Free A Fairytale Bride by Hope Ramsay Page A

every intention of giving her a hard time.”
    “Oh.” The adrenaline in Jeff’s body began to dissipate.
    Mark Lyndon continued. “I’m not letting Joanna Durand’s nomination get out of committee. So, I’d like you to give my chief of staff a call and help him hunt down the smoking gun that will simultaneously clear your name and sink this nomination for good and all.”
    Jeff stood there frozen. He hadn’t expected this. Not in a million years. “Okay, I’ll help, of course, but—”
    “Son, if you want to change your last name, go right ahead and do it. No one could blame you. But it won’t change anything as far as I’m concerned, and I suspect you’ll discover that resigning from the Lyndon family is a whole lot harder than you might expect.”

Chapter Nine
    H ugo jumped on Melissa’s bed and settled on her pillow, purring like a finely tuned engine. That was unusual, since the cat hadn’t been upstairs since Grammy died. And never, in all the cat’s twelve years on the planet, had he ever jumped up on Melissa’s bed. So why had he chosen this morning, when her head was pounding like nobody’s business?
    She batted the cat away and pulled the pillow over her head, hoping that would quiet the pounding. But the cat meowed loudly and then opened his claws on her shoulder.
    She sat up. Her stomach lurched as she groped for her glasses. She should never have had the third margarita. The world came into focus as she settled her glasses on her nose. She picked up her cell phone and checked the time. It was well past noon.
    So much for getting an early start on the rest of her life. She had barely enough time to take a shower before her one o’clock meeting with Walter Braden. She was about to put the phone down when she noticed that she had new voice mail messages—twelve, in fact—all from Jeff. She’d missed his calls last night because she’d inadvertently left her cell phone at home.
    Damn .
    She listened to his voice mail. He’d actually called last night to invite her up to his cabin. And then he’d called again in the morning to invite her to breakfast.
    Double damn.
    Maybe she should return his calls.
    No. He needed to come to her. Most definitely. And in the meantime, she needed to take a shower and move on with her life.
    She got up, fed the cats, made some coffee, but instead of taking a shower, she called Walter and rescheduled her appointment for the next day. Then she set up her laptop on the kitchen table and started searching Jeff’s name. Wow. He had lied about a lot of things, starting with the fact that he was, really and truly, a published writer.
    An hour later she was still sitting there reading Jeff’s articles—not just the one on Joanna Durand, but a dozen others. The man was a talented writer with a knack for writing profiles of the rich and famous. She was totally engrossed when someone tapped on her back door. Her heart took flight. Maybe Jeff had come to explain himself.
    But it wasn’t Jeff.
    Gracie Teague stood on her landing wearing her waitress uniform and a determined expression. She didn’t wait to be invited in. She just took the territory like General Patton rolling over France.
    “I brought you a bacon and egg sandwich and some serious advice.” She plunked a sandwich wrapped in wax paper onto the kitchen table and eyed the computer, the empty bag of M&M’s, and the wastebasket filled with used tissues. “I should have come sooner.”
    “I’m all right. Really. I didn’t make my appointment with Walter Braden, but I did reschedule for tomorrow. I’ve decided to take your advice and sell out, take the proceeds after taxes and find a beach somewhere with hot, gorgeous, rich men.”
    She’d expected Gracie to be overjoyed with this news, but instead her mother’s BFF frowned. “You will do no such thing,” she said. “Sit down. I have something you need to hear.”
    Melissa sat, and Gracie took the other chair. “There was an emergency meeting of