Manhunting
Jennifer Crusie
ISBN-10: 0373772904
ISBN-13: 9780373772902
Publisher: HQN Books
Publication Date: 12/1/2007
* * * * *
Objective: Find Man. Must Be Rich, Handsome, and Successful. Kate Svenson is attractive, successful, a brilliant businesswoman — and miserable. After three failed engagements, she realizes it’s time for a PLAN... an organized, detailed agenda with a clear goal: finding Mr. Right. The Cabins resort is ripe with eligible bachelors, all rich, distinguished, and ambitious — just her type. And they’re dropping like flies around her... at least, that’s how Jake Templeton views the situation. After he’s stuck pulling her latest reject out of the swimming pool, Jake’s convinced this femme fatale is trouble. Especially for him.
But can a man who’s sworn off ambition for good and a woman hanging from the top of the corporate ladder find common ground in the unpredictable territory called the heart, where the word proposal takes on a very different meaning... ?
“Wonderfully fresh, funny, tender, and outrageous... Crusie is one of a kind.
”
— Booklist
Kate smiled smugly at Jake. “I have a date this afternoon. ”
“Oh, Lord. ” Jake closed his eyes. “Who are you going to destroy now?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The resort would appreciate it if you’d just throw back the men you don’t want without maiming them. ”
“I haven’t maimed anyone,” Kate protested.
“You almost drowned Lance. You scared Peter into heart palpitations. You hit Brad over the head with a bottle. ” Jake shook his head. “And you still have men asking you out?”
“Lance grabbed me.
Peter was cheating at golf. And, I might point out, I hit Brad to save you. ”Jake gave her a wicked grin. “Has any guy actually finished a date with you?
”
For Sherie Posesorski,
who has the steadfastness of Ruth,
the patience of Job
and the cutting skills of Judith.
And for Mollie Amanda Smith,
the most amazing woman I know.
Chapter One
“Planning on jumping? I wouldn’t. Blood’s hell to get out of silk. ”
“I’m just checking the weather,” Kate Svenson said patiently and continued to stare out her apartment window, knowing that Jessie would lose interest and go back to her newspaper if she ignored her long enough. She’d pulled back the thick drapes to let in the early-morning August sun. Even with her best friend sitting behind her, rustling her paper and slurping her coffee, Kate felt alone, mired in a despair that not even Jessie’s pragmatism could dispel. This is doing you no good at all, she told herself and moved away from the window to sit at her linen-covered dining-room table. She tried to concentrate on her breakfast coffee and the business section of the Sunday paper, but her mind kept wandering to the miserable state of her life.
Well, not exactly miserable, she thought. Actually, not miserable at all. I have a great career in a top management-consulting firm. Of course, I could wish that my father didn’t own the firm, and sometimes it’s boring, but it’s a great career— Well, an okay career... .
With an effort, Kate pushed her career out of her mind and went on with her catalog of blessings. Her life was good. She had her health, and enough money, and terrific friends, the best of whom she was having breakfast with right now in a beautiful apartment full of exquisite French Provincial furniture that she certainly couldn’t afford if she didn’t have this damn job... . No. Kate clamped down on her negative thoughts and peered over the top of her paper at the brunette across from her who was reading her paper and drinking her coffee with the same total absorption she gave everything else.