Operation Prince Charming Read online

  She plunked the elegant soup bowls, then salad plates down on the table. She didn’t care if they were accidently chipped, cracked, or even smashed to bits.

  Ali was certain all right. Like her marriage, they no longer held any sentimental value.

  Ali paused, her ears perking up.

  There it goes again, she thought.

  The nearly constant sound of trickling water coming from the bathroom down the hall pricked her nerves as she arranged the plates, then added flatware and glasses.

  She’d already picked up the repair supplies, and her tools were in her office. Hopefully she could put a stop to that running toilet before Hunter arrived.

  She glanced at her wristwatch. He’d be here in less than an hour. She fussed with a fork, even though they wouldn’t be eating.

  Finally, she took a step back and admired the beautifully set table. If it were anywhere but here, one would think it was a romantic table for two at a four-star restaurant.

  However, this beautifully set formal table was all business—exactly as Ali would be when she saw Hunter Coleman.

  Hunter listened to Erica’s recorded voice instructing the caller to leave a message.

  Not bothering to leave another one, he flipped his cell phone closed and returned it to the holder clipped to his belt. So much for Erica giving him a reason not to scrap this charm school crap and join the other detectives on his shift, who were by now on their second round of beers.

  Heaving a weary sigh, he shut off the basketball game on the radio and threw open the driver’s-side door of his black Dodge Challenger. During work hours he drove a department-issued Chevy Malibu, but on his own time he preferred his own ride.

  Hunter had given Erica his word. That alone would have to be reason enough not to blow off his first etiquette class.

  He used the short walk from the curb to the school’s door to push images of watching tonight’s basketball playoff game on a sixty-three-inch flat-screen at Big Johnny’s sports bar from his mind.

  He was here now. He yanked open the front door. Might as well make the best of it.

  There was no one in the reception area, but the lights were still on, so he figured someone had to be around.

  “Hello,” he called out.

  “I’m in here,” Ali said.

  Hunter wasn’t sure exactly where “in here” was, but he followed her voice down the hallway to the ladies’ room door.

  “You okay in there?” he asked, through the slightly cracked door, wondering if she had taken ill.

  “Sure, come on in.”

  The splintered door squeaked against its rusty hinges as he slowly pushed it open. Hunter wasn’t sure what he’d expected to find. Twelve years of serving and protecting the public had taught him to anticipate anything.

  Still, the last thing he expected to see was Ali, in a pink palm-tree-print dress, pearls around her neck and her arms buried up to the elbows in a toilet tank.

  “What’s wrong with it?” he asked, wondering if it was something he could fix. Hell, if he had a choice between a charm school lesson and rescuing her from a broken toilet, he’d take the toilet.

  “It’s been running,” she said. “So I’m replacing the flapper.”

  From its subway-station-green walls to the tiny black-and-white hexagonal floor tiles, the bathroom was a throwback to another era. It was as if time had marched ahead and left it back in the 1950s.

  “Want me to take a look at it for you?”

  “No, thank you, I’m almost done,” she said, not bothering to look up from the tank.

  He watched her crouch down and turn on the water at the shut-off valve. When the tank filled, she flushed it and waited a few moments.

  “Great, it drained. No need to adjust the chain or trip lever,” she said more to herself than him.

  She exhaled before looking at him. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover this evening. Give me a second to wash up, and I’ll be right with you,” she said. “Everything is already set up in the classroom down the hall and on the right. It’s two doors down from my office. You remember where my office is, don’t you?”

  Hunter scratched his head as he retreated, his brain struggling to reconcile the image of the petite, pink-clad manners expert with the apparently capable, amateur plumber.

  His initial dread returned full force as he walked into the classroom. Front and center was a table set for two and loaded with enough perfectly arranged crystal, china, and cutlery to serve a dozen people.

  Ali joined him a few moments later.

  “Looks like I owe you another apology. Sorry to have kept you waiting again. I meant to have that project done before you arrived, but it took longer than I’d expected.”

