The Nerd Prince

By Ellen Fisher

Two wounded people who've sworn off love...

Women. Who needs 'em? Ever since his wife left him for another man--and a balding, dweeby orthodontist, at that--Cade Ryan has lost interest in anything but video games. But when he meets the gorgeous, fun cellist upstairs, he finds himself not hating women quite as much. In fact, he finds himself interested in women again... and one woman in particular.

Men. Who needs 'em? After a string of lousy boyfriends, Shell Anderson has sworn off dating, preferring to spend her spare time with her cat. At first the video-playing nerd downstairs doesn't tempt her to change her mind. If she were to go down that path again, it would be with a guy who could at least support himself. But there's something in the eyes behind the coke-bottle glasses that makes her think maybe, just maybe, he's not a nerd, but a prince...

Length: Novella, 18,500 words. This book has been previously published.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ellen Fisher
• Release date: Feb 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465867520

Ellen Fisher

I'm an author of romance who writes, or tries to, around plenty of distractions. I have four kids ranging from six to sixteen, and two young and energetic Australian shepherds.My first book (a colonial Virginia romance entitled The Light in the Darkness) was published by Bantam in 1998. A few years later, I started writing ebooks. Overall, I've published thirteen novels and novellas, ranging from historicals to sci-fi romance to contemporaries. You can visit me at www.ellenfisherromance.com .

Book preview

The Nerd Prince

by Ellen Fisher

Copyright 2006 by Ellen Fisher

Cover design copyright 2012 by T.M. Roy

Smashwords Edition

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Goddamn it. There was that horrible noise again.

Cade Ryan dropped the controller for his video game and stood up. Unable to focus on saving the world by killing bloodthirsty aliens, he stalked restlessly away from the television and toward the source of what he’d come to think of as That Godawful Racket.

Dreadful, tuneless squawks drifted down from above him, like a celestial angelic harp choir gone insanely tone deaf.  He stood there and stared at the ceiling, clenching his teeth with fury.

If only Rhoda hadn’t dumped him for a dweeby, balding orthodontist, he wouldn’t be stuck in this damned apartment with paper-thin walls, listening to the sound of his next-door neighbors as they grunted atop a squeaking bedframe. Hearing a dog (in a supposedly canine-free apartment building) bark nonstop. Listening to That Godawful Racket.

Now Rhoda had the house. A perfectly good house. A rather nice house, in fact. A house some people might characterize as a mansion. Considering she was the one who’d ended their marriage, he should have been the one to keep the house, but he’d been so hurt and furious he’d simply walked out. And now he had absolutely nothing but a tiny, barely furnished apartment, with only the grating, off-key sounds to keep him company.

Abruptly he snapped. He’d had enough. He spun and walked with purposeful, angry steps toward his cheap stereo system… pretty much the only thing he’d bothered to buy, besides a couple of pieces of flimsily constructed furniture. He leaned over, popped a CD into it, and turned the volume knob up almost as far as it would go.

Three seconds later, all hell broke loose.

*****

Shell Anderson drew the horsehair bow across the strings of her cello, bringing forth the atonal sounds of Schnittke’s cello sonata. She loved Schnittke, although his works weren’t as pretty as the Bach suites she’d been working on earlier. Schnittke was more of an acquired taste.

Abruptly a terrible noise erupted from the apartment below her, and she broke off with a squawk. Her sleek black cat, Dvorak, lifted his head and blinked his yellow eyes in sleepy reproach.

A guy had moved in below her a couple of months ago, but until today he’d been very quiet. Now it sounded like he was throwing a party for the whole block, or else trying to make himself deaf. And her as well, she thought with irritation, laying the cello carefully down on its side and placing the bow on the music stand.

She really needed to practice. But it wasn’t going to happen with that noise going on. She threw herself down on the couch, deciding to give him a few minutes. Maybe he’d turn it off. Dvorak stood up, stretched, and bounded into her lap, and she stroked his shining dark fur absently.

Fifteen minutes later, she couldn’t stand it any more.

*****

Shell stood outside the door of her downstairs neighbor. Here the racket was even more horrific. Out of the wall of sound she could barely pick out a saxophone, honking and wailing. She was amazed there wasn’t an angry crowd of people in the hall, beating on his door. Then again, it was the middle of the day on a Wednesday and most people weren’t home. That was the reason she had been practicing—she didn’t want to annoy her neighbors.

She knocked on the door. She wasn’t particularly surprised when he didn’t respond, since the noise was so loud he probably wouldn’t hear a bomb go off. She drew her fist back and pounded on the door as hard as she could.

Moments later the door opened, flooding the hallway with an unbelievable wave of sound, and she found herself facing a nerd.

There was really no other word she could think of that could describe him. He was somewhere around six feet tall, big and awkward-looking, with a mop of shaggy brownish hair, stooped shoulders, and dark eyes hidden behind thick glasses. He wore a baggy, rumpled gray sweatsuit that looked like it hadn’t been washed in a week, with a large stain of what appeared to be mustard adorning it.

He said something, but she couldn’t hear him over the music. "What?" she yelled.

He raised his voice. I said, are you selling Girl Scout cookies?

She bristled. Just because she happened to be a bit on the short side and had a slim figure didn’t mean she looked like a Girl Scout. She’d pulled her black hair back in a simple ponytail, and she was wearing a pair of jeans with one of the knees fraying, but she didn’t look that young. Did she?

Could you turn it down? she shouted.

He gazed at her a moment longer through his inch-thick lenses, then lifted one shoulder in a shrug and disappeared into his apartment. A moment later, the noise stopped.

But her ears were still ringing.

She tried to get a surreptitious glance into the apartment through the small crack he’d left, but all she saw was a futon and a cheap end table, the kind you could buy at Wal-Mart and put together yourself. There was a