“Seven?”

“Seven would be okay.”

“I’ll ring your room.”

“Great. See you then.” She watched him walk out of the lobby and controlled the urge to jump up and down.

Her first night in New York and she had a date! Not only a date, but one with a guy who came recommended by her very friendly taxi driver. Even better, this highly recommended, date-worthy person looked like he’d stepped out of the pages of GQ. New York was going to be incredible.


MARIO RETURNED TO THE coffee stand feeling smug. Maybe he shouldn’t take credit, though, because he’d been wrong about not leading with the tuna. The tuna had made all the difference. He only hoped this Cupid operation wasn’t too late.

After finding a parking spot near Iris’s stand, he sauntered over, unable to hold back a smile of triumph. He waited until Iris had finished serving an espresso to a long-haired college student toting a heavy backpack.

She counted out change to the student. “Gracias, señor.” Then she turned to Mario, her dark eyebrows arched. “Well?”

“He’s calling her this morning.”

“Bueno!” Iris clapped her hands together. “That boy needs a sweetheart.”

“You’re telling me. He’s so focused on success after Adrienne worked him over that he’s ready to bulldoze some poor guy out of a corner office.”

“That’s bad.”

“It’s not so much him as that boss of his.” Mario took the small porcelain cup of espresso Iris handed him. “Thanks, Iris.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out some money, but she waved it away. “Hey.” He tried again to give her the money. “You can’t be serving me free coffee.”

“You can give free taxi rides but I can’t give free coffee?”

He met the challenge in her dark eyes. She had spirit, and he admired that. “Thank you.”

“Da nada. So Zach will take away someone’s job?”

“I don’t know about that, but he definitely has his eye on a big bonus and a better office, which is currently occupied by a guy named Ed. Ed’s older and isn’t producing like he used to. Zach thinks the big boss wants to squeeze Ed out, even though he’s a nice guy and treats his clients great.”

Iris clucked her tongue.

“Yeah, it sucks. I know it happens all the time, but I hate to see Zach buying into it. If he doesn’t watch out, he’ll get as ruthless as the boss.”

“This woman, you think she’ll be good for him, then?”

Mario pictured Hannah Robertson in her yellow sundress and flowered suitcase held together with duct tape. “Oh, yeah. She’s exactly what the doctor ordered.”


ALL THROUGH THE DAY Zach kept telling himself that just because he was taking Hannah Robertson to dinner didn’t mean he’d end up taped to Mario’s dash. If and when the time came for him to find someone and settle down, he would do the picking, not some guy who’d seen Fiddler on the Roof once too often. Although matchmaking was cute when it happened to other people, Zach wasn’t about to fall for that program.

But a guy would have to be made of stone not to be kind to a woman who brought cans of tuna to New York so she could pass them out to the city’s homeless population. It also didn’t hurt that she’d looked like a ray of sunshine standing in that dingy hotel lobby. Her red hair was glorious, a deep copper color. She also had brown eyes, which might explain why her sundress had revealed a golden tan rather than pale skin dotted with freckles.

Taking Hannah Robertson to dinner would be no hardship. Getting her the right publishing contacts might be. Zach had asked around, and the consensus seemed to be that Ed had a client who was a publishing bigwig. This was the day that Drake Medford would inform Ed that he would probably be losing his corner office come the first of the month. Under the circumstances, Zach thought asking Ed for a personal favor today was just wrong.

So he’d called his cookbook guy and milked that contact for a couple of tenuous leads. It wasn’t much, but it was better than going to dinner empty-handed.

Partly because he didn’t have much to tell her and partly because he kept thinking of how good she’d looked in yellow, he bought a bouquet of daisies and yellow roses before hopping on the bus that would take him to the stop closest to the Pearson. Going to dinner with Hannah was turning out to be the best part of his day. Every time he’d passed Ed’s office he’d cringed at the idea that he was driving the guy out. Although he’d told himself not to worry, he was worrying, anyway.

So dinner was a terrific distraction. He’d made reservations at a Thai place on Restaurant Row, and they could walk there and back from her hotel. He wasn’t opposed to taking a cab, but Mario wasn’t on duty yet and Zach had become picky about his cabs after riding with Mario.

Fire trucks drove screaming past the bus as it stopped where Zach wanted off. When the sirens abruptly quit, Zach paused at the front of the bus, bouquet in hand, to lean down and peer through the bus’s windshield to see where the trucks had ended up. Damn it, the fire trucks, lights flashing, sat smack-dab in front of the Pearson!

Galloping down the steps to the pavement, Zach headed off at a run. The Pearson wasn’t as tall as some hotels, but tall enough, more than thirty stories. The fire escapes were probably old and rusty. A horrible image of Hannah dangling from a rope made of knotted sheets made his stomach churn.

Hotel guests came streaming out of the tiny lobby as the firefighters went charging in. Zach couldn’t see any smoke, but that didn’t mean anything. The fire could be in a hallway or an elevator shaft. Now he could hear the hotel’s fire alarm, a grating beep, beep, beep that sent sweat running down his spine.

Then Hannah-barefoot and wearing a thin flowered bathrobe-came out of the hotel. Relief emptied his lungs, making him dizzy as he stood a few feet away catching his breath. Now that he could see she was fine, he felt a little silly. He’d pretty much overreacted, considering he barely knew her.

What was that all about? It was probably Mario’s fault. The guy had portrayed Hannah as an innocent plopped down into the big, bad city. The message had been clear-Zach was supposed to be her knight in shining armor.

He’d thought that message had rolled right off his back, and yet the evidence said otherwise. When he hadn’t been able to reach her this morning he’d hopped a bus and dashed over to make sure she was okay. Then he’d raced to the hotel because a couple of fire trucks were sitting there. And he still hadn’t seen any smoke.

