Slightly Settled

Top Two Don'ts for the Office Party

Don't dress in a revealing manner. (Translation: Don't wear the sexy scarlet, size-eight dress you couldn't fit into three months ago. The one that flaunts your firmed-up cleavage and newly discovered collarbones.)

Don't make a spectacle of yourself. (Translation: Don't get drunk and make out with a really cute stranger for the whole company to see; he could turn out to be your boss's roommate.)

I didn't follow those tips, and here I am with a hot new man in my life, Jack.

But my friends are asking if I really want to bump into my boss in his boxers in the hallway of their apartment. After all, I am aiming for a promotion. And now, not only does my ex want me back, but the guy I used to think was Mr. Right just kissed me!

Three months ago I couldn't hold on to one guy. Now three want me. When did my life become so complicated?

About the author

Wendy Markham is a pseudonym for bestselling, award-winning novelist Wendy Corsi Staub, who has written more than 40 fiction and non-fiction books for adults and teenagers in various genres—among them contemporary and historical romance, suspense, mystery, television and movie tie-in and biography. She has coauthored a hardcover mystery series with former New York City mayor Ed Koch and has ghostwritten books for various well-known personalities, including the cover model Fabio. A small-town girl at heart, she was born and raised in Dunkirk, New York, on the shores of Lake Erie and in the heart of the western New York snowbelt. Wendy was in the third grade when she declared that she intended to become an author when she grew up. With that unwavering goal in mind, encouraged by her remarkably supportive parents, she moved alone to Manhattan at age 21. Wendy worked as an office temp, freelance copywriter, advertising account coordinator and book editor before selling her first novel, which went on to win the Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best Young Adult Book. She has since received numerous positive reviews and achieved bestseller status, most notably for the psychological suspense novels she writes under her own name. Very happily married with two children, Wendy now writes full-time and lives in a cosy old house in suburban New York, proving that childhood dreams really can come true.