How to Get Over Your Ex

Being rejected is one thing. Being rejected live on radio takes it to a whole new level!

After her on-air proposal is turned down by her commitment-phobe boyfriend, Georgia Stone must learn to survive singledom. Unfortunately, thanks to a clause in her contract, she has to do it under the watchful gaze of brooding radio producer Zander Rush.

And so begins the Year of Georgia! Lurching from salsa classes to spy school, Georgia discovers a taste for adventure. Her biggest thrill so far? Flirting with danger—aka the enigmatic Zander. But admitting she’s ready for more than just a fling…? Definitely Georgia’s scariest challenge yet!

Next month, look for the second book in this duet: The Guy To Be Seen With by Fiona Harper

HOW TO GET OVER YOUR EX

“Why are we here, Zander?” she breathed into the fading light.

He stared at her in the rapidly cooling, darkening evening. “Because you followed me up here?”

Half of her was terrified he’d just shrug and blame tradition. That this thing between them wasn’t mutual. But she wasn’t about to be put off so easily. “Here, by the twinkling water as the sun sets.”

“Do you want to leave?” he murmured, eyes locked on hers.

She should. “No.”

“Do you want to feel?”

Her lungs locked up. Suddenly the grass and cows and water around them seemed to grow as if the two of them had just hauled themselves over the top of a beanstalk, forcing them closer together and making the scant distance separating them into something negligible.

Her pulse began to hammer in earnest.

Zander raised his hand and slipped it behind her head, lowering his forehead to rest on hers. His heat radiated outward. His eyes drifted shut.

How to Get Over Your Ex

Nikki Logan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT NIKKI LOGAN

Nikki Logan lives next to a string of protected wetlands in Western Australia, with her long-suffering partner and a menagerie of furred, feathered and scaly mates. She studied film and theater at university, and worked for years in advertising and film distribution before finally settling down in the wildlife industry. Her romance with nature goes way back, and she considers her life charmed, given she works with wildlife by day and writes fiction by night—the perfect way to combine her two loves. Nikki believes that the passion and risk of falling in love are perfectly mirrored in the danger and beauty of wild places. Every romance she writes contains an element of nature, and if readers catch a waft of rich earth or the spray of wild ocean between the pages, she knows her job is done.

MILLS & BOON

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For Aaron, who knows just how hard

the getting over part can be.

Give my regards to Broadway.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EXCERPT

ONE

Valentine’s Day 2012

Close. Please just close.

A dozen curious eyes followed Georgia Stone into Radio EROS’ stylish elevator, craning over computer monitors or sliding on plastic floor mats back into the corridor just slightly, not even trying to disguise their curiosity. She couldn’t stand staring at the back of the elevator for ever, so she turned, lifted her chin...

...and silently begged the doors to close. To put her out of her misery for just a few blessed moments.

Do. Not. Cry.

Not yet.

The numbness of shock was rapidly wearing off and leaving the deep, awful ache of pain behind it. With a humiliation chaser. She’d managed to thank the dumbfounded drive-time announcers—God, she was so British—before stumbling out of their studio, knowing that the radio station’s output was broadcast in every office on every floor via a system of loudspeakers.

Hence all the badly disguised glances.

The whole place knew what had just happened to her. Because of her. That their much-lauded Leap Year Valentine’s proposal had just gone spectacularly, horribly, excruciatingly, publicly wrong.

She’d asked. Daniel had declined.

As nicely as he could, under the circumstances, but his urgently whispered, “Is this a joke, George?” was still a no whichever way you looked at it and, in case she hadn’t got the message, he’d spelled it out.

We weren’t heading for marriage. I thought you knew that...

Actually no, or she wouldn’t have asked.

That’s what made our thing so perfect...

Oh. Right. That was what made it perfect? She’d known they were drifting in a slow, connected eddy like the leaves in Wakehurst’s Black Pond but she’d thought that even drifting eventually got you somewhere. Obviously not.

‘For God’s sake, will you close?’

She wasn’t usually one to talk to inanimate objects—even under her breath—but somehow, on some level, the elevator must have heard her because its shiny chrome doors started to slide together obligingly.

