Manny for Her: Hot & Heavy in Paradise, #5

By Dezi Dixon

Ellie Moore was in a jam and needed help on short notice. What was a girl to do when the mailman left a wedding invite in her mailbox? An invite from an ex boyfriend she still had feelings for who planned to marry the woman he picked rather than her. There could only be one answer. Call a hotter than hell manny to go as her date, that's what. She'd let him know she didn't have kids later.

Victor Scott worried he wouldn't be able to keep the bet he'd made with his friend one Vegas night weeks ago. Kids and him did not mix. When the call came for him to take their mother to a wedding he decided to play along for the evening.

One blind date leads to another, and the fact the whole thing started because of kids Ellie non existent children doesn't matter. They want a happy ever after, but someone's ex won't stand by and let that happen.

Warning: This book proves there's nothing like a woman scorned (even if that woman is her drag queen friend), a man who really knows the game of baseball, and an ex that realized the grass wasn't greener on the other side.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dezi Dixon
• Release date: Jan 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393828198

Book preview

Prologue

Ted

I tossed my last chip into the middle of the pile and scratched my thumb against the green felt on the poker table. Like a fucker, Little Willie grinned at me before laying down a stack of cards and stealing the entire pot of money. Asshole.

Screw this shit. I’d run out of cash.

Looks like I’ve taken you for it all, Ted, Willie said. The only thing that made me better was picturing my friend’s little weenie and knowing I’d at least beaten him in that department.

No, I’ve never been a guy who looked at other men’s peckers, but when your nickname is Little Willie a person has to wonder. No one knows where it started, but I imagine someone had inside intel.

Guys, I started off my impassioned plea. Give me one more game. This is my bachelor party in Vegas. I can’t go out without anything.

Zach laughed. Isn’t this the part where you say you already won because you got the hot girl?

I rolled my eyes. Yeah, that’s true too, but this is a disgrace. And it’s no lie Tina was the hottest woman I’d ever met. She did things no one else in their right mind would consider. But the fact I’d be privileged enough to marry her in two weekends didn’t mean I didn’t want to win at the table that night.

Come on, guys, Yale with his blond hair, blue eyes, and baby face said. Let’s give Ted one more chance to lose.

Fine, but not with money. I want something else this time, Xander King said.

What? I asked skeptically. These guys were my best friends in the entire world, but they were weird ass fuckers. I knew them. They’re sick, sadistic fucks and the alcohol had flowed all night long. I wouldn’t agree until they spelled out all the terms.

If I win, you fuckers have to wear chicken suits with little wangs, Xander said with a smile, for four hours downtown.

Dude, it’s Vegas. No one will notice. Yale shook his head. I’ve got something better. If I win everyone has to get a tattoo of my choice.

Fuck no, Zach said, echoing my thoughts.

A small tattoo. Yale rolled a chip between his fingers acting cool. Two inches or less, like Willie’s dick.

Willie threw a chip at Yale, but he ducked in time. Fine, but if I win, each of you has to have a wax job.

Wax what? I asked swallowing hard. I’d always been a hairy guy.

Willie smirked, which should have been a warning. Everywhere.

Only if you watch, you sick fuck, Victor said running fingers through his dirty blond hair and laughing. I’ll agree to the wax job, but if I win I want each of you to spend a day wearing ladies’ underwear and high heels on stage at an establishment of my choice.

Zach widened his eyes at him with a question. No one give him any more tequila. That man can’t handle his liquor. If I beat your asses, I want the lot of you to serenade my workers at a job site for three Britney Spears songs.

Ohhh, tragic, Yale yelled. Okay, Teddy, you’re left. Shoot us with your worst. He grinned as if he thought I couldn’t come up with anything terrifying.

I tapped the table twice, deciding how to word my bet for maximum screwage. If I win, each of you has to spend one week working for my nanny service. Around the table five men’s faces fell. Two of them gagged, thinking of babies and dirty diapers. It would be perfect.

Slowly each of them nodded their heads in agreement to the bets.

All right then. Let’s play cards, Little Willie said and cut the deck, sealing the fate on our futures.

1

Ellie

I stared at the fancy envelope on the table wondering where everything went wrong.

Benji was supposed to be my future. We met the first day of second grade and had been inseparable throughout school. He asked me to be his girlfriend our sophomore year in high school and shared my first kiss the night of our junior prom.

When he left to go to college at Northwestern, I wanted to follow, but I didn’t. My mom, all the family I had, was dying, and I stayed home to take care of her. Little did I know that by the time she passed away, my world would have fallen apart. Not only would I have lost my mother, but the love of my life too.

Now, sitting in my kitchen looking at an envelope that came in the mail from a Mr. and Mrs. Townsend, I wondered where things flew off the tracks. Benji had called to tell me things between us were over, saying being apart became too hard.

I can’t do the long-distance thing anymore, Ellebell, he’d said.

When I begged him to give us some time, he said it was too late. I pleaded with him, and that’s when I found out he’d met another woman, Maribeth.

Over the past couple of years, I had heard about what Benji was up to and the woman he picked over me. Friends of ours had met her, seen them as a couple. He had moved on, but I’d stayed stuck in the past. I hadn’t even dated since Benji and didn’t see myself with anyone but him. I had hoped he’d eventually agree, but if the wedding invitation on my table was any indication, I was wrong.

What I had trouble wrapping my mind around was the fact he wanted me at his wedding. We hadn’t said more than a handful of words to each other since we broke up, and I wasn’t sure what went through his mind that made him delusional enough to send me an invite. Who did that to someone they cared about? It was like rubbing salt in an open wound.

I slipped my finger under the flap and broke the wax seal. That’s right, Mr. and Mrs. Townsend even put a wax seal on this puppy. That was so far from what Benji and I used to talk about when we discussed our wedding. All that