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As April continued to read the manuscript, making notations in the margin, she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
“So, you’re working on ‘The Mating Game’ article,” a familiar voice broke in.
She looked up at Thomas Eldridge, the magazine’s publisher and editor in chief. To her chagrin, he wasn’t alone.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid I was busy reading this unbelievable submission. To tell you the truth, I was trying not to laugh.”
“Laugh?” Tom said with a warning frown. “Well, if you think you can contain yourself, I’d like to introduce you to Lucas Sullivan—the author of this piece.”
Before she could apologize, Tom went on. “Sullivan here is a noted sociologist. The article you have is one I asked him to write.”
April turned to smile at Lucas Sullivan. At first glance he looked like the stereotypical absentminded professor—a thatch of unruly brown hair, clothes a little rumpled, smelling ever so slightly of musty old books.
But on second glance…Under that staid exterior was one very sexy male.
Dear Reader,
You might be interested to know that when I was plotting my trilogy SULLIVAN’S RULES I discovered I was actually incorporating my own life into the three stories.
As in this book, April Morgan’s story, my own young dream was to marry a man who would treat me as an equal.
The second book, coming in December of this year, is about April’s friend Rita Rosales. There—as in my own life—the hero turns out to be the boy next door. We had two children and twenty-three wonderful years together before I lost him.
As in the third book, Lili Soule’s story, I was given a second chance at finding the strong yet gentle man who became my husband.
Like the three women in my stories, I believe in love and a happy-ever-after. That’s why I love writing stories of home, heart and happiness for Harlequin American Romance.
I hope you enjoy reading about April, Rita and Lili as much as I enjoyed writing about them!
Mollie Molay
Books by Mollie Molay
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
938—THE DUCHESS & HER BODYGUARD*
947—SECRET SERVICE DAD*
954—COMMANDER’S LITTLE SURPRISE*
987—MY BIG FAKE GREEN-CARD WEDDING
Marriage in Six Easy Lessons
Mollie Molay
www.millsandboon.co.uk
To newcomers Joseph Murray Fox and Luke Joseph Molé.
Welcome to the world.
Sullivan’s Rules
1 A happy relationship requires that a woman make her man feel masculine.
2 While a man is not monogamous by nature, he is more likely to see a woman as a potential girlfriend or mate if sexual intimacy doesn’t occur too soon.
3 A woman must rein in her own desires to promote the health of a relationship.
4 A woman must strive for compatibility, rather than try to be sexy.
5 A woman must show her man how much she likes and appreciates him. She must shower him with affection and sublimate her own daily frustrations.
6 A woman must be supportive, fun-loving, easygoing and generous in her praise of a man’s achievements.
Contents
Prologue
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
Prologue
A few last-minute guests at the Morgan-Blair wedding hurried to take their seats in the flower-decorated nave of St. James Church-by-the-Lake. The church organist launched into the romantic and emotional “Lara’s Theme” from Dr. Zhivago, a prearranged signal that the wedding ceremony would begin in twenty minutes.
In the bride’s dressing room, the bride, April Morgan, frowned and regarded her bridal bouquet of white roses and gardenias with a growing sense of unease.
Rita Rosales, her maid of honor, tucked something borrowed, a tiny good-luck charm, in April’s shoe. “There, that should take care of the wedding ceremony.” She laughed as she adjusted the shoulder straps of her pale green dress. “The honeymoon is up to you.”
April’s face whitened.
“Now, Rita,” Lili Soulé, the matron of honor, scolded, “April doesn’t need any of your teasing. Can’t you see she’s already nervous?” She checked the basket of flowers that the little maid of honor, her daughter Paulette, was carrying to make sure the rose petals were still inside. Paul, the ring bearer and Paulette’s twin brother, clutched the satin cushion holding the wedding rings to his chest.
“I’m okay,” April murmured, although she was becoming more nervous by the minute. “Rita, why don’t you see if any of the bridesmaids need help before the ceremony?”