‘Hold the lift!’ a voice shouted.

She didn’t move. Her stomach plunged. Just as they’d nearly closed...

A hand slid into the sliver of space between the doors and curled around one of them, arresting and then reversing its slide. They reopened, long-suffering and apologetic.

‘You mustn’t have heard me,’ the dark-haired man said, throwing her only the briefest and tersest of glances, his lips tight. He turned, faced the front, and permitted them to close this time, giving her a fabulous view of the square cut of the back of his expensive suit.

No, you mustn’t have heard me. Making a total idiot of myself in front of all of London. If he had, he’d have given her a much longer look. Something told her everyone would be looking at her for much longer now. Starting with all her and Daniel’s workmates.

She groaned.

He looked back over his shoulder. ‘Sorry?’

She forced burning eyes to his. If she blinked just once she was going to unleash the tears she could feel jockeying for expression just behind her lids. But she didn’t have the heart for speech. She shook her head.

He returned his focus to the front of the elevator. She stared at the lights slowly descending toward ‘G’ for ground floor. Then at the one marked ‘B’, below that—the one he’d pressed.

‘Excuse me...’ She cleared her throat to reduce the tight choke. He turned again, looked down great cheekbones at her. ‘Can you get to the street from B?’

He studied her. Didn’t ask what she meant. ‘The basement has electronic gate control.’

Her heart sank. So much for hoping to make a subtle getaway. Looked as if the universe really wanted her to pay for today’s disaster.

Crowded reception it was, then.

She nodded just once. ‘Thank you.’

He didn’t turn back around, but his grey eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll be driving out through the gates. You’re welcome to slip out behind me.’

Slip out. Was that just a figure of speech or did he know? ‘Thank you. Yes, please.’

He turned back to the front, then, a heartbeat later, he turned back again. ‘Step behind me.’

She dragged stinging eyes back up to him. ‘What?’

‘The door’s going to open at Reception first. It will be full of people. I can screen you.’

Suddenly the front-line of the small army of tears waiting for a chance to get out surged forward. She fought them back furiously, totally futile.

Kindness. That was worse than blinking. And it meant that he definitely knew.

But since he was playing pretend-I-don’t, she could, too. She stepped to her left just as the doors obediently opened onto the station’s reception. Light and noise filled the elevator but she stood, private and protected behind the stranger, his big body as good as a locked door. She sighed. Privacy and someone to protect her—two things she’d just blown out of her life for good, she suspected.

‘Mr Rush...’ someone said, out in the foyer.

The big man just nodded. ‘Alice. Going down?’

‘No, up.’

He shrugged. ‘I won’t be long.’

And the doors closed, leaving just the two of them, again. Georgia sagged and swiped at the single, determined tear that had slipped down her cheek. He didn’t turn back around. It took only a moment longer for the elevator to reach the basement. He walked out the moment the doors opened and reached back to hold them wide for her. The frigid outdoor air hit her instantly.

‘Thank you,’ she repeated and stepped out into the darkened parking floor. She’d left her coat upstairs, hanging on the back of a chair in the studio, but she would gladly freeze rather than set foot in that building ever again.

He didn’t make eye contact again. Or smile. ‘Wait by the gate,’ he simply said and then turned to stride towards a charcoal Jaguar.

She walked a dead straight line towards the exit gate. The fastest, most direct route she could. She only reached it a moment or two before the luxury car. She stood, rubbing her prickling flesh.

He must have activated the gate from inside his vehicle, and the large, steel lattice began to rattle along rollers towards her. He nudged his car forward, lowered his window, and peered out across his empty passenger seat.

She ducked to look at him. For moments. One of them really needed to say something. Might as well be her.

‘Thanks again.’ For sanctuary in the elevator. For spiriting her away, now.

His eyes darkened and he slid designer sunglasses up onto the bridge of his nose. ‘Good luck’ was all he said. Then he shifted his Jag into gear and drove forward out of the still-widening gate.

She stared after him.

It seemed an odd thing to say in lieu of goodbye but maybe he knew something she didn’t.

Maybe he knew how much she was going to need that luck.

* * *

Hell.

