About The Older Man Plan
AFTER A FRUSTRATING series of bad dates, Vivian Carmichael has concocted a plan for turning around her romantic life. She wants someone with confidence and experience—a man who really has his life together. So she's going to start dating older men.
Okay, fine. She actually just wants one man. Rick Grant, the hot novelist who spends hours writing at her favorite coffee shop. But she can't have him. In fact, she desperately needs to get over him, so she's going to find someone else in his age range and fall for him instead.
If Rick can introduce her to some of his friends, that will expedite matters. After all, he's not interested in her, so it's not like he'll get jealous when she starts to date one of his friends.
Even if her plan doesn't go exactly the way she intends, she might still end up finding the love of her life.
One
VIVIAN CARMICHAEL FORMULATED a brilliant plan while she was drying her hair, and she couldn’t wait to tell her friends about it.
Unfortunately, it was Wednesday morning, which meant Megan was working a shift at Coble Coffee and Britt was in a graduate seminar that didn’t get out until eleven.
By ten, Vivian had showered, washed and dried her hair (an arduous process because of its length), and gotten dressed. She’d also done some laundry and unloaded the dishwasher. She didn’t need to be on campus today until the afternoon, and she didn’t have a long enough stretch of time to convince herself to head to the university library to get some more research done for the chapter of her dissertation due at the end of the month. So she cleared out her email inbox and judicially concluded that was enough work for the morning.
Now she was allowed to walk over to the coffee shop, get a snack, and wait until Megan had a break.
The first thing she noticed as she walked in, after breathing in the rich fragrance of bread and coffee, was that Rick, the hot novelist, was sitting with his laptop at the large table in the far corner of the room. Her heartbeat sped up, despite her firm inner lecture about how there was no reason to get so excited at the sight of him.
The second thing Vivian noticed was that Megan wasn’t behind the counter. Nash Coble, the owner and Megan’s boss, was taking orders with a characteristic scowl on his bearded face.
Vivian dutifully avoided looking over at Rick as she waited through the two people in front of her in line. When she stepped up to the counter, she asked Nash, “Where’s Megan?”
A silent shrug was all she got for a response.
“Isn’t she supposed to work on Wednesdays?”
“Not today.”
She thought about further interrogating the taciturn man, but she decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He couldn’t be goaded into providing more information than he wanted, no matter how hard one tried. She knew he wasn’t a bad guy. He’d been a generous employer to Megan, and a few months ago he’d driven almost an hour to pick up Vivian and Britt from the airport at the last minute when Megan had gotten a stomach bug. But still. He’d never be a friendly guy.
Shrugging off the unanswered questions, she ordered her French roast and cranberry-orange muffin and carried them over to the large table where Rick was sitting.
He was focused on his laptop, as usual, but he’d sat down at the big table today instead of the small one he always chose when he didn’t want to be interrupted. So she was allowed join him, wishing for the thousandth time that he wasn’t quite so attractive.
He really shouldn’t be so hot. He had to be close to forty, and his features were pleasant but unremarkable. He had a broad forehead and a strong chin and very nice brown eyes. His medium brown hair was cut in a way that should stay short, but he went too long between cuts, so it always looked slightly unkempt. Because he only shaved every few days, dark bristles often covered his jaw and neck. He had a fit body and excellent shoulders and arms, but he definitely didn’t spend a lot of time working out.
He wasn’t the handsomest man she’d ever seen. Not even close. But there was something about his deep, intelligent gaze, his relaxed confidence, and the slight crinkles around his eyes and mouth that spoke of deep experience. An earned power that didn’t have to assert itself to be felt.
It had appealed to her from the first time she’d seen him more than a year ago now, and it had never gone away, no matter how many times she tried to talk herself out of it.
“Hi,” she said, feeling like a greeting was only polite, even though he hadn’t turned his eyes yet from his laptop screen.
“Good morning.” He was reading rather than writing. That much was clear from the stillness of his long fingers on his keyboard and the way his eyes moved across the screen.
She glanced back over to the counter and wanted to match Nash’s scowl. Where the hell was Megan anyway? She was supposed to be here. Without her, Vivian didn’t have anyone to share her brilliant plan with. She tapped out a quick text, asking Megan about the change of schedule.
“Something wrong?” Rick asked, cutting his eyes over to hers briefly before they returned to his work.
“Not really. Just Megan is supposed to be here. I wanted to talk to her.”
“Ah. That must be why you look like you’re on the verge of erupting with news.” The dry, clever tone was soft rather than sharp like it could have been.
She liked that about him. He didn’t use his smarts like a weapon. “I’m not on the verge of erupting,” she replied with a little frown. “I do have something I want to talk to her about, but you could find a more flattering way to describe it."
He chuckled and turned fully away from his laptop for the first time. His gaze held hers, and for some reason it felt so deep that it took her breath away. “So what is it, then?”
“What is what?” He always did this to her. Got her so distracted by his sexiness that she lost track of conversation. It was really quite embarrassing. She was twenty-five, not a teenager. A PhD candidate. She hadn’t always been a social butterfly, but she had plenty of experience with men, and for the past several months she’d been dating a lot. She shouldn’t be so flustered every time she was around this man.
Rick lifted his dark eyebrows. “What is the news?”
“Uh.”
“You’re really not going to tell me? After rousing my curiosity like that? Let me guess. Your date last night was a dream come true. You’ve met the love of your life.”
She was momentarily stumped by how he knew she’d had a date last night. It wasn’t even a normal date night. But then she remembered she, Britt, and Megan had been talking about it here yesterday afternoon while he’d been working at a nearby table. He must have overheard. “No. The date was a disaster.”
Something about his jaw seemed to relax, although she hadn’t been aware he was tense before. He never got uptight about anything. “Too bad. I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. In fact, you look kind of smug about it.” She shook her head at him, since despite the crush on him she couldn’t seem to shake, she didn’t like to give him the upper hand too often. After taking a bite of her muffin and chewing contemplatively, she sighed. “When do guys finally grow up?”