Free A Date on Cloud Nine by Jenna McKnight Page A

her concrete ideas for successfully seducing Jake. No such luck, but they’d felt unexpectedly decadent against her skin. Between Jake’s heated touch and the sumptuous silk, she recognized a pattern of at least one heightened sense.
    She’d learned some valuable lessons in the five months since Brady’s death, and she reviewed them while she fed the koi and lovebirds and strolled through the atrium at a leisurely pace, checking everything from the tiniest primrose to the tallest tree.
    Who knew beforehand what happened when their time was up, what they were supposed to have learned? She did.
    Most people weren’t prepared. She would be next time.
    They didn’t know what to expect. Again, she did.
    Her mother-in-law had given her a framed copy of the Serenity prayer after Brady’s funeral, and she’d carriedthe words engraved on her consciousness for months now. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
    Thanks to Elizabeth, she was practically wearing it on her arm, too.
    So far Lilly had just about mastered the serene part. She couldn’t change Brady’s death; she’d moved beyond that. Now John and Elizabeth had thrown this whole go-back-but-you-have-a-deadline issue at her, which pretty much blew serenity out of the water.
    As for the courage part, well, she could change how she lived. She would. It’d take a lot of courage to give away every blasted cent . Think about it. What if she ended up on the street, dependent on the charity of others? How ironic. That could be her standing in line outside a food kitchen, eight-and-a-half-months pregnant and hungry.
    It would also take a lot of courage to chase a man until he got her pregnant. How much time could she invest in Jake before cutting her losses if he wouldn’t cooperate? With only a few weeks, there really was no room for failure. The dashboard photos spoke in his favor, showing her that he’d had the rollicking, boisterous childhood she’d always dreamed of, the very same childhood she wanted for her kids—no way she wanted a man who wasn’t close to his family. If she had half a chance with him, she had to go for it.
    Jake popped into mind again, full of life and vigor and not many clothes.
    With a renewed burst of energy, Lilly searched forsomething in the kitchen to scrub. Eventually she stumbled upon the tub of miniature Snickers bars in the refrigerator, left over from Halloween. Stuffing one into her mouth, she closed her eyes and savored the sweetness.
    God, chocolate had always been her favorite—and a chilled Snickers was hard enough to break teeth, that’s why she kept them that way, to slow her down—but since when did one taste this heavenly?
    Oh yeah, since I got blown up. As soon as it was chewable, she consumed it and stuffed in another.
    The doorbell bonged promptly at eight o’clock.
    Lilly’s hands flew to her hair, her face, her pajamas. She didn’t need a mirror to see what a mess she was. Lopsided hair. Eye makeup that hadn’t quite all come off the night before. Wrinkled pajamas, far too silky to disguise anything beneath them, which she thought might be a little too blatant to hit her target with so early in the morning. She hadn’t even brushed her teeth yet.
    “I’ll unlock the door,” she said into the intercom. “But I’m not dressed, so count to ten before you come in.”
     
    Once Jake stepped through the leaded-glass front door into the cavernous marble foyer, he could rest easy that Lilly hadn’t changed her mind about hiring him. While the salary she was paying was a pittance compared to what she owed him and what he needed to get his family out of debt, it was more than he’d clear picking up fares.
    And it gave him an additional reason to be with Lilly, one he could rationalize as to how their togetherness was potentially beneficial and not detrimental to his objectives.
    He thoroughly enjoyed watching her race back