Wanting Mr Wrong Read online

  About the Book

  Evie Parker has never been one to swoon after celebrities – give her a neuroscientist over an actor any day! So when she develops her first movie-star crush, she’s determined to date her way out of it, starting with the next good-looking doctor she sees.

  Yet hovering on the fringes of her life is her gay best friend’s determined brother, Jackson J Stevens, a famous actor who comes with trailing paparazzi.

  The one thing worse than a celebrity in Evie’s eyes is a media circus, so Jack isn’t an option no matter how hard he flirts with her.

  Evie knows what she doesn’t want; Jack knows what he does. And somewhere in the middle, pheromones are making things go haywire every time they’re together.

  Wanting Mr Wrong is an irresistible rom com about a girl who refuses to fall for the man the whole world is in love with.

  Avril Tremayne

  After a highly successful career in corporate communications, Avril Tremayne decided she needed a little more romance in her life.

  And having tried her hand at shoe selling, nursing, teaching, and short-order cooking, before braving the corporate ladder as a high flying executive mixing it up with the business elite and an occasional celebrity, Avril has gathered more than enough raw material to kick-start a swag of tall tales.

  She lives in Sydney, Australia, where her husband and daughter try to keep her out of trouble – not always successfully.

  She’s a mad keen traveller, with more favourite cities than should be strictly allowable, and loves giving travel advice to anyone who asks – and a good few who don’t!

  When she’s not writing or reading, Avril can generally be found eating – although she does not cook – drinking wine, and obsessing about shoes.

  If you enjoyed this book, you’ll love these other stories by Avril Tremayne…

  Now You’re Mine

  by Avril Tremayne

  ‘You can be as curious and as confident as you want – with no limits …’

  Journalist Jenna Martin has led a very unadventurous life – until now.

  Sent to the Arabian desert to review an exclusive new holiday resort, she stumbles into the path of a beautiful, exotic stranger, Kalan Al Talyani.

  Over one unforgettable night, the reclusive billionaire will tempt her, test her, seduce her, and offer her an electrifying taste of a life outside her comfort zone.

  When Jenna returns to America she tells herself it was just a magical one-night stand, an experience that’s already starting to feel more dream than reality.

  But then Kalan follows her home to Boston – and Jenna is forced to make a choice. Should she stay within the confines of her current life? Or take a risk on a life that’s different from anything she’s ever imagined …?

  ‘Seriously, Jenna, tell me what you want …’

  East meets west in this exotic and highly sensual love story that will set temperatures soaring. Perfect for fans of E L James and Sylvia Day.

  Available now!

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  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

  The Contract

  Escaping Mr Right

  Random Romance

  Copyright Notice

  This one is for my dear friend Dickon Boyles, who not only was there for ‘the crush’ that kicked off Wanting Mr Wrong, but actively encouraged it!

  CHAPTER ONE

  I typed in the web address for the official Guy McKinsey fan site, and bang – up popped his face. Gorgeous. Hot. British. Hunk.

  I didn’t swoon – but I came close. And that was mortifying.

  An alien had taken over my body – it was the only explanation. I was not – never had been – interested in actors, rock stars, models, or anyone else you’d find stuck on an adolescent’s bedroom wall. Nope. I was the daughter of renowned medical researchers, the sister of a doctor-without-a-border-or-a-freaking-flaw, and my heroes had always been the Nelson Mandelas, the Mahatma Gandhis, the Bill Gateses. Men of peace, activists, philanthropists, scientific discoverers. Entertainers of any kind need not apply.

  So what the hell was I doing, at an advanced twenty-two years of age, crushing on an actor?

  I’m telling you: Alien. In. Body. It was the only explanation.

  The ringing doorbell was a relief under the circumstances – even though I knew it was going to be Drew out there, and for sure he was going to grumble that I was still slopping around in my ratty track pants and one of his cast-off sweatshirts instead of being slinked into the little black dress he’d ordered me to wear tonight.

  Drew, in his self-appointed role of wingman, was whisking me off to a hot new bar, hoping to get me laid – something he’d been trying to do for three months without a glimmer of success. Drew’s view of celibacy is that it should not exist over the age of eighteen unless you have a valid physical or religious reason for it. He’d generously given me nine whole months to get over my perfidious ex-boyfriend Sam Worth and back in the sex saddle before stepping in to guide me. But now I was at the one-year mark and still stubbornly unlaid, Drew was growing desperate – and hence I was being shunted around bars and clubs all over Sydney, like a meat tray in a raffle.

  The doorbell rang again.

  ‘All right already, I’m coming,’ I called out, opting not to bother turning off the computer, because I didn’t have to hide my Guy McKinsey obsession from Drew. He not only knew about it – being right beside me on the couch a week ago, mid-DVD, when it hit me – but approved of it as a sign that my dormant spark was ready to be reignited. Dormant spark – who spoke like that, really?

