not fair!”
“I can’t go that high!”
“Tavish promised to rent this place to me for eight hundred.”
As pandemonium broke loose around her, A.J. pulled out her checkbook and cell phone. Women surged around her in waves, some heading toward the stairs, others toward the door. The tall brunette with the package was pushed up next to Claire’s biggest suitcase.
“This is ridiculous.” Tapping her foot, A.J. punched numbers into the cell phone, and waited. After counting ten rings, she decided that Roger, now besieged by blond ambition, was not going to take her call. Finally, she turned to the two women beside her. She’d overheard enough of their conversation to understand that the brunette had just offered Claire a free room at the hotel she worked at.
“Why would you do that?” Claire asked. “You don’t even know me.”
“Because I can. Because helping the sisterhood was something my mother drilled into me. And, hey, I get off on warm fuzzy feelings in my tummy.”
A.J. smiled. She was beginning to like the tall determined woman with the box. “So do I, but they don’t always come from giving away freebie hotel rooms.”
The woman returned her smile. “Samantha Baldwin.”
A.J. shook the offered hand. “A. J. Potter. You sounded a little like a madam gathering a poor waif into her house of ill repute. I already made the same first great impression on her. I think we scared her.”
“I’m not scared,” said Claire. “Just fascinated by abnormal human behavior. Abnormal for a New Yorker, that is.”
Making a sudden decision, A.J. pulled out her Palm Pilot and checked on the information Roger, the broker, had given her. Then she turned her attention back to the two women. “According to my information, this place has three bedrooms.”
“I don’t smoke. I can do eighteen hundred a month, but I don’t want to.”
A.J. couldn’t help but admire Samantha’s quick uptake and no-nonsense style. “Nonsmoker. I’m in for two grand.”
“You’d get the big bedroom then.”
Perfectly in sync, they both looked at Claire.
“What’s your name?” A.J. asked.
“Claire Dellafield. Why?”
“Get with the program,” Samantha said. “We’re forming a rental coalition. You want in?”
Claire stood. “You mean we’d room together?”
“Mental functions seem to be intact,” said A.J. “Do you smoke?”
Claire shook her head. “But I can learn.”
Samantha laughed. “She’s in for the entertainment value alone.”
A.J. nodded her agreement. Plus, she guessed Claire needed this apartment as much as they did. “How much can you contribute to the rent?”
Claire drew in a deep breath. “Eight hundred.”
“That’s forty-six hundred. Surely the rent won’t go any higher,” A.J. said.
Just then, the door to the apartment swung open and two men entered.
“Tavish!” several blondes squealed as they ran towards him, arms outstretched.
“Let this play out,” A.J. suggested. Getting a handle on the opposition always paid off in the courtroom.
Samantha and Claire took her advice, but it wasn’t a pretty sight. The women were fawning all over the man in a sage-green faux leather vest—with fringe. A.J. knew the type well. He might dress a little less conservatively, but Tavish Mclain reminded her of all the rich, middle-aged, self-absorbed Mr. Perfects that her aunt had been setting her up with for the past year.
The dates from hell were one of her prime motivations for getting out of her aunt and uncle’s home. Aunt Margery’s mission was to marry her off before she disgraced the family the way her mother had. With that whole scenario off her plate, she figured she could concentrate all her attention on making her uncle take her more seriously at the law firm. For the past year, her assignments at Hancock, Potter and King had consisted of real estate closings and research. She was the only Potter woman to join the firm since it had been founded, and she definitely didn’t fit into the good old boy network.
But she was going to. And if she could prove herself at the law firm, maybe her aunt and uncle would stop worrying that she would follow in her mother’s footsteps and they would finally accept her.
She needed this apartment. But as she rose once more to her toes and saw the bevy of blondes waving checks in Tavish’s face, she feared the odds of getting it were slipping away. She remembered what Franco Rossi had said about this being the day Tavish Mclain lived the other 364 days for. She could see why. One woman was literally pawing his vest.
A.J. glanced at her two companions. No, they were definitely not the pawing types—which was why she liked them.
Hmmmm. Tapping her foot, she was desperately searching her mind for a different approach when Samantha said, “Stand in front of me.”
A.J. watched her tear the brown paper off the package she was holding.
“What are you doing?” Claire asked.
“I’ve got something in here that may convince Mr. Mclain to give us anything we want.”
“What?” A.J. asked. “A gun?”
“Even better,” Samantha replied, pulling out a wad of silky, black fabric. “A magic skirt.”
A.J. exchanged a skeptical glance with Claire. Then Claire cleared her throat. “Did you say a magic skirt?”
“I know it sounds crazy,” Samantha said as she shook out wrinkles, then began to pull it on over the skirt she was wearing. “But it’s a regular man-magnet. According to the legend, it’s woven out of a special fiber that will make men do anything for the woman who wears it. It’s even supposed to have the power to bring your true love to you…yada, yada, yada.”
“You’re kidding, right?” A.J. watched her shimmy out of the old skirt underneath. The “magic” garment was simple, black, basic. She could have sworn she had one just like it in her closet. She’d bought it at Bloomingdale’s right after Christmas. A quick look around told her that the only one paying any attention to Samantha’s quick change routine was the elderly lady with the poodle and the rock.
“Look, I don’t believe it either, but it can’t hurt,” Samantha said to A.J.
A.J. had to agree with her on that. Jumping up, she glimpsed a blonde with black lipstick, pulling out her pen, ready to sign on the dotted line.
“Follow me, ladies,” Samantha said. Then, leading the way, she cut a path through the sea of blondes toward the man in the fringed green vest.
A.J.
