Want Ad Wedding

by Neesa Hart

Overview

Read All About It!
Arrogant…smug…confirmed bachelor. Just a few of Sam Reed's less than flattering qualities—as seen by reporter Molly Flynn. This description finds its way into a personal ad in Sam's very own newspaper—thanks to reporter Molly Flynn.
It was supposed to be a joke. Since taking over the business six weeks before, Sam's been driving her crazy. So Molly wrote the ad to let off a little steam, but when it's accidentally published she's sure there's nothing left to write but her letter of resignation!
Ever since Sam's brother's wedding, his family has been pestering him to get married, too, and the "Wife Wanted" ad only makes matters worse. So Sam insists that the ad be answered—by reporter Molly Flynn!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781460368923
Publisher:	Harlequin American Romance Classic
Publication date:	02/11/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	215
File size:	2 MB

Read an Excerpt

Want Ad Wedding

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By Neesa Hart

Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.

Copyright © 2004 Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-373-75008-0

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Chapter One

Wanted: self-assured, confident woman to mend ways of arrogant confirmed bachelor. Sam Reed, Operating Partner and CFO of Reed Enterprises, seeks a candidate of marriageable age who is looking for a serious commitment. The ideal woman must be able to tolerate arbitrary decisions, poor communication skills, lack of responsiveness, ice-cold glares, periodic tantrums and smugness. Mr. Reed also possesses a vengeful nature that makes indefatigable patience a necessity. Candidates must be willing to accept years of frustration and irritation in exchange for sharing Reed family fortune and domiciles.

Due to Mr. Reed's lengthy business trips and frequent travel, benefits of this position include long periods of solitude, separation, and down-time. Interested candidates may apply directly to Mr. Reed, c/o the Payne Sentinel, Payne Massachusetts.

* * *

Aunt Ida always said, "Wear your best on your worst day. Because days come and go - but looking good is what counts."

Molly Flynn always made a point of taking her aunt Ida's advice. So on Monday morning, she'd ironed her best pair of jeans, pulled on a new University of Delaware sweatshirt, and put new laces in her sneakers before heading off to work. Today, she figured, was quite possibly going to be the worst day of her life. After berating herself for the carelessness, impulsivity and outright idiocy that had gotten her into this mess, she'd managed to pull herself together after a stern lecture to her reflection in the mirror. As Aunt Ida always said, Flynns were not quitters. Flynns did not hide from their mistakes. Flynns had pluck.

Actually, Aunt Ida had referred to Flynn tenacity as an unmentionable part of the male anatomy. But ever since her mother had washed Molly's mouth out with soap for repeating the phrase at dinner one night, Molly had called it pluck.

But that morning, she'd given her reflection a knowing look that said she meant exactly what Aunt Ida had said.

Then she'd splashed enough cold water on her face to diminish the bluish circles under eyes, whipped through her usual ten-minute routine of light makeup and strong coffee; wrestled with her lamentably curly red hair until it became apparent that even her hair was going to get the better of her today; and made her way to the Payne Sentinel offices in historic downtown Payne, Massachusetts, where she was going to get fired as soon as Sam Reed got to the office.

She'd felt vaguely like a condemned prisoner making her way to the guillotine. Her fate was inevitable.

The only thing she could control was how she reacted to it.

And Flynns never cowered.

So Molly leaned back in her battered chair in the Payne Sentinel copy office and stole a glance at the clock. 8:58. Two minutes and counting.

"All right, Molly -" Cindy Freesdon entered the copy office, dropped her purse to the floor and pulled a chair up to the edge of Molly's desk. She pinned her with an avidly curious look. "Give, babe. When were you planning to tell us you and Reed were, you know, friendly?"

Molly stifled a groan. Humiliation was bad enough, but public humiliation was far worse. She wished Sam Reed would hurry up and drag his predictable, irascible, temperamental, bullheaded self to work and be done with this so she could clean out her desk and go home.

She gritted her teeth and met the probing look in Cindy's blue eyes. "It's not like that," she assured her friend. "You don't understand."

Cindy dangled the Personals section between her thumb and forefinger. "I read the morning edition while I was getting dressed." She indicated the copy room where the activity level had already reached light speed. "You're the one who placed this ad for Reed. It's got your sense of humor all over it."

Molly forced herself not to flinch. "Not on purpose."

That sent Cindy's eyebrows into her bleached blond bangs. "Oh, this is too wicked."

"Do you think everyone else knows?"

"My phone started ringing ten minutes after the paper landed on my doorstep. I tried to squelch the gossip, but even I don't have that much power."

That won a halfhearted laugh from Molly. Cindy Freesdon was the Sentinel's resident busybody. She didn't doubt that all interested parties would have turned to Cindy for information when the inflammatory personal ad showed up in the Sentinel"s Monday edition. "Thanks," she told Cindy. "I'm already going to get fired. I'd rather not be humiliated on top of it."

Cindy pursed her lips. "I hate to break it to you, but it's kind of a lost cause. If it makes you feel any better, I did make them feel guilty as sin about it." She shrugged slightly. "There's not a person in this room you haven't bailed out at one time or another."

"This is my family," Molly said simply. "I've always thought of it that way."

"That's obvious." Cindy tapped a long fingernail on Molly's overladen desk. "So that's why everyone's pretty much drawn the same conclusion - there's no way you would have risked what you've got here by running that ad simply because you were miffed about the argument you and Reed had on Friday."

"You don't think so?"

Cindy gave her a pointed look. "I may not be the investigative reporter you are, Molly, but I know a lover's tiff when I see one."

Molly exhaled a weary breath. "I don't suppose it would do me any good to deny that."

"Probably not."

"It's a long story. It was a joke - my friend, Jo-Anna -" She shook her head. "I don't have time to explain it right now. He'll be here soon."

Cindy stole a glance at the clock. "Forty seconds, if he's on time."

"He's always on time."

"Good point." Cindy dropped the copy of the paper on Molly's desk. "Lunch today? You can fill me in then."

"Sure. I'll be fired by then, anyway. At least I won't have to clock out," she said bitterly, the hated time clock - one of the many unwelcome changes Sam Reed had brought to the Payne Sentinel.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Want Ad Wedding by Neesa Hart Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
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