  At least I had the satisfaction of knowing Drew was partial to a bit of cyber-stalking himself. His latest target was Channing Tatum. Thinking of Drew’s unrequited lust for Channing Tatum made me feel marginally less pathetic, enough to have me grinning as I opened the door. I was mid-lurch, my arms reaching towards a hug, when it suddenly registered that the man on the other side of the threshold was not, in fact, my best friend Andrew.

  They looked alike, with their tall, muscled frames, inky-black hair and vivid green eyes, but Jackson J Stevens was in a whole different league to his brother. More muscles, blacker hair, greener eyes.

  I struggled against the momentum carrying me forward but lurched into Jack anyway, banging my nose on his chest. ‘Ouch.’

  Reflexively, Jack’s arms closed around me. Tightened. Loosened. Released.

  I looked up. Blinked.

  ‘Hello, Evangeline,’ Jack said, looking suspiciously like he was biting the inside of his cheek. And up went my hackles. ‘Evangeline’. In that trying-not-to-laugh voice. After I’d just thrown myself at him like an overeager groupie.

  Jack called me Evangeline out of sheer perversity. Nobody else called me by my real name – not even my parents, who’d had the brilliant idea of naming me after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem about some ancient Acadian girl’s search for her lost love. The first and only time my parents had descended into the realm of the romantic. Hormones, according to my mother. Obviously hormones hadn’t interfered when she’d named my older sister after
nuclear physicist Lise Meitner! I ask you, was that fair? Nuclear physicist versus lovesick mooncalf? No wonder I was the dud of the family.

  ‘Where’s Drew?’ I asked, self-consciously edging up the front zipper of my too-large sweatshirt, and wishing I’d donned my LBD before the cyberstalk after all – because despite wearing nothing more impressive than a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, Jack looked like he’d stepped out of GQ magazine, and the contrast between us was depressing.

  ‘Running late,’ Jack said. ‘And I had some time to kill before rehearsal, so I offered to drop off your DVDs on my way to the theatre.’

  I glanced at the DVDs he was carrying. Okay – the situation officially sucked.

  Jack handed them over, giving me the quicksilver version of his usual smile. Eye-crinkling, glinting, gone in a second. ‘Changing your taste in men, Evangeline? Or aren’t there any lust-worthy Nobel Peace Prize winners on the market at the moment?’

  ‘Drew told you,’ I said, just all round disgusted.

  Jack laughed. ‘Evangeline Parker with a crush on an actor. Wonderful. Poetic, almost.’

  ‘Your brother has a mouth like the Grand Canyon.’

  ‘Ask me in and we can trash him together.’

  ‘You want to come in?’ Well, duh! He’d just asked to, hadn’t he? No big deal, was it? Even if it wasn’t exactly a routine occurrence?

  ‘You don’t want me to come in?’

  A short, uncomfortable pause followed while I debated that in my head. Because Jack put me on edge even in a whole roomful of people, let alone one-on-one.

  ‘Evangeline, you do know I’m not really a serial killer, right?’ he asked, all amused. ‘I only played one. And just the once. It’s safe to let me in, I promise.’

  I blanked. What serial killer? When?

  ‘Played one?’ he prompted. ‘As in, movie? As in, box-office smash hit movie? As in, I am not the character Michael Marsann and I will not tie you up the moment I’m in your house?’ Quicksilver smile. ‘Well, unless you want me to tie you up.’

  Okay – that unblanked me. ‘Oh just come in, Jack,’ I said and threw in an eye roll. ‘And get a grip while you’re at it.’

  ‘God, you are such a hard-arse. And you really have no idea, do you? The movie was called Sextant.’

  ‘Oh, that one.’

  ‘Hard-arse,’ he said again, and stepped over the threshold. ‘And don’t ask me if Guy McKinsey was in it or I will tie you up. And force you to watch every single episode of Spy Time until you’re so sick of him, you’ll beg me to burn every DVD I just handed over.’

  ‘Perfect. That’s the aim. I’m calling it gorge therapy. And if the show’s really, really bad, even better,’ I said as I moved over to close my laptop. (Which was a bit like closing the stable door after the horse had bolted, but there was no need to have Guy McKinsey staring at us both.)

  ‘Um … why?’

  ‘Guy’s got to make a lame MI6 agent, right?’

  ‘How do you figure that?’

  ‘Oh. I just thought, you know … spies. They’re supposed to be nondescript and blend into the background. Guy doesn’t blend. So I’m hoping a few hours of watching him be hopeless will knock the crush on the head.’

  ‘Oooookay. Good luck with that, because he’s actually brilliant. You know, I pretended to be a spy once.’

  ‘Pick up line?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well she must have been as thick as a plank to believe it. I’m telling you, spies blend. You’re too good-looking to blend.’

  ‘Why, Evangeline. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’

  ‘I’d say lots of nice things if you stopped calling me Evangeline.’

  ‘Would you? Like what?’

  ‘Endless possibilities! Let’s both think about what they might include while I go and make us something to drink.’

  He grimaced. Actually grimaced. The nerve!

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not offering coffee,’ I said, exasperated. ‘Honestly, you and Drew are such caffeine snobs!’

  ‘It’s not snobbery to prefer not to drink bilge water.’