Rita glanced over to where the bridesmaids were busy checking their gowns in floor-length mirrors. “There doesn’t seem to be a problem. All five of them are looking good.”
April’s frown deepened. “Five? There’s supposed to be six!” She scanned the group uneasily. “Where’s Claire Dunn?” she called to them.
“Claire just stepped outside for a minute,” Joyce Humphries called back.
“Did she say she’s going to get back in here in time for the ceremony?”
Joyce shrugged and turned back to the floor-length mirror. “Claire is Claire. Who knows what she’s going to do next?”
Aware of Claire Dunn’s erratic behavior lately, April tried not to think that the bridesmaid’s disappearance was a bad omen.
She dismissed the growing hollow feeling in her middle as a case of prewedding jitters, but deep in her heart she knew there was more to her growing unease. The truth was she was having last-minute doubts about the wisdom of marrying her fiancé, Jim Blair.
Judging from the anxious look in her mother’s eyes as she straightened the wreath of orange blossoms on April’s head, April sensed she wasn’t the only one to feel uneasy.
Before she had a chance to speak to her mother, there was a commotion outside the dressing room, followed by an urgent knock at the door. A moment later, an obviously agitated usher appeared in the doorway. After apologizing to everyone for his intrusion, he beckoned to the mother of the bride. With a final pat on April’s shoulder, Eve Morgan hurried to the door.
A moment later, she hurried back to April’s side, a piece of paper in her hand. Her voice was shaking. “Oh, my dear, maybe you should sit down!”
As if one, the five bridesmaids froze.
Rita Rosales dropped her own bouquet and hurried to April’s side. Lili Soulé handed the rose-petal-filled flower basket to little Paulette and rushed over, too.
April’s heart took a dive. Even before she took the note from her mother’s hand, April sensed that something had gone seriously wrong with the wedding.
“What does the note say?” Rita asked, peering over April’s shoulder.
April read the note aloud: “‘Claire and I have eloped. Jim.’”
“He didn’t even say he was sorry,” her mother said. “Maybe it’s all for the best,” she added slowly as she glanced at the five silent bridesmaids.
Instead of collapsing on the satin-covered bench behind her, April took off her bridal veil and sighed her relief.
Something was finally right.
Chapter One
Six months later
“A happy relationship requires that a woman make her man feel masculine.”
—The Mating Game. Lucas Sullivan, Ph.D.
April Morgan, assistant editor of Chicago’s Today’s World magazine, gazed in disbelief at the manuscript in front of her. As an editor of a magazine popular with young professionals, she’d edited a number of strange submissions, but this one beat all.
The article “The Mating Game” was apparently based on a sociological study the author did, originally published in a scientific-community newsletter. The article proposed to enlighten female readers about the behavior men expected in a potential mate. To her growing dismay, the author, an academic, actually went on to list six rules of behavior that he concluded women must follow in order to attract and keep a mate.
From her viewpoint, that of a bride jilted at the altar not too long ago, the article was ludicrous. The author was either naive or deluded. No matter how noteworthy the man’s credentials were, assuming they were real, how could any twenty-first-century man actually believe men preferred a Stepford Wife to a real woman?
More to the point, how could any man in his right mind even want a woman whose mind had been altered to turn her into a man’s idea of an ideal woman?
April frowned. She was aware of other theories that made more sense than his, in particular the one she preferred to believe: a person was driven by a biological imperative to mate with the fittest—read, strong genes—of the opposite gender. To a layperson like her, that clearly meant an innate desire to produce strong and healthy offspring. A goal that she’d been determined to reach before it was too late and that had unwisely led her to the altar.
In retrospect, April realized that accepting Jim’s proposal had been prompted by the loud ticking of her biological clock.
But according to this Lucas Sullivan, a man’s search for a mate was based solely on a woman’s social behavior! Even an academic like him, or perhaps especially an academic like him, should have known that choosing a mate was more than merely a game. It was a life-altering choice, one to be made only one time—and very carefully.
