Doing the Right Thing

  DOING THE RIGHT THING

  Barbara Elsborg

  Copyright

  Previously published.

  Doing the Right Thing is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Barbara Elsborg

  Cover design by B4Jay

  Edited by Deco

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or transmitted in any manner without written permission from Barbara Elsborg, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For all enquiries please contact Barbara Elsborg at bjelsborg@gmail.com

  Image/art disclaimer : Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.

  Doing the Right Thing

  Addie Winter is single—just one more reason for disappointment in her permanently disapproving mother’s eyes. There’s nothing she wants more than to be loved but when her own mother can’t bring herself to love her, she wonders if anyone can. What she needs is a man—real would be ideal, but she’ll settle for pretend. Anything to shut her mother up.

  Will Mansell chokes on his drink when Addie offers to pay him to spend the night in her room. He can’t believe his luck because women usually go for his blond-haired brother, Ed.

  Ed Mansell is a serial playboy with an electric smile who waltzes through life and through women. Lucky for Will and Ed, they don’t have the same taste in women. But that was before they met Addie.

  Far from pretending, Will and Ed set out to prove Addie is worthy of love—but Addie finds too much love can be just as painful as none at all.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  The gym at the Delmonte Hotel was Addie Winter’s last resort. If she couldn’t find Noah there, she’d have to come up with a spectacular excuse to satisfy her mother.

  “Sign the register, please.” A Lycra-clad trainer with sleek golden hair and a body to match handed Addie a pen. “Do you know how to use the equipment?”

  “Yes, I’m fine, thanks.”

  The last thing Addie needed was a beautiful woman making her look a complete idiot. Or a beautiful man. Well, she needed a beautiful man, but not one who thought she was an idiot.

  When she pushed open the door of the gym and saw the only occupants were ranks of metal sculptures, none of which looked beautiful, disappointment swamped her excitement. Addie chose the machine that looked the least intimidating, hoping for a stampede of testosterone-charged men before she broke into a sweat.

  The moment she started to walk, lights flashed in front of her.

  Clean the nozzle

  Yuk. She’d rather not.

  Make a selection

  Addie dithered. What did she want? She tried to focus on the changing screen. Aerobic, cardio, decaf, regular? She pressed buttons at random. The questions began again and the treadmill ran faster. How much did she weigh? In bloody kilograms? While she frantically tried to work it out—mental arithmetic under stress not being one of her strong points—the question changed and the speed increased. How long did she want to be tortured? Addie was already panting. If Noah didn’t appear within the next ten minutes, she’d be incapable of breathing, let alone talking. What level did she want? How hard could running be? Still, better start low. Level two. Oops, had she pressed twice?

  Start, the machine commanded. Addie thought she already had.

  As the belt continued to pick up speed, the whirring motor overpowered the sound of the radio. A gentle jog rocketed into an escape from the hounds of hell. Her fingers groped for and missed the red panic button, and she took off in an inelegant reverse flight, arms flailing to land in a crumpled heap on the floor. All the air whooshed out of her lungs. Thank God she was alone.

  “Are you okay?”

  Addie looked up to find a fair-haired guy staring down at her. Damn. He was trying not to smile, but his tight lips and twinkling eyes gave him away.

  “Doing a few sit-ups.” She sat up, her head swam and she lay down again.

  He hesitated and then moved away to step onto a machine that moved arms and legs in opposite directions. The label said cross-trainer. As opposed to happy-trainer? Smiley-guy had a great face. Dark blue eyes. Square chin. Lovely body and he was tall. But he had floppy blond hair, which was no use at all. She could hardly expect him to dye it. Addie staggered to the mats and slumped onto a large pink gym ball. She’d lie on that for a while and pretend to be exercising something invisible while her organs rearranged themselves.

  Addie stared at the ceiling trying to figure out what the hell she was doing. She’d never fool her mother and she wouldn’t fool herself, either. Prince Charming never turned up in real life and if he did, it wouldn’t be in her life. She ought to give up this crazy plan and leave before— The door swung open. Addie glanced across to see two dark-haired guys walk in. Her heart, still in recovery after the unexpected sprint, now attempted the high jump. Both men were tall—with dark hair. They had good bodies— and dark hair. What was wrong with them? Addie stared at their backs. No forked tails.

  Overwhelmed by the prospect of having a choice, Addie hadn’t noticed the ball deflating beneath her until, once again, she lay flat on her back, looking like an upturned Barbie turtle. She picked up the lump of pink plastic, folded it into an untidy mess and tucked it behind a rowing machine. When she turned, the blond one grinned at her. Addie slunk to the opposite side of the room and stepped onto an angular machine that reminded her of Megatron, one of her brother David’s “Robots In Disguise” Transformers. He was twenty-seven and they still lined his windowsill.

