delightfully humorous read, full of belly laughs and groans…It is almost scary how honest and true to life this book is. It is a fun read for a beach day, or a steamy evening in one’s own un-air-conditioned abode like Tracey’s.”

—The Best Reviews

WENDY MARKHAM

is a pseudonym for USA TODAY bestselling, award-winning novelist Wendy Corsi Staub, who has written more than fifty fiction and nonfiction books for adults and teenagers in various genres—among them contemporary and historical romance, suspense, mystery, television and movie tie-in and biography. She has coauthored a hardcover mystery series with former New York City mayor Ed Koch and has ghostwritten books for various well-known personalities. A small-town girl at heart, she was born and raised in western New York on the shores of Lake Erie and in the heart of the notorious snowbelt. By third grade, she was set on becoming a published author; a few years later, a school trip to Manhattan convinced her that she had to live there someday. At twenty-one, she moved alone to New York City and worked as an office temp, freelance copywriter, advertising account coordinator and book editor before selling her first novel, which went on to win a Romance Writers of America RITA

Award. She has since received numerous positive reviews and achieved bestseller status, most notably for the psychological suspense novels she writes under her own name. She was a finalist in the 2002 Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Awards single-title suspense category, and her previous Red Dress Ink title, Slightly Single, was honored as one of Waldenbooks’ Best Books of 2002. Very happily married with two children, Wendy writes full-time and lives in a cozy old house in suburban New York, proving that childhood dreams really can come true.

Slightly Settled

Wendy Markham

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

For both of my beloved Jens:

Jennie King Eldridge, who was by my side

at the fateful office party, where the story began…

And Jennifer Hill, who has been there for Chapter Two:

Married Life in Suburbia.

And, as always, for Mark, Morgan and Brody, with love.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

1

Size eight.

That would be me, Tracey Spadolini. A size eight.

Can you believe it?

No, not my shoe size. My size, size.

I’m actually wearing a size eight dress—without one of those stretchy tourniquet tummy bulge compressors I used to live in—and I’m not even holding my breath.

When I started my summer diet, I figured I had about forty pounds to lose. But I’m down at least fifty, melted off with good old-fashioned diet and exercise, and kept off thanks to the little pink pills I take daily.

No, not the kind of little pink pills in a plastic baggie that you buy in a dark alley.

We’re talking a prescribed drug here.