She’d learned this the hard way. A wedding fiasco that had left her at the altar at the ripe old age of thirty-two had also left her a lot wiser about men. Most men, she believed, were largely self-centered and chauvinistic like her ex, and as far as she was concerned there wasn’t a man currently around her who was worth a second look.
Not that remaining single had been her choice, April mused as she put a question mark in red pencil alongside a sentence she thought needed clarification. If all had gone as she’d planned, she would have honeymooned in Hawaii with that traitorous fiancé of hers, James Elwood Blair. He’d gone on his honeymoon all right, only not with her.
She made additional notations of questions she thought needed answers in the margins of the manuscript and read on. It only became worse.
She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
“April, I’m glad to see you’re working on ‘The Mating Game’ article,” a familiar voice broke in. “April?”
It took her a moment to realize who was speaking. Ready to apologize for her rudeness, she glanced up at Thomas Eldridge, the magazine’s publisher and editor in chief. To her chagrin, he wasn’t alone.
“Sorry,” she said, gesturing to the manuscript. “I’m afraid I was caught up reading this unbelievable submission. To tell you the truth, I was trying keep from laughing.”
“Laughing?” Tom said with a warning frown. He gestured to the man standing at his side. “If you think you can contain yourself, I’d like to introduce you to Lucas Sullivan. Lucas and I went to Northwestern together and belonged to the same fraternity. Lucas, this is April Morgan. April is one of our—” he paused significantly “—top editors.”
April cringed. Damn. Of all people to have heard her flippant remark, why did it have to be the author of the piece?
Before she could apologize, Tom went on. “Sullivan here is a noted sociologist, April. The article you have there is one that I asked him to write. The original study was published last year in the National Association of Science Writers newsletter.”
Although her heart was in free fall at her faux pas, April managed to remain calm and look interested.
Tom cleared his throat. “I should tell you I’m impressed with Lucas’s conclusions, which, incidentally, concur with mine.” He cast April a quelling glance. “After you get a chance to read the piece again, I’m sure you’ll be able to work with him just fine.”
April nodded politely while she digested the subtext of his words—work with him or you’re out of a job. She’d been at the magazine long enough to know her still-single boss was a man who took his position as the magazine’s publisher and editor in chief very seriously; he wouldn’t countenance anyone making light of his decisions.
She couldn’t blame him. It was no secret that the magazine’s circulation had been falling steadily in the past six months. Or that Tom had been searching for a way to turn the circulation figures around. But with Sullivan’s article? Sure, it was controversial enough, but could such a biased and outdated article accomplish a miracle?
It had to. Her job depended on it.
“I’ve decided to use Sullivan’s article as the lead feature in the September issue,” Tom continued, filling her silence. “It’ll be a tight squeeze, but we can do it. What do you think, April?”
Speechless, April swung her gaze to Lucas Sullivan. At first glance, the man looked like the stereotypical absentminded professor, a thatch of unruly light brown hair, clothes a little rumpled, smelling ever so slightly of musty old books.
But on second glance…The hairs on the back of her neck began to tingle. Under his staid exterior was one very sexy male. Early thirties, tall and broad-shouldered, he had a nicely sculpted mouth and a chin that begged to be touched. As if that weren’t enough, his warm brown eyes were most definitely of the sort called bedroom eyes—heavy lidded and innately sensual. Judging from the hungry stares of the females on the other side of the glass windows of her office, she wasn’t the only one to respond to his deceiving appearance. Although to give the man some credit, he didn’t appear to be aware of it.
“April?” Tom sounded faintly annoyed. “So what do you think?” he repeated.
“Uh…” April considered the question. How could she tell him she had little good to say about the article, its conclusions or, heaven help her, about its author’s intelligence when the man was gazing at her expectantly?
If she was honest, she’d admit that her unhappy near miss at matrimony might have colored her opinion of his article. Still, a chauvinist was a chauvinist, no matter what academic credentials he carried. Now, here was a man who, if the rules he espoused in his article were to be believed, had to be the ultimate male chauvinist.
Eldridge frowned. “Something wrong, April?”