  Lesson learned, Addie selected level one. She pressed down her foot as hard as she could, but the platform didn’t move, not even after she used both feet and bounced. The fair-haired guy stepped onto Megatron’s twin, shot her a little smile and flicked a switch on her display. The platform shot up and Addie almost kneed herself in the mouth.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled.

  She registered his shining eyes and happy face. Addie could have asked him to be Noah, she wanted to ask him, but he was no use, unless the death of his mother had sent him prematurely blond. She considered that as she slogged up Everest, and then dismissed i
t. Grey might work, blond didn’t.

  The other two were doing alternate biceps curls with dumbbells. Addie gave up on the mountaineering, unable to conquer the foothills, and joined them. She picked up an EZ curl bar and the weight dropped straight off one end, just missing the nearest guy’s toes and making a huge dent in the floor. Addie stared at it in horror, wishing it was deep enough for her to drop into and disappear.

  “Sorry,” she gasped.

  The two men ignored her. It was the blond guy who came to help.

  “Not your fault,” he said. “Someone left the collar off.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Addie began to melt at his grin and then snapped upright. No matter how much she might wish otherwise, Mr Very-Nice-With-Gorgeous-Blue-Eyes didn’t fit the profile. She forced her attention back to the other two. The glimmer of a wedding ring turned choice into no choice. No ring on the one whose foot she’d almost crushed, though that didn’t mean he wasn’t married. Addie positioned herself so she could look at his face and froze. Beneath his annoyed frown, she saw every paperback hero she’d ever loved. His dark hair was straight and well cut. He was tall and tanned. He had dark grey eyes and the shadow of stubble on his chin. Forget the too tight T-shirt that bore the words, Idaho No Udaho. It had taken Addie a moment or two before she got it, particularly having to read it in reverse, but she didn’t care what it said. She’d found Noah.

  While she struggled to get the words right in her head, she pranced from machine to machine. When the words were right, her feet took her in another direction. Coward, Addie scolded herself. How difficult could this be, compared to what she’d been doing all those weekends she was supposed to be in Manchester with Noah? While her friends and family thought she was having fun with her boyfriend, she’d paid a fortune to throw herself off cliffs, flip into freezing, wild water from a canoe and crawl down ever narrowing underground tubes.

  Despite the fortune she’d forked out for those adventure courses, Noah had never rescued her. Now she had to rescue herself, but the prospect of asking a simple question made her heart pound in her chest with the violence of surf crashing on a north Hawaiian shore. If she didn’t do something soon she’d drown in a pool of sweat—not attractive—or have a heart attack. Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea, so long as Noah knew CPR. Somehow Addie guessed the blond one would save her.

  As Noah sat at another machine, she took a deep breath, stepped toward him and smiled. He ignored her. Addie’s smile withered, died and fell off her face. In her rush to escape, she kicked his water bottle, sending it spinning over the wooden floor like a puck on an ice rink. Addie ran to pick it up, knocked it again with her foot and after it stopped against the wall, she returned it with a burning face.

  “Sorry.” Now she’d managed to apologize, she kept going. “Er…I…er…need to ask a favour. When you’ve finished exercising, could I buy you a drink in the bar?” Addie stared at the dent she’d made in the floor.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Shocked she’d managed to speak and even more shocked he’d responded positively, Addie stared straight into his face. He was gorgeous and he’d said yes. He’d said yes! The awareness came far too slowly that she stood there looking her least attractive, her hair dishevelled and her mouth hanging open like a basking shark. She clamped her jaw shut.

  “Twenty minutes?” he said.

  Addie nodded with the energy of one of those dogs with wobbly heads that sit in the backs of cars and then fled, feeling horrified, amazed, thrilled and frightened. She burst into the changing room, caught a glance of herself in the mirror and winced. She needed a quick-fix beauty salon and on the way to the shower noticed all the hairdryers sported “out of order” notices.

  That was odd, Will Mansell thought, and wondered what she wanted. He’d watched the gangly brunette struggle with everything she’d attempted. She’d flitted between the equipment like an errant pinball, changing the weights and doing a couple of repetitions before moving on. He’d noticed his brother watching her too. Ed leapt in when the weight fell off her bar and Will had seen him give her one of his looks, the “Hello sexy. How about it?” one and she hadn’t reacted. Intriguing. Ed hadn’t given up —did he ever? But in the end it wasn’t Ed she’d asked to go for a drink. Will smiled and pulled down on the handles.

  She had legs like a baby giraffe, and appeared just as awkward. After she’d played football with his water bottle, Will had been about to come out with a sarcastic quip until he’d caught a glimpse of her eyes. They were huge and a wild tawny colour, like the coat of an Alsatian dog, only she’d sounded about as brave as a King Charles spaniel. However, Will never looked a gift King Charles spaniel in the mouth, both pleased and surprised she’d picked him and not his brother. Ed would be really pissed off. Will grinned harder and got up.