  “I admit, I didn’t expect to find you up to your elbows in a toilet,” he chuckled.

  She shrugged. “It’s an old building. Unfortunately, my list of repairs is longer than my arm.”

  “So you’re the handyman…eh, I mean handywoman…as well as teacher here.”

  Ali nodded.

  “I’m impressed.”

  She smiled at him. Not the perfunctory smile he’d seen her give to the little girls’ mothers the other day or the cool one she’d used with him. This genuine smile reached her eyes and warmed her entire face.

  “My aunt taught me formal dinner protocol, but it was my dad who made sure I knew how to handle a toolbox,” she said. “He’s a plumber by trade, but there isn’t anything he can’t fix.”

  “Really? I’m in the process of rehabbing a 1920s bungalow,” Hunter blurted out before he realized it, and for the life of him, he didn’t know why he said it to her, of all people.

  He rarely talked about the house left to him by his grandmother. He hadn’t mentioned it to Erica or told his family he’d gone back inside the house after all these years, let alone let them know he’d started renovations.

  “Sounds like a big job.”

  “I’d thought so, but the structure is sound. It just needs some elbow grease.” He thought of the tiny dent he’d made in the long to-do list. “Lots of it.”

  “I’d love to see it sometime.” Her small hand went to her mouth, and he was disappointed to see her high-wattage smile dim. She looked as if she wanted to take back her words.

  “That would be great,” he said, wondering what he’d said to spook her. “I just finished the kitchen, and I haven’t had a chance to show it off yet.”

  The generic version of her smile returned as she nodded, and he could practically feel the wall go up around her. He didn’t know Ali Spencer, but whoever had hurt her had done a helluva job.

  “We’re going to cover formal dining tonight,” she said, directing his attention to the table.

  “That’s a lot of forks,” he said. And glasses and plates, he thought.

  Sure, he’d attended the occasional formal event for work and managed to eat without making an ass of himself. Then again, he suspected his fellow diners hadn’t known any more about the correct fork to use than he had.

  “It’s not as complicated as it looks,” Ali said.

  Yeah, right, he thought, figuring the line was an etiquette teacher’s version of the dentist’s “this won’t hurt a bit.”

  “Seriously, it’s really simple,” she said. “I tend to start with formal dining because it’s the easiest lesson.”

  “If you say so,” he said, unconvinced.

  “First, I like to get my basic dinner no-nos out of the way. Some of them may seem obvious to you, but I always like to make sure my clients and I are on the same page.”

  “Okay, shoot.”

  “No smacking, finger licking, teeth sucking, burping, cell phones”—she paused to breathe—“and absolutely no dangling a toothpick from your lips.”

  “You actually have to tell people this?”

  Ali rolled her eyes skyward. “You’d be surprised,” she said. “But if you already know better and are a quick study, I just might be able to get you out of here in time t
o catch the second half of the basketball game.”

  “How’d you know?” he asked, surprised.

  She glanced at the small Memphis Grizzlies emblem on his polo shirt. “I figured you for a fan,” she said.

  Hunter felt his facial muscles twitch upward into the beginnings of smile, and he rubbed his hands together. “Well, what are we waiting on? Let’s get to it.”

  She sidled up next to him, and he caught the scent of her perfume. The fragrance was the same fresh, citrusy scent.

  “First, you need to make sure you’re reaching for your own bread plate and water glass.” Ali pointed to a small plate, the entrée plate and a glass. “Your bread plate will always be on your left and your water glass to your right. An easy way to remember this are the letters B M W, like the car, but in this case it stands for bread, meal, and water.”

  “Got it,” he said. The quicker he caught on, the sooner he could get out of here.

  “Okay, then have a seat and we’ll move on to silverware.”

  Ali spent the next hour briefing him on the fine points of formal dining. He had to admit she was right. It wasn’t nearly as complicated as the arsenal of tableware suggested.

