An Excerpt from PRIDE, PREJUDICE, AND PUSH-UP BRAS

According to Jane Austen, a guy who’s rich and single should definitely be looking. Of course, Jane Austen lived two hundred years ago, didn’t own a cell phone or iPod, and never even heard of the Beatles.

            So I don’t give a rat’s ass what she thinks.

            I also don’t care if, thanks to my mom’s long-ago wacked fixation on Pride and Prejudice, my name is Elizabeth Bennet and my sisters’ names are Jane, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia. I’m eighteen and in charge of my own life, thank you very much. At least, I would be if I weren’t still living at home and too poor to get my own apartment without Dad’s help—which comes with big strings attached—and too stressed from watching over my sister Jane to fix my lack-of-cash situation.

            So, right now, I really needed to keep an eye on Jane.

            Rachel Langdon, my best friend ever since third grade, moved with her parents into this wildly deluxe condo at the beginning of September, and Rachel finally invited Jane and me over after classes today to check out the condo’s rooftop pool. I’d rather have Rachel still living next door than in a fancy condo a mile away, but a pool is a pool. Especially on a gorgeous Minnesota day in mid-September.

            While I swam a few laps in my trusty black-and-purple Speedo racing suit, Jane stripped down to a hot pink bikini, grabbed a chaise lounge, and checked out the guys hanging around the pool. Within ten seconds, five of them offered to get her something to drink, if not to hook up.

            So much for a nice swim. Groaning, I climbed out of the pool, grabbed a towel, and headed over to Jane.

            Rachel was stretched out on the chaise next to Jane, in brown-and-orange plaid bermudas, a Twins T-shirt, and a John Deere baseball hat pulled low over her forehead, reading an accounting textbook. It probably explained why none of the horde of guys slobbering all over Jane were paying any attention to Rachel. In fact, one sat down on Rachel’s shins as he stared at Jane, drooling.

            “Rachel?”

            She didn’t even glance at me, let alone shove the twerp off, so I figured she was either too embarrassed or too thrilled to say anything.

            I swatted him away, then moved on to Jane.

            She looked up at me, utterly innocent, when I started dripping all over her. I gave her The Look and got back a sweet smile. I said “Jaaaaane,” and her eyelashes fluttered.

            When one of the guys actually sighed, I grabbed her hand and yanked her off the chaise lounge, then stalked down to the far end of the pool, Jane firmly in tow.

            “Liz, please!” She hissed at me, probably because yelling out loud isn’t sweet, and Jane is the sweetest nineteen-year-old on earth. Sure, she’s guy crazy and so intent on finding Mr. Right that she forgets to go to class half the time, but sweet. In a crazed sort of way that guys never notice. “You didn’t have to drag me away. I barely said anything, and—”

            “Jane, you can’t find Mr. Right at the Langdons’ condo building.” I kept my voice low and my grip on Jane firm. “They have a pool. I’d like to get invited back. But when Mr. Right turns into Mr. Wrong, as he always does, and we suddenly have yet another place you can’t go, I lose my pool.”