Free Sweet Dreams (A Sugar Rush Novel) by Nina Lane

your high school sweetheart and spend the rest of your life mourning her loss, you’re not exactly an expert on the female species. I, on the other hand, know what I’m talking about.”
    “Julia.” Luke’s headache pounded harder. He didn’t want to be reminded of how deeply his mother’s death had changed Warren. And not for the better. “I’ll be at the dinner with a date.”
    “Not one of the harem.”
    Luke shook his head. He didn’t want one of them. For the past few years, he’d had a select group of women—acquaintances and former girlfriends—whom he called when he needed a date or a fuck, or both, but they’d all lost their appeal. The sex was good because it was sex, but a couple of the women had gotten too clingy lately, culminating in Cindy and her engagement ring ad. Luke wouldn’t tolerate that, especially not when he was still putting everything he had into the company. Tenfold.
    His commitment to Sugar Rush was just one reason his relationships with women had expiration dates. And when they overstayed their welcome . . . well, he wasn’t such a dick that he’d throw them out, but they went away with a nice severance package.
    Of course, none of those possessive, materialistic women were like the artless girl who’d drunkenly smashed her mouth against his and begged him to fuck her.
    The image flashed like fire in his brain. Polly’s voice echoed in his ears again. “ I really want to have sex with a man who knows what to do . . . if you won’t do it, I’ll find someone who will . . .”
    Luke suppressed a rush of jealous anger, reminding himself of his polite brotherly plan with her. He crossed the room and opened the door pointedly, stepping aside to indicate that he was more than ready for his aunt to leave.
    “I’ll figure it out,” he said. “I will have a date for the sole purpose of keeping your seating chart intact. Now go. I’ll call you later.”
    “Hah.” Julia gave him a haughty sneer and swept across the room. “You say that to all the girls.”
    “But for you, I mean it.”
    She flipped him off and walked out, slamming the door behind her.
    Luke returned to his desk. He let Aunt Julia get away with a great deal because she’d stepped in after his mother died and helped their family. And despite her steamroller approach to his dating life, Julia had never pressured him to get married. She wanted him to date the right women and attend charity events to continue restoring the family reputation in the public eye, but she wasn’t marriage-minded.
    That was more than Luke could say for his father, who believed fifty-year marriages were still an attainable goal. But his father and mother were the only people he knew who would have reached that goal . . . if Rebecca Stone hadn’t died.
    He pushed the memory aside as his phone buzzed. He picked it up.
    “Turn on the news,” Evan said. “We’ve got trouble.”

“I CAN’T BELIEVE IT,” MIA squealed, zipping Polly into a black sheath dress. “I mean, you horked all over the guy!”
    “Thanks for reminding me,” Polly said dryly.
    “As if you could forget.”
    “True.”
    “And still he asked you out and sent you both flowers and candy.”
    Also true . Polly glanced at the bouquet of two dozen perfect red roses interspersed with Swirl Pops, Rock ‘n’ Roll candy sticks, Rainbow lollipops, and several boxes of Nibblers and Honeybee Toffee. It would have been a delightful gift no matter what, but the fact that it included her favorite candies made her feel especially warm inside.
    Even so, her head was still spinning from the kaleidoscope she’d just fallen through—the one that had taken her from a basement with a green shag carpet to the back corridor of the Troll’s House to a dinner invitation from the hot, insanely wealthy CEO of a major candy company.
    “Hair, perfect.” Mia walked around Polly, looking her over assessingly. “Makeup, perfect. Dress, awesome. Shows off your boobs to excellent