That was the longest elevator ride of Zander’s life. Trapped in two square metres of double-thickness steel with a sobbing woman. Except she hadn’t been sobbing—not outwardly—but she was hurting inwardly; pain was coming off her in waves. Totally tangible.

The waves had hit him the moment he nudged his way into her elevator, but it was too late, then, to step back and let her go down without him. Not without making her feel worse.

He knew who she was. He just hadn’t known it was her standing in the elevator he ran for or he wouldn’t have launched himself at the closing doors.

She must have bolted straight from the studio to the exit the moment they threw to the first track out of the Valentine’s segment. Lord knew he did; he wanted to get across town to the network head offices before they screamed for him to come in.

Proactive instead of reactive. He never wanted someone higher up his food chain to call him and find him just sitting there waiting for their call. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Or the power.

By the time he got across London’s peak-hour gridlock he’d have the right spin for the on-air balls-up. Turning a negative into a positive. Oiling the waters. The kind of problem-solving he was famous—and employed—for.

The kind of problem-solving he loathed.

He blew out a steady breath and took an orange light just as it was turning red in order to keep moving. None of them had expected the guy to say no. Who said no to a proposal, live on air? You said yes live and then you backed out of it later if it wasn’t what you wanted. That was what ninety-five per cent of Londoners would do.

Apparently this guy was Mr Five Per Cent.

Then again, who asked a man to marry her live on radio if she wasn’t already confident of the answer? Or maybe she thought she was? She wouldn’t be the first to find out she was wrong...the hard way.

Empathy curled his fingers tight on the expensive leather of his steering wheel. Who was he to cast stones?

He’d recognised that expression immediately. The one where you’d happily agree for the elevator to plunge eight storeys rather than have to step out and face the world. At least his own humiliation had been limited to just his family and friends.

Just two hundred of his and Lara’s nearest and dearest.

Georgia Stone’s would be all over the city today and all over the world by tomorrow.

He was counting on it. Though he’d have preferred it not to be on the back of someone’s pain and humiliation. He hadn’t got that bad...yet.

He eased his foot onto the brake as the traffic ground to a halt around him and resisted the urge to lean on his horn.

Not that he imagined a girl like that would suffer for long. Tall and pale and pretty with that tangle of dark, short curls. She’d dressed for her proposal—that was a sweet and unexpected touch in the casual world of radio. Half his on-air staff would come to work in their pyjamas if they had the option. But Georgia Stone had worn a simple, pale pink, thin-strapped dress for the big moment—almost a wedding dress itself. If one got married on a beach in Barbados. Way too light for February so maybe public proposals weren’t the only thing the pretty Miss Stone didn’t think through?

Or maybe he was just looking for ways that this wasn’t his fault.

He’d approved the Valentine’s promotion in the first place. And the cheesy ‘does your man just need a shove?’ angle. But EROS’ listeners were—on the whole—a fairly cheesy bunch so it had been one of their most successful promotions.

Which had made the lift ride all the more painful.

Something about her pale, wide-eyed courtesy. Even as her heart ruptured quietly in its cavity.

Thank you.

She’d said it four times in half the minutes. As though he were a guy just helping her out instead of the guy that put her in that position in the first place. It was his contract she’d signed. It was his station’s promotion she’d put her hand up for.

Her life was now in shreds around her feet but still she thanked him.

That was one well-brought-up young woman. Youngish; he had to have at least fifteen years on her, though it was hard to know. He reached for his dash and activated the voice automation.

‘Call the office,’ he told his car.

It listened. ‘EROS, Home of Great Music, Mr Rush’s office. This is Casey, can I help you?’

Christ, he really had to have their company-wide phone greeting shortened.

‘It’s me,’ he announced to his empty vehicle. ‘I need you to pull up the contract with the Valentine’s girl.’

‘Just a tick,’ his assistant murmured, not taking offence at his lack of acknowledgement. She knew life was too short for pleasantries. ‘OK, got it. What do you need, Zander?’

‘Age?’

Her silence said she was scanning the document. ‘Twenty-eight.’

OK, so he had nine years on her. And her skin was amazing, then. He would have said twenty-two or -three, max. ‘Duration of contract?’