  “Now we’ll go over it one last time, only you’ll point out the utensils and their purpose to me.”

  She reached over to put a fish fork back into place at the same time he went for his salad fork. Their hands brushed, and she drew back as if she’d been burned.

  “Is something wrong?”

  She shook her head. “No,” she said, averting her eyes. “I’m just waiting on you to get started so we can wrap up for the evening.”

  Hunter recapped the lesson, even remembering to leave his knife and fork in the position she said would signal a waiter he was done.

  “Excellent,” she said.

  He wasn’t sure why, but Ali’s praise made him feel good. “Is that it?”

  She nodded. “Next lesson, we’re going to put what you learned tonight in action with real food in a formal atmosphere. Instead of here, we’ll meet at the restaurant,” she said, then filled him in on the time and place.

  All through the lesson he’d only looked forward to the end of it. Now that it was over, he wasn’t so eager to leave. Ali Spencer had piqued his curiosity.

  Hunter knew she was none of his business, but his teacher intrigued him. He looked forward to finding out more about this enigma of a woman at the next lesson, over dinner.

  How on earth was she going to get through another lesson with him?

  Ali peeled the silver foil off another chocolate and dropped the wrapper atop the growing pile accumulating on her kitchen countertop.

  Popping the candy into her mouth, she recalled how an accidental brush of his hand had nearly made her jump out of her skin. However, the sweet, creamy chocolate failed to erase the memory of contact so electric she’d wondered if he’d felt it too.

  “Get it together,” she scolded herself.

  Catching the blinking red light on her answering machine out the corner of her eye, Ali jabbed the button and then crossed her fingers.

  Hopefully, her agent, Leo, was finally returning her calls and had good news. Or maybe one of the résumés she’d sent out had caught a newspaper’s interest.

  Leo’s voice filled the one-bedroom garden apartment, and for a nanosecond, she allowed herself to feel a sliver of optimism.

  “Just getting back with you,” he said. “Again, nothing’s changed, but I’ll give you a call if something breaks.”

  She grabbed another piece of candy from the open bag on the counter. Why did she even bother? Nobody was looking to hire a disgraced etiquette expert. Not after the smear job her ex-husband and her former best friend had done on her.

  A digitized voice announced the time of the second message.

  “Hi, Alison. It’s Edward Wilson. Our aunts are friends. Anyway, I thought you might like to go out sometime. Give me a call.”

  Ali gave the machine an eye roll and scribbled his number on the pad she kept by the phone. Edward sounded like a nice enough guy, but she wasn’t interested. She’d go out with him, but only on one date and only to get her aunt off her back.

  The third message was from her friend and a sports columnist for her former paper, Lynn. Ali pressed FAST FORWARD to the forth, then fifth message both from Lynn. Then the phone rang, in the middle of Lynn’s third message, startling Ali.

  It was Lynn. Again.

  Ali snatched up the receiver. “What on earth is it?”

  “I’m been trying to reach you all evening. How come you aren’t answering your cell?”

  “Late class.” Toeing off her shoes, Ali padded over to the living room with the bag of candy and sat down on the sofa. She eased back onto the cushions. “So, what’s going on?”

  “I wanted to tell you before word got out,” Lynn started. “I know you were hoping the paper would reconsider and ask you to come back, after the whole hubbub settled down, but…”

  Ali’s stomach did a free fall to her toes. “They found a replacement, didn’t they?”

  “They hired Kay.”

  Ali stood abruptly, sending chocolates flying across the nondescript beige carpeting. Not her, she thought fiercely.

  First, Brian. Now her job.

  “Al, are you there?”

  “Yes, I’m here,” Ali croaked.

  “I’m sorry, Al. I didn’t want to tell you, but I’d hate to see you blindsided by the news.”

  “But I don’t understand,” Ali stammered. “How can they take her seriously as a journalist or an expert on protocol? She was an unemployed Web designer when I hired her to be my assistant.”