“Uh, no,” April answered.
She suddenly realized she’d been more than rude.
She rose abruptly and held out her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Sullivan.”
He smiled slightly as he took her hand. “Call me Lucas, please,” he said with a wary glance at her desk. “Judging by all the red on these pages, you’ve been bleeding on my manuscript.”
Considering the man’s stiff body language, April sensed he felt uneasy around her. Not only because she was his editor but because she was a woman. How he’d managed to conduct a sociological study on the subject of male-female relationships if he felt this way was a puzzle.
Tom’s disapproval of her editorial opinion or not, she felt it was her job to give Sullivan the truth about his bias before he made a fool of himself and the magazine. She had to manage it diplomatically, of course.
But not just yet. First, she had some thinking to do; she needed to come up with a few ideas of her own to enlighten him.
“I was about to go to lunch, Tom. If you don’t mind coming back in an hour or two, Mr. Sull…er, Lucas, I’ll be happy to give you my comments.”
Tom’s scowl of disapproval slowly relaxed, but April sensed she wasn’t home free yet. “I was just about to invite Sullivan up to the executive dining room for lunch, April. Oh,” he added as he turned to leave, “you can come along if you like.”
If she liked? April bit back a tart reply. Although an invitation to the male-dominated executive dining room was considered a coup, it was clear the invitation had been offered as an afterthought. What else could she expect from a man who was not only a personal friend of Sullivan’s but actually agreed with his outdated views of women?
“No, thank you, Tom. I’ve already made plans for lunch.” April smiled, went to the door and pointedly waited for him and Sullivan to leave.
To her bemusement, a dozen pairs of female eyes followed Sullivan as he trailed Eldridge to the elevator. With such interest from the opposite sex, it was a puzzle how the man had missed realizing how important it was to have a woman’s point of view to help validate his study findings, let alone his ridiculous set of rules.
Once the two men were safely out of sight, April slid Sullivan’s article into a folder to share with her close friends Rita Rosales and Lili Soulé at lunch. Rita, a research librarian, and Lili, a graphic artist, both worked at the magazine.
She couldn’t wait to show them Sullivan’s manuscript. They were sure to share her opinion and appreciate her problem.
Not that Sullivan was her problem unless she made him into one, April reminded herself as she pushed the elevator’s down button. As far as she was concerned, her job was only to protect the magazine’s outstanding reputation. And herself from being fired. But if she’d known Sullivan before now, he never would have written such a biased study and its resultant article.
Aware of the probable impact on the magazine’s readership, it was obviously time for action.
THE BUILDING WHERE THE magazine had its offices was appropriately named the Riverview, since it overlooked the Chicago River. As usual, its popular cafeteria was crowded. Raised voices, the clatter of dishes and the scent of rosemary-fried chicken and garlic mashed potatoes filled the air. A hamburger station, April’s target for today, drew her attention.
A double-decker hamburger might not be the healthiest choice of the cafeteria’s mouthwatering attractions, but the price was right, April thought as she considered the buffet. She was still in the process of recovering the huge chunk of her savings she’d spent on the wedding dress that still hung in her closet. Despite feeling that the likelihood of her ever needing it was slim, she was strangely reluctant to sell it.
She made her way through the room to where Rita had staked out a corner table. Now was her chance to discuss plans for Sullivan’s enlightenment.
Rita smiled wryly as April approached the table. “I can always tell when you have an earthshaking idea on your mind. Something sinful like sex, I hope?”
April dropped her purse and the folder on the table. “Rita Rosales, is sex all you ever think about?”
“Why not?” Rita answered, her green eyes glowing with mischief. “Even if they’re not willing to admit it, sex is what everyone thinks about. At least most of the time.”
“No, not everyone.” April handed Rita the folder that contained Sullivan’s manuscript. “Certainly not the author of this article.”
Rita’s eyes widened in disbelief as she skimmed the first few pages. “You mean a man actually wrote this? How old is he, anyway? Ninety-five?”