Again a brief pause. ‘Twelve months. To conclude with a follow-up next February fourteenth.’

Twelve months of their lives. That was supposed to include engagement party, fully paid wedding, honeymoon. All on EROS. That was the fifty-thousand-pound carrot. Why else would anyone want to make the most private, special moment of their lives so incredibly public?

The carrot was cheap in international broadcast terms, for the kind of global exposure he suspected this promo would get. Even more so now, given it had probably already gone viral. Exposure brought listeners, listeners brought advertisers, and advertisers brought revenue.

Except that follow-up twelve months from now wasn’t going to make great radio. At all. His mind went straight to the weakest link.

‘Casey, can you send that contract to my phone and then call Rod’s assistant and let her know I’m about half an hour away?’

‘Yes, sir.’

He rang off without a farewell. Life was too short for that as well.

A year was a long time to manufacture content, but if they played their cards right they could salvage something that would last longer than just the next few days. Really make that fifty thousand pounds work for them. He still expected EROS to directly benefit from the viral exposure—maybe even more now—but that contract locked them in for the next year as much as her.

A black cab cut in close to his bonnet and he gave voice to his frustration—his guilt—finally leaning on the horn the way he’d been wanting to for twenty minutes.

He spent the second half of his drive across town formulating a plan. So much so that when he walked into his network’s headquarters he had it all figured out. A way forward. A way to salvage something of today’s mess.

‘Zander...’ Rod’s assistant caught his ear as he breezed past into her boss’s office. He paused, turned. ‘He has Nigel in there.’

Nigel Westerly. Network owner. That wasn’t a good sign. ‘Thanks, Claire.’

Suddenly even his salvage plan looked shaky. Nigel Westerly hadn’t amassed one of the country’s biggest fortunes by being easily led. He was tough. And ruthless.

Zander straightened his back.

Oh, well, if he had to be fired, he’d rather it be by one of the men he admired most in England. He certainly wasn’t going to quail and wonder when the axe was going to fall. He pushed open the double doors to his director’s office with flair and announced himself.

‘Gentlemen...’

TWO

Thank goodness for seeds. And quiet lab rooms. And high-security access passes.

Georgia’s whole National Trust building was so light and bright and...optimistic. None of which she could stomach right now. Her little X-ray lab had adjustable lighting so it was dim and gloomy and could look as if she were out even when she wasn’t.

Perfect.

She’d called in sick the day after Valentine’s—unable to crawl out of bed was a kind of sick, right?—but she’d gone tiptoeing back to work, her Thursday and Friday an awful trial in carefully neutral smiles and colleagues avoiding eye contact and a very necessary and very belated inter-departmental email to Kew’s carnivorous-plant department.

It was also very short.

I’m so very sorry, Daniel. I’ll miss you.

She knew they were done. Even if Dan hadn’t concurred—which he had, once he’d cooled down enough to speak to her—she couldn’t spend another moment in a relationship that just drifted in small, endless circles. Not after what she’d done. Conveniently, it also meant she didn’t have to explain herself, explain something she barely understood—at least not for a while. And she was nothing if not a master procrastinator. She’d see Dan eventually, apologise in person, pick up her few things from his place. But this way they were both out of their misery.

Relationship euthanasia.

You know, except for the whole intensive public interest thing...

And now it was Saturday afternoon. And work was as good a place as any to hide out from all those messages and emails from astounded friends and family. Better, probably, because there were so few staff here with her and because she worked alone in her little X-ray lab behind two levels of carded access restrictions. The world wasn’t exactly interested enough in her botched proposal to have teams of paparazzi on her trail but it was certainly interested enough to still be talking about it—everywhere—a few days later. She didn’t dare check her social media accounts or listen to the radio or pick up a paper in case The Valentine’s Girl was still the topic de jour.

London was divided. Grand Final kind of division. Half the city had taken up arms in her defence and the other half were backing poor, beleaguered Dan. Hard to know which was worse: the flak he was copping for being the rejector or the abject pity she was fielding for being the rejectee.

Didn’t she know what a stupid thing it was to have done? some said.