  ‘I’m making tea,’ I said, bristling. ‘Apple tea. Actually, it’s tisane – which you can’t ruin because it’s like instant coffee. You know, put a spoonful in a cup and add boiling water.’

  Jack didn’t look comforted.

  ‘It’s just not possible to ruin it,’ I added.

  How could a person look brave and scared at the same time? Bastard.

  ‘Jack, you’re drinking it,’ I said. ‘Now will you please just go and sit down? I won’t be long.’

  The ramshackle two-storey terrace house I rented on the outskirts of inner-city Sydney was a series of tiny, interconnected rooms. The combined entrance/living room led through an archway into a dining room, which in turn led into a minuscule closed off kitchen. Upstairs consisted of a small bedroom and teensy-tiny bathroom. It was all very close, compact and intimate, like an overstuffed doll’s house. Which was fine if you were doll-sized, like me – because I had the kewpie doll thing happening, in size and appearance (just with Barbie’s boobs and God knew whose hair). But not so fine when the simple act of turning around in the kitchen smacked you into Jackson J Stevens for the second time in one evening.

  ‘Jack!’ I wailed, rubbing my nose. ‘I told you to go and sit down.’

  ‘The thought of leaving you alone in here with a kettle is too scary, Evangeline. Who knows what I’ll be forced to drink?’

  ‘This kitchen’s too small for the two of us.’

  ‘I’ll scrunch up,’ he said, leaning a hip casually against the kitchen counter.

  I snorted – as I tend to do when someone says something ridiculous. As if six feet of muscle could scrunch! But experience had taught me not to bother arguing with Jack – he had a way of winning – so I simply started filling the kettle.

  ‘So … Guy McKinsey,’ he mused. ‘Yeeeaaaah, I don’t get it.’

  ‘That’s because you’ve got a Y chromosome – hell, for all I know you’ve got two Y chromosomes, you’re so out-there macho.’

  ‘Which would make me a freak – thank you.’ He tugged one of my crazy blonde ringlets, which he did so often it had become a signature move. ‘I meant the actor bit. How did Guy McKinsey crack it? What’s so special about him?’

  I pursed my lips. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ All innocence. ‘He’s drop-dead gorgeous, maybe that’s it. And he played a wonderful Horatio Nelson, you know, and I’ve always had a thing for Horatio –’

  ‘Nelson, yes, who’s conveniently been dead for more than two hundred years.’

  ‘– plus he has that smoky voice. The lovely British accent on top of it. Arctic blue eyes. Perfect mouth. And when –’

  ‘Okay,’ Jack interrupted, holding up ‘surrender’ hands. ‘Spare me the rest.’

  I lifted an eyebrow – even though my eyebrows were short and straight so I could never get the supercilious look I wanted.

  ‘Jealous?’ I asked, and giggled when Jack arched an answering eyebrow – kind of like, I see your eyebrow and raise you one. Except his, of course, did look supercilious – his eyebrow raise could make Thor feel like an insect.

  ‘Should I be?’ he asked. ‘Depends. How full is your fan club? Give me the stats.’

  ‘There’s always room for one more, if you want to join.’

  Another giggle. ‘Jack, you know I try not to think of you as one of those actor people,’ I said as I turned on the kettle.

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Not that I’m casting aspersions on your talent – which I know is prodigious –’

  ‘You might know that if you actually saw something I was in.’

  ‘What I meant was that I think of you as a brother, which is much better, you know.’

  Jack looked appalled.

  I reached into the cupboard, removed the tin of tea and placed it on the counter.

  He still looked appalled.

  ‘What?’ I asked, enjo
ying his rare state of speechlessness. ‘You don’t think I make a good sister?’

  ‘No, I do not,’ he said emphatically. ‘Not any kind of sister – good, bad or indifferent.’

  ‘Well that’s gratitude, and after I said I’d come to see your play, too! I even remember the name of it – Stormy Sunday.’

  ‘Very impressive,’ Jack said dryly. ‘But that doesn’t even make you a step-cousin twice removed, let alone a sister.’

  ‘What about sister points for being there on opening night? You know I wouldn’t go to an opening night for just anybody.’

  ‘Yeah, I know – too many actors, not enough Nobel Peace Prize winners.’

  ‘Not that.’

  ‘Oooh! Does that mean actors are no longer the scourge of the earth?’

  ‘I meant not … that. Not exactly that.’

  ‘So we are still the scourge of the earth?’

  ‘I never said you were the scourge of the earth,’ I said, exasperated again. ‘Actors are just not … for me. That way, I mean. Not that you would ever – I mean, I’m hardly in a position to –’ Yep, I’d dug myself into a nice big hole. And that was a perfect example of a typical conversation between me and Jack.

  I huffed out a breath. ‘Rewind. It’s not about how many celebrities will be there, okay?’

  He watched me for a long moment and I got all edgy because he had his intent look on. So I started wiping the spotless kitchen counter while I tried to think of a conversational segue to a less awkward subject.

  And then I heard him sigh. ‘So it’s the media thing again.’