“Yes, a man wrote this.” April laughed as she searched for her wallet. “In fact, I just met him. His name is Lucas Sullivan and, it turns out, he’s an old friend of Tom’s. He’s a rumpled academic type, the sort who looks like he could have written something like this. But I’d say he’s only in his early thirties.”
“Get outta here!” Rita pushed her salad aside, opened the folder and proceeded to read out loud. “‘While a man is not monogamous by nature, he is more likely to see a woman as a potential girlfriend or mate if sexual intimacy doesn’t occur too soon.’”
“I don’t believe this,” Rita muttered. “Sheesh, look at this—’A woman must strive for compatibility, rather than try to be sexy.’” She flipped to another page. “And what’s this crap about a woman ‘being generous in her praise of a man’s achievements’? This guy seems to think that sexual attraction doesn’t count for anything. He’s got to be joking.”
“Tom doesn’t think so. He not only suggested Sullivan write the article, he’s making it the lead feature in the September issue.”
“What doesn’t Tom think?” Lili Soulé, the petite Frenchwoman who completed the trio of friends, arrived at the table slightly out of breath. Perpetually in a rush after trying to keep up with her two lively children, Lili always seemed breathless.
April smiled at her. Lili was a widow and without a man in her life. April believed that her friend had a crush on Tom Eldridge, but was too shy to show it. To make things worse, Tom, along with the rest of the single men on the magazine’s staff, hadn’t even seemed to notice Lili at last year’s company picnic—Lili had been there with her children. Too bad men couldn’t see past a ready-made family.
“I’ll explain after I get my hamburger,” April said. “Rita, give Lili one of the pages to read until I get back.”
Rita was right on, April thought as she made her way to the hamburger station. She considered her friends’ obvious physical attractions, Rita’s generous curves and Lili’s slender beauty. If Sullivan thought that all a woman had to do to be considered a desirable mate was to flatter a man’s ego and suppress her sexual urgings, he’d not only never met two women like Rita and Lili, he had a surprise coming. There had to be something lacking in Sullivan’s psyche if he actually believed the mating game was played without an initial mutual physical attraction.
Minutes later, April made her way back to the table. “So, what do you think of Sullivan’s rules?”
In answer, Lili read aloud: “‘A woman must rein in her own desires to promote the health of a relationship.’” She shook her head. “I never would have had the twins if I hadn’t shown their father the way I felt about him,” she said wistfully. “If this man truly believes this, most women would never have children until they were too old to enjoy them.”
Rita patted her hand sympathetically. “At least you have Paul Jr. and Paulette to remember your Paul by.” Then abruptly changing gears, she snatched the page from Lili. “Just listen to this one. ‘A happy relationship requires that a woman make her man feel masculine.’”
“Without sex? No way,” Rita scoffed. “If the man doesn’t realize the mating game starts with a sexual attraction he hasn’t done his homework. As far as I’m concerned, sex ought to be rule number one.”
April laughed and almost choked on her hamburger. “To give the man some credit, Rita, I think he only means sexual attraction should be ignored at the outset of a relationship.”
“No way!” Rita said staunchly. “I still think you have to do something to straighten out this guy’s thinking. He’s definitely a man who has to be saved from himself.”
“Generally speaking, I agree,” April said as she took another bite of her hamburger. “I’m sure he has some desirable traits, but—”
“This one is so funny,” Lili broke in. She handed the manuscript page back. “‘A woman must show her man how much she likes and appreciates him. She must shower him with affection and sublimate her own daily frustrations.’”
“That’s supposed to be funny?” Rita said as she took the manuscript page and studied the rule she found offensive. “I don’t think so!”
“You’re right,” Lili agreed with a faint blush. “If I had sublimated my frustrations, I would not have had the twins.”
“This one is even nuttier,” Rita told her. “‘A woman must be supportive, fun loving, easygoing and generous in her praise of a man’s achievements.’” She snorted. “Just so long as the guy knows this rule works both ways. Especially the ‘supportive’ part. You’re not really going to let Eldridge print this garbage, are you, April?”