Yes, thanks. She had a pretty good idea. But it wasn’t as if she just woke up one morning and wanted her face all over the papers. She’d thought he’d say yes, or she wouldn’t have asked. It just turned out her inside information was about as reliable as a racing tip from some random bag lady in an alleyway.

Why do it live on air? her detractors cried.

Because she woke up the morning after Kelly’s stunning pronouncement that her brother was ready for more and the ‘Give him a Nudge’ leap year promotion was all over the radio station she brushed her teeth to. And rode to work to. And did her work to. All day. The universe was practically screaming at her to throw her name into the hat.

She rubbed her throbbing temples.

Their names.

Dan was in it up to his neck, too, but because she wasn’t about to out her best friend—for Dan’s sake and for his sister’s—she was still struggling with exactly what her answer would be when he eventually turned those all-seeing eyes to her and asked, ‘Why, George?’

She loaded another dish of carefully laid-out seeds into the holder and slid it into the irradiator, then secured it and moved to her computer monitor to start the X-ray. It took just moments to get a clear image. Not a bad batch; a few incompetents, like all batches, but otherwise a pretty good sample.

She typed a quick summary report of her findings, noted the low unviable percentage, and attached it to the computerised sample scan to go back to the seed checkers.

Incompetents. It was hard not to empathise with them, the pods that had rotten-out interiors or the husks that formed absent of the seeds they were supposed to protect. Incompetent seeds disappeared amongst the thousands of others on the plant and just never came to fruition. Their very specific genetic line simply...vanished when they failed to reproduce.

In nature, that was the end of it for them.

Incompetent seeds didn’t have to justify themselves and their failure to thrive constantly to their competent mothers. Didn’t have to watch their competent friends’ competent families take shape and help them move out to their competent outer-city suburbs.

‘Ugh...’ Georgia retrieved the small sample from the irradiator, repackaged it to quarantine standards and placed it back in its storage unit. Then she reached for the next one.

Twenty-five-thousand seed species in the bank and someone had to test samples of each for viability. Lucky for the National Trust she had weeks and even months of hiding out ahead of her. Looked as if they were going to be the immediate beneficiaries of her weekends and evenings in exile.

Across the desk, her phone rang.

‘Georgia Stone,’ she answered, before remembering what day it was. Why was someone calling her on a weekend?

‘Ms Stone, it’s Tyrone at Security. I have a visitor here for you.’

No. He really didn’t. ‘I’m not expecting anyone. I would have left a name.’

‘That’s what I told him, but he insisted.’

Him. Was it Daniel? Immediately, new guilt piled on top of the old that she’d not been brave enough to face him personally yet. ‘Wh...who is it?’ she risked.

Pause.

‘Alekzander Rush. With a K and a Z, he says.’

As if that helped her in the slightest; although some neuron deep in her mind started firing.

‘Now he says he’s not a journalist.’ Tyrone sounded annoyed at being forced into the role of interpreter. His job was just to check the ID of visitors passing through his station, not deal with presumptuous callers.

‘OK, send him through. I’ll meet him in the visitor centre. Thank you, Tyrone,’ she added before he disconnected.

It took her about seven minutes to finish what she was doing, sanitise, and work her way through three buildings to the public visitor centre. It was teeming with weekend visitors to Wakehurst all checking out the work of her department while they were here seeing the main house and gardens.

She glanced around and saw him. Tall, dark, and casually but warmly dressed, with something draped over his arm. The guy from the elevator at the radio station. Possibly the last person in the world she expected to see. Relief that he wasn’t some crazy out to find The Valentine’s Girl crashed into curiosity about why he would be here. She ignored two speculative glances sent her way by total strangers. Probably trying to work out why she looked familiar. Hopefully, she’d be back in her office by the time the light bulb blinked on over their heads and they remembered whatever social media site they’d seen her on.

She walked up next to him as he stared into one of the public displays reading the labels and spoke quietly. ‘Alekzander with a K and a Z, I assume?’

He turned. His eyes widened as he took in her labcoat and jeans. That was OK; he looked pretty different without his pinstripe on, too.

‘Zander,’ he said, thrusting his free hand forward. She took it on instinct; it was warm and strong and certain. Everything hers wasn’t. ‘Zander Rush. Station Manager for Radio EROS.’

