Kristin Gabriel - Sheerly Irresistible

“Ah, Petra.” Franco smiled. “She’s one of my favorite tenants. A little absentminded, though.”

That was putting it mildly. Petra always blamed her total inattention to detail on her muse. A former art professor at Penleigh, Claire’s godmother had been one of Marcus Dellafield’s best friends and a frequent visitor to their home. Bubbly and a little eccentric, Petra had more energy than many women half her age. She’d retired from teaching at sixty and moved to Manhattan, embarking on a very lucrative second career as a sculptress.

“Could you please let her know I’m here. My name is Claire Dellafield.”

“Love to, Claire,” Franco purred, “if you can front me the airfare to Bermuda. Petra left a week ago and I’m not sure when she’s coming back.”

Claire’s heart sunk to her toes. “Bermuda?”

He swished his toes in the pool water. “She’s competing in the senior division of the Ms. Universe fitness pageant. Knowing Petra, she’ll probably come home with the title.”

Claire shook her head. “Petra can’t be in Bermuda. She’s supposed to introduce me to a Mr. McLain. I’m subletting his apartment for the summer.”

He sighed. “You and everyone else in this city. There’s already a crowd up there waiting for the auction.”

“Auction?”

“Petra should have filled you in on all the juicy details, but she probably believed Tavish when he promised not to do it anymore.” Franco leaned forward and lowered his voice to a furtive whisper, even though they were alone in the foyer. “Tavish McLain auctions off his place every summer. Last year a blond ballerina and a Madonna clone battled over it. The ballerina even offered an incentive package, if you know what I mean. Tavish has a thing for blondes, so he enjoyed every minute of it.”

Claire leaned against the plate glass door, vaguely aware that the faint odor of the Dumpster still clung to her clothes. With Petra out of the country, she didn’t have anywhere else to go and certainly not enough money to spend the summer in a New York City hotel room. She wondered if camping in Central Park would be any more dangerous than pitching a tent on the African savannah.

Franco waved her away. “You’re blocking my sun. I’m trying to get a tan here.”

Then he groaned as another woman walked purposefully toward the building. “Here comes another one. How am I supposed to relax with people streaming in and out of here all day?”

Claire glanced at the woman who entered the foyer. She looked nice. And blond. Just McLain’s type—unless Claire got to him first. She turned back to Franco. “I need to see Tavish McLain. Immediately.”

“Password!”

“Can you give me a hint?”

“I’m waaaaaiiiiting,” Franco crooned.

“Toto,” the blonde ventured, her gaze on Franco’s arm.

“Close but no cigar.” Then he burst into the opening stanza of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” before collecting himself. “Are you here for the apartment?”

“Yes,” they replied simultaneously.

“This is McLain’s day of glory,” Franco declared. “The day he lives the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year dreaming of. He is surrounded by women.”

“We’d like to join them,” the blonde said.

Franco leaned closer to them and whispered, “You might try naming the actor who played the cowardly lion.”

Claire exchanged glances with the blonde, then they both blurted, “Bert Lahr.”

“Excellent,” Franco replied with a grin.

“Bert Lahr is the password, then?” the blonde asked.

“No. But I like the fact that you’re both Wizard of Oz movie buffs, so you may pass.”

Claire turned back to Franco as the blonde pressed the elevator button. “Now how about giving me a hint to win over McLain?”

Franco shrugged. “Like I said, he’s into blondes. But maybe you could show a little cleavage, wiggle your hips and see what happens.”

Claire glanced down at her tank top. Mitch Malone hadn’t seemed too impressed with her cleavage. Not that she should care about the opinion of a total stranger. A street-smart tough who probably treated women like toys. Definitely not her type.

Not by a long shot.

A loud ding announced the elevator’s arrival, breaking her reverie. She grabbed her suitcases and headed for the elevator, the blonde helping her heave the biggest one inside.

“Thanks,” Claire said, as the doors slid closed. “I’m Claire Dellafield.”

“A. J. Potter,” the blonde replied with an assessing glance. “I guess we’re competitors.”

She sighed. “I don’t have enough money to be much competition.”

“Want to join forces and bid together?”

Live with a complete stranger? “I don’t know. I…”

“Smart girl. Someone warned you about the big, bad city.” A.J. reached into her purse. “I just heard that the bidding might be brutal and I intend to win. Think about it.”

The elevator doors opened on the sixth floor and Claire dragged her suitcases into the crowded hallway. There were two other apartments on the floor, but it was obvious which one belonged to McLain. Dozens of people jammed around the open doorway.

“I think it’s going to take more than cleavage,” Claire muttered to herself. A dog growled and she turned to see a poodle in the arms of a woman wearing a pink caftan and matching pink bouffant hair.

“Hush, Cleo,” the older woman crooned to the dog. “That mean Mr. McLain is going away soon. Then you’ll have somebody new to take you on walksies.”

Claire and A.J. squeezed their way into the apartment just in time to hear the bidding war start. There were blondes in all shapes and sizes. Claire sank down on her big suitcase, wondering how could she possibly compete.

“This is ridiculous,” A.J. muttered, then whipped out her cell phone.

Claire looked up to see a tall brunette approaching them. At least she wasn’t the only nonblonde here.

The brunette glanced at A.J., then turned her attention back to Claire. “This is really something, isn’t it?”

“Not exactly what I expected.” She motioned to the suitcases. “I was planning to move in here today. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

The brunette shifted the package she held from one arm to the other. “This is your lucky day. I work for a hotel. Therefore, I can promise you won’t sleep on the street tonight. And you can treat yourself to a nice, hot bubble bath.”

Yikes. Maybe Claire wasn’t the only one who could smell the Dumpster on her clothes. But she wasn’t quite ready to declare herself a charity case yet. “I can’t—”

“Oh, I got that part,” the brunette said, lowering her voice. “You’d be in one of the unrentable rooms. No charge.”

This woman was trying to change the reputation of uncaring New Yorkers in one fell swoop. “Why would you do that? 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. laughed. “So do I, but they don’t come from giving away freebie hotel rooms.”

The brunette grinned at her. “Samantha Baldwin.”

“A. J. Potter.” The two women shook hands. “You sounded like a madam gathering the poor waif into her house of ill repute. I think you scared her.”

“I’m not scared,” Claire said, “just fascinated by abnormal human behavior. Abnormal for a New Yorker, anyway.”

She thought of Mitch’s behavior this afternoon and a flush of heat washed up her neck. Could the man have been any more oblivious to her? No one had ever called her a beauty, but men hadn’t run screaming from her, either. She was average weight and height, taller than A.J., but shorter than Samantha. She’d been tempted to highlight her long brown hair, but simply hadn’t found the time after taking over her father’s class schedule. Her unusual topaz brown eyes were her best feature and she often wondered if she’d inherited them from the mother who had given her up for adoption. She glanced down at the emerald ring on her right hand, the vibrant color reminding her of her father’s eyes. He’d given her the ring on her sixteenth birthday. They’d been on a research trip in South America that summer and she’d had a crush on one of his graduate students, but the man had been oblivious to her.