  “I know. I asked the same thing when I marched into the powers-that-be offices the moment I heard. They claim the combination of what she learned from you and her Web background will help them branch out beyond print and attract more online readers.”

  “Oh,” Ali said softy, still absorbing the fact that she’d trained the woman, who’d stolen her husband, to take her job.

  “I know you’re too polite to say it, but it’s a load of crap and we both know it. They do too.”

  Although, after the paper had let her go they’d implied she could eventually be rehired, she’d known it was a long shot. Still, deep down she’d held out hope.

  This sealed it.

  No column. No new book deal. No television show. Her life as south Florida’s guru on proper behavior really was over.

  “Thanks for telling me, Lynn.”

  “Come on, girl. You’re in a new city making a fresh start,” her friend said.

  Fresh start? She was treading water at a school that would close soon if she couldn’t generate more business. Ali beat back a wave of self-pity as she hung up the phone.

  For a fresh start, this felt an awful lot like rock bottom.

  Chapter Four

  Erica Boyd paced the length of her living room, the plush velvet carpet absorbing her angry steps.

  She didn’t like what she was hearing.

  The fact that she was paying a lot of money for poor results irked her even more.

  “I’m so sorry, Miss Boyd,” her latest publicist said.

  Erica stopped midstep and glared at her, somewhat gratified to see the dark circles under her eyes. She had summoned the woman to her penthouse at dawn, moments after the morning paper had arrived, and she’d seen the glaring omission.

  Carrie McDaniel had showed within the hour, balancing a box of warm Krispy Kreme donuts and two vanilla lattes, which Erica assumed she’d brought to mollify her.

  The publicist sat on a gold-cushioned armchair, while Erica stomped back and forth in front of her, still dressed in her ivory, silk dressing gown. Carrie wore a bland beige pantsuit. Her hair, usually flat-ironed straight, was a halo of springy red curls surrounding her freckled face, and her bleary eyes were glued to the open society page on her lap.

  Erica snatched the paper. She stared at the photos from the art exhibition again
. Maybe if she stared at them long enough, her likeness would magically appear.

  “I sponsored this stupid artist and his stupid showing,” she ranted, thumping the paper with her hand. “Yet I’m not in any of these pictures. They didn’t even mention my name!”

  “I don’t know how this happened,” Carrie said.

  “It’s your job to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen.” Erica tossed the newspaper onto an end table and it landed with a thump next to Carrie’s fat-laden offerings. She’d already fired two publicists and another had quit on her.

  But she’d had high hopes for Carrie. The young woman had just opened up her own firm and was eager to please. She’d also come up with the brilliant suggestion to smooth down Hunter’s rough edges with a bit of charm school.

  Hunter.

  The memory of him in her bed sent a delicious shiver from Erica’s core down to her slipper-shod toes. Unfortunately, outside the bedroom their relationship was sliding rapidly downhill.

  She loved the envious looks she got from other women when she stepped into a room on Hunter’s arm. She didn’t want to let him go, unless she absolutely had to. She hoped she could count on that prissy old bat at the Spencer School to do her job and get him in line.

  However, if Carrie didn’t do a better job of garnering her some good publicity, she wouldn’t hesitate to let her go.

  “Did you position yourself close to the artist when the photographers were around, like we talked about?” Carrie asked.

  “Of course I did.” Erica snatched the paper off the table and pointed out a photo of the artist standing next to a couple, who’d raved over his watercolor rendition of a moonlit forest.

  Erica had thought a toddler with a box of crayons could have produced a better “masterpiece,” but had fallen into line with the majority and feigned delight over his use of light and angles.

  “There’s my arm. I recognize my diamond and sapphire bracelet and my cocktail ring,” she said. “As you can see, the rest of me was cropped out.”

  “But I talked to the reporter personally,” Carrie said.

  Erica shook her head. “Your job is to get me press and attention, and I’m not happy with your lack of results.”