Oh. That wasn’t good.

He lifted his arm with something familiar and beige draped across it. ‘You left your coat in the studio.’

The manager of one of London’s top radio stations drove fifty kilometres to bring her a coat? No way.

‘I considered that a small price to pay for getting the heck out of there,’ she hedged. She hadn’t really let herself think about the signed document on radio network letterhead sitting on her desk at home, but she was thinking about it now. And, she guessed, so was he.

The couple standing nearby suddenly twigged as to who she was. Their eyes lit up with recognition and the girl turned to the man and whispered.

Zander didn’t miss it. ‘Is there somewhere more private we can speak?’

‘You have more to say?’ It was worth a try.

His eyes shot around the room. ‘I do. It won’t take long.’

‘This is a secure building. I can’t take you inside. Let’s walk.’

Conveniently, she had a coat. She shrugged into it and caught him as he was about to head back out through the giant open doors of the visitor centre.

‘Back door,’ she simply said.

Her ID opened the secure rear entrance and deposited them just a brisk walk from Bethlehem Wood. About as private as they were going to get out here on a Saturday. It got weekend traffic, too, but nothing like the rest of Wakehurst. Anyone else might have worried about setting off into a secluded wood with a stranger, but all Georgia could see was the strong, steady shape of his back as he’d sheltered her from prying eyes back in the elevator as her world imploded.

He wasn’t here to hurt her.

‘How did you find me?’ she asked.

‘Your work number was amongst the other contacts on our files. I called yesterday and realised where it was.’

‘You were taking a chance, coming here on a Saturday.’

‘I went to your apartment, first. You weren’t there.’

So he drove all this way on a chance? He was certainly going to a lot of trouble to find her. ‘A phone call wouldn’t suffice?’

‘I’ve left three messages.’

Oh.

‘Yes, I...’ What could she say that wouldn’t sound pathetic? Nothing. ‘I’m working my way up to my phone messages.’

He grunted. ‘I figured the personal approach would serve me better.’

Maybe so; she was here, wasn’t she? But her patience wasn’t good at the best of times. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Rush?’

‘Zander.’ He glanced at her sideways. Then, ‘How are you doing, anyway?’

What a question. Rejected. Humiliated. Talked about by eight million strangers. ‘I’m great. Never been better.’

His neat five o’clock shadow twisted with his lips. ‘That’s the spirit.’

Well, wasn’t this nice? A walk in the forest with a total stranger, making small talk. Her feet pressed to a halt. ‘I’m so sorry to be blunt, Mr Rush, but what do you want?’

He stopped and stared down at her, his eyes creasing. ‘That’s you being blunt?’

She shifted uncomfortably. But stayed silent. Silence was her friend.

‘OK, let me get to the point...’ He started off again. ‘I’m here in an official capacity. There is a contract issue to discuss.’

She knew it.

‘He said no, Mr Rush. That makes the contract rather hard to fulfil, don’t you think? For both of us.’ She hated how raw her voice sounded.

‘I understand—’

‘Do you? How many different ways do you hear your personal business being discussed each day? On social media, on the radio, on the bus, at the sandwich shop? I can’t get away from it.’

‘Have you thought about using it, rather than avoiding it?’

Was he serious? ‘I don’t want to use it.’

‘You were happy enough to use it for an all-expenses-paid wedding.’

Of course that was what he thought. In some ways she’d prefer people thought she was doing it for the money. That was at least less pathetic than the truth. ‘You’re here for your pound of flesh—I get that. Why not just tell me what you want me to do?’

Not that she would automatically be saying yes. But it bought her time to think.

Grey eyes slid sideways as his gloveless hands slid into his pockets. ‘I have a proposition for you. A way of addressing the contract. One that will be...mutually beneficial.’

‘Does it involve a time machine so that I can go back a month and never sign the stupid thing?’

Never give in to her mother’s pressure. Or her own desperate need for security.

His head dropped. ‘No. It doesn’t change the past. But it could change your future.’

She lifted her curiosity to him. ‘What?’

He paused at an ornate timber bench and waited for her to sit. Old-school gallantry. Even Dan didn’t do old school.