  “Jack? Ed? I’m stopping now. I’ll see you in the bar,” Will said.

  “Slacker,” Ed grunted, his face contorted with the effort of doing bench presses.

  “Wanker,” Will muttered under his breath as he passed.

  When Will had heard his brother and their client, Jack Magelan, agreeing to spend a couple of hours in the hotel gym before they ate, Will thought Ed must have left his brain behind in London. It wasn’t that Will had anything against gyms, but not after seven hours on the motorway, most of it cursing stationary traffic.

  Will had made a deliberate show of reducing the weight load the moment he sat at a machine just used by Jack. Idiot Ed did the opposite. Once Jack selected his dumbbells, Will went for the smaller size even though he could have taken the next weight up, because he knew if Jack didn’t think he was stronger and fitter than them, they’d be in there all night engaged in some stupid, macho, pissing contest. Will was grateful there were no other men for Jack to outperform because he’d keep going until he gave himself a heart attack.

  The request to go for a drink had provided Will with the excuse he’d been looking for, because he’d decided that if Jack asked him to spot for him, he might have accidentally-on-purpose let the weight drop and crush him. Will wanted to kill Ed too, so the pair had a lucky escape. He grinned as he stepped into the shower.

  Will soaped his body, wondering what her “big favour” would turn out to be. Hopefully something simple like sponsoring her in a “cycle across the Atlantic” challenge. Will smiled at the thought of the woman with the interesting eyes pumping those long legs on a bike. Then he scowled. With his luck, she’d turn out to be some friend of Jesus trying to point out the error of his T-shirt.

  Addie lurked by the entrance to the bar, convinced Noah wasn’t coming. Why should he? She was an idiot. Fou. Baka. Trottel. Idiota. No matter what country she was in, she’d be an idiot. This had always been a last-ditch idea, but she’d thought hotel gyms would be full of men and she only needed one, a respectable guy who wouldn’t rob her or rape her and, almost as important, he’d be passing through Leeds, so she’d never see him again. Even if he turned out to be local, Addie wouldn’t be going back to the gym, so there’d be no embarrassing meetings afterwards. No, this would be a straightforward, single night’s work for a stranger. Only he wasn’t going to come.

  Her shoulders slumped, she turned to leave and found her face inches from his.

  “Giving up already?”

  Addie tried another smile, but he still didn’t smile back.

  “I’m Will.”

  “Addie.” She took a deep breath. “What would you like to drink?”

  “Surprise me.”

  As he made for a table, Addie walked up to the bar. “Lemonade please and…” What could she order? What did her brothers drink? But maybe he didn’t drink. No, he’d have said. Beer. But what sort? Maybe lager?

  “And?”

  Addie looked at the barman. He raised his eyebrows. Dark hair. Not bad-looking. But shorter than her. What was she doing? She’d become obsessed.

  “A gin and tonic,” she blurted.

&nb
sp; Addie carried the drinks to the table and sat down. Will looked annoyed and she hadn’t said anything yet. Trust her to pick someone miserable. She gulped her drink and grimaced, realizing she’d not only picked up the gin and tonic, which she hated, but had also managed to snag a large chunk of ice in her mouth, along with the slice of lemon. Addie debated whether to spit them back into the glass, decided not, so chewed and swallowed, including the rind. When she’d finished chomping, she glanced up and saw him smile. Oh God, she’d lost this before she started.

  He took a sip of the lemonade that should have been hers, and sighed. Addie felt something crumple inside her. It was a mistake to choose a man she fancied. He was too good-looking.

  “Are you married?” Oh God, did I say that out loud? She waited, half-hoping for a yes, so she could walk away.

  “No.”

  Question two. “Are you staying at the hotel?”

  “Yes.”

  And three. “Are you busy tomorrow night?”

  “No.”

  The big one. “How do you feel about lying?”

  She noted the furrowed brow. He hadn’t expected that.

  “Sometimes being truthful hurts more,” he said.

  A flicker of hope. “So in certain circumstances lying is acceptable?”

  “Yes.”

  She wanted to kiss him. It would have been easier than asking the next question. She looked at the table, unable to meet his gaze. “If I give you a hundred pounds will you spend tomorrow night with me?”

  He spat his drink back into the glass as he choked and coughed. She raced on, wondering whether to pat him on the back, and annoyed she’d said a hundred when she’d been thinking fifty.

  “It’s not what you think. You don’t have to do anything. Well, you have to do something but…” She stopped, exhaled and kept her eyes on his blue-shirted chest. “I’d like you to spend the night in my room pretending to be my boyfriend. You can sleep in my bed. I’ll kip on the floor. I’ll make you breakfast on Sunday and pay you a hundred pounds.”