Hannah looked upset, though. Wending her way through the guests, she padded over to a fireman stationed by the front door and started an earnest conversation, waving her arms as she talked. Zach couldn’t help but notice how sexy she looked standing there in her bathrobe and bare feet, her hair catching the glow from the revolving lights on top of the fire engine.

Finally he decided to walk over and make his presence known. Everything she owned could be going up in flames right now. He pictured himself taking out his credit card, just like in the commercials, and buying her a new wardrobe while “My Girl” played in the background. It was a stupid idea, but it ran through his head, anyway.

As he walked toward her, she stuck her hands in the pockets of the bathrobe and gazed up at the fireman. “So I’m really, really sorry,” she said. “But the room smelled so stale and musty.”

“Next time, buy some Glade, lady.” The fireman turned away and clicked a button on the walkie-talkie clipped to his shoulder. “Sammy, check out Room 538. Seems one of the guests was burning sage as an air freshener. That could be the problem.”

Zach groaned. Far from being the victim, Hannah had been the perp.

At the sound, she turned and gasped. “Zach! Omigod, is it seven already?”

“Five after.” Zach tried not to stare at her cleavage, but the bathrobe had gaped open and he could see…a lot. He now knew that she was wearing a black lace bra with a front clasp, that she had no discernible tan line so she might have been out in the sun topless, and that she had a cute little mole on her left breast.

“I am so embarrassed. The room didn’t smell good, so I found a little shop that sells incense and stuff. Sage works great at home. I was afraid the smoke was a little too heavy, so I tried to get the window open but it was painted shut.” She gestured around her. “You see what happened.”

“I see.” He was seeing way too much for a first date, that was for sure, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the view.

“And you brought flowers.” The way she said it sounded as if he’d brought her the Hope diamond.

He’d forgotten he was clutching them. In the two-block dash to the hotel, he’d broken a couple of daisy stalks, and the blossoms hung their little heads. “Uh, yeah.” He plucked the blossoms off and stuck them in his pocket. “Here.”

“They’re beautiful.” She buried her nose in the bouquet and one of the naked stalks almost poked her in the eye.

“Hold on a minute.” He jerked the bouquet back.

She looked startled. “What’s the matter?”

“Stalks.” He pulled them out and handed it back to her. She was showing signs of being accident prone. In a place like New York, that wouldn’t be good.

“I don’t mind a few stalks.” She held the bouquet out and admired it. “I’ll bet you bought this from one of the sidewalk vendors.”

“I did, actually.”

“I love that. I’ve been in New York a mere twelve hours, and I’ve already eaten a soft pretzel, passed out five cans of tuna and received a bouquet from a sidewalk flower shop.” She threw both hands in the air like an Olympic athlete at a medal ceremony. “I’ve arrived!”

“I guess so.” Zach wasn’t used to dramatic displays in a crowd of people. He glanced around to see if anyone was staring. They were. “I’m glad you like the flowers.”

“I don’t like the flowers.”

“You don’t? I thought you just said-”

She laughed. “I love the flowers.”

“Oh.” Zach couldn’t remember the last time he’d been with someone who had this much energy, and according to Mario, she’d come in on the red-eye. “I guess you took a nap today, huh?”

“Are you kidding? Who could sleep on their first day in New York? I’ve walked up and down Fifth Avenue and through most of Central Park. I would have gone up to the top of the Empire State Building, but I ran out of time.”

“All clear, folks!” said the fireman stationed at the door. “You can return to your rooms now!”

Hannah produced her key from the pocket of her bathrobe. “Come on up with me while I finish getting dressed. The lobby’s too small to hang out in. Well, my room’s not very big, either, but I can’t make you wait in the lobby. Someone’s usually sitting in the chairs.”

“That’s okay. I can wait in the lobby.” Zach was already on sensory overload with all those peeks at her black bra. Being alone with her in her room might bring on some unwanted developments, like a woody. He prided himself on having more control than that, but Hannah pushed all his buttons.

Had Mario known that would happen? Maybe Zach had seriously underestimated the taxi driver’s skills when it came to matchmaking. Nah, not even Mario could have predicted that Hannah would end up on the sidewalk in her bathrobe, which turned Zach’s thoughts to bedrooms, and soft sheets and naked bodies.

“Oh, come on up,” Hannah said. “I won’t compromise your virtue. I’ll get dressed in the bathroom.”

If he didn’t go along with her suggestion, he’d look like a prude. “Okay. Sure.”

The ride up in the elevator posed no temptation. The elevator was crowded with people returning to their rooms.

A cross-looking woman standing next to Hannah glanced at her. “Were you the one who set off the fire alarm?”

“I was.” Hannah looked repentant. “And I apologize.”

“I should hope so!” The woman looked indignant. “I was watching the Yankees, and Derek Jeter was up to bat. I hate it when I miss one of his times at bat.”

“Here.” Hannah pulled a rose out of her bouquet. “Take this as a gesture of peace.”

The woman blinked. “Um, thanks.” She took the rose and brought it slowly to her nose. “Smells good.”

“Anybody else want a rose?” Hannah held up her bouquet. “I’m the bad guy here, but thanks to my friend, I have a way to make amends.”

“I’ll take one,” said a guy in a T-shirt and jeans.

“Me, too,” said an older woman in a baggy sweat suit. “I’m twenty minutes late for my medication. I need some aromatherapy for the stress.”

“Be my guest.” Hannah presented a rose first to the T-shirt guy and then to the lady who’d missed her meds.

“I wouldn’t mind one,” said a young woman sporting several tattoos. “I just broke up with my boyfriend so this fire alarm makes a bad day even worse.”