Very carefully, she asked, “Peyton, why exactly are you here?”
He leaned forward in the chair, hooking his hands together between his legs. His gaze never leaving hers, he said, “Exactly? I’m here because I didn’t know where else to go. There aren’t many people left in this city who remember me—”
Oh, she sincerely doubted that.
“And there are even fewer I care about seeing.”
That she could definitely believe.
“And I’m not supposed to go back to San Francisco until I’m, um—” he made a restless gesture with his hand, as if he were literally groping for the right word “—until I’m fit for the right kind of society.”
When Ava said nothing in response—because she honestly had no idea what to say—he expelled a restless breath and leaned back in the chair again.
Finally, point-blank, he said, “Ava, I want you to be my Henrietta Higgins.”
* * *
Peyton told himself he shouldn’t be surprised by Ava’s deer-in-the-headlights reaction. He’d had a similar one when the idea popped into his head as he was escaping Henry Higgins’s office the previous afternoon. But there was no way he could have kept working with that guy, and something told him anyone else was going to be just as bad or worse.
How was someone going to turn him from a sow’s ear into a silk purse if they didn’t even know how he’d become a sow’s ear in the first place? He’d never be a silk purse anyway. He needed to work with someone who understood that the best they could hope for would be to turn him into something in between. Like a...hmm...like maybe a cotton pigskin. Yeah, that’s it. Like a denim football. He could do that. He could go from a sow’s ear to a denim football. But he was still going to need help getting there. And it was going to have to be from someone who not only knew how to look and act in society, but who knew him and his limitations.
And who knew his limitations better than Ava? Who understood society better than Ava? Maybe she didn’t like him. Maybe he didn’t like her. But he knew her. And she knew him. That was more than he could say for all the Henry Higginses in the world. He and Ava had worked together once, in spite of their differences—they’d actually pulled off an A-minus on that World Civ project in high school. So why couldn’t they work together as adults? Hell, adults should be even better at putting aside their differences, right? Peyton worked with people he didn’t like all the time.
The tension between him and Ava on Saturday morning had probably just been a result of their shock at seeing each other again. Probably. Hey, they were being civil to each other now, weren’t they? Or at least they had been. Before he dropped the Henrietta Higgins bombshell and Ava went all catatonic on him.
“So what do you say, Ava?” he asked in an effort to get the conversation rolling again. “Think you could help me out here?”
“I, ah...” she nonanswered.
“I mean, this sort of thing is right up your alley, right? Even if you didn’t own a store that deals with, you know, fashion and stuff.”
Fashion and stuff?
Could he sound more like an adolescent? “You know all about how people are supposed to dress and act in social situations.”
“Yes, but...”
“And you know me well enough to not to dress me in purple.”
“Well, that’s certainly true, but...”
“And you’d talk to me the right way. Like you wouldn’t say—” He adopted what he thought was a damned good impression of the man who had tried to dress him in purple. “‘Mr. Moss, would you be ever so kind as to cease usage of the vulgar sort of language we decided earlier might be a detriment to your reception by the ladies whom you are doing your best to impress.’ You’d just say, ‘Peyton, the Montgomerys are going to wash your mouth out with soap if you don’t stop dropping the F-bomb.’ And just like that, I’d know what the hell you were talking about, and I’d do it right away.”
This time, Ava only arched an eyebrow in what could have been amusement or censure...or something else he probably didn’t want to identify.
“Okay, so maybe I wouldn’t do it right away,” he qualified. “But at least I would know what you were talking about, and we could come to some sort of compromise.”
The eyebrow lowered, but the edge of her mouth twitched a little. Even though he wasn’t sure whether it was twitching up or down, Peyton decided to be optimistic. At least she hadn’t thrown anything at him.
“I just mean,” he said, “that you...that I...that we...” He blew out an irritated breath, sat up straighter, and looked her straight in the eye. “Look, Ava, I know we were never the best of friends...”
Even if we were—for one night, anyway—lovers,
he couldn’t help thinking. Hoping she wasn’t thinking that, too. Figuring she probably was. Not sure how he felt about any of it. “But I obviously need help with this new and improved me, and I’m not going to get it from some total stranger. I don’t know anyone here who could help me except you. Because you’re the only one here who knows me.”
“I
did
know you,” she corrected him. “When we were in high school. Neither of us is the person we were then.”
There was something in her voice that made Peyton hesitate. Although it was true that in a lot of ways he wasn’t the person he’d been in high school, Ava obviously still was. Maybe the adult wasn’t quite as snotty, vain or superficial as the girl had been, but she could still put a guy in his place. She was still classy. She was still beautiful. She was still out of his league. Hell, she hadn’t changed at all.
“So will you do it?” he asked, deliberately not giving her time to think it over.
She thought it over anyway. Dammit. Her gaze never left his, but he could almost hear the crackling of her brain synapses as she connected all the dots and came to her conclusions. He was relieved when she finally smiled.
Until she asked, “How much does the position pay?”
His mouth fell open. “Pay?”
She nodded. “Pay. Surely you were paying your previous stylist.”
“Well, yeah, but that was his job.”
She shrugged. “And your point would be?”
He didn’t know what his point was. He’d just figured Ava would help him out. He hadn’t planned on her being mercenary about it.
Wow. She really hadn’t changed since high school.
“Fine,” he said coolly. “I’ll pay you what I was paying him.” He named the figure, one that was way too high to pay anyone for telling people how to dress and talk and eat.
Ava shook her head. “No, you’ll have to do better than that.”
“What?”
“Peyton, if you want to make use of my expertise in this matter, then I expect to be compensated accordingly.”
Of course she did. Ava Brenner never did anything unless she was compensated.
“Fine,” he said again. “How much do you charge for your expertise?”
She thought for another minute, then quoted a figure fifty percent higher than what he had offered.
“You’re nuts,” he told her. “You could build the Taj Mahal for that.”
She said nothing.
He offered her 10 percent more.
She said nothing.
He offered her 25 percent more.
She tilted her head to one side.
He offered her 40 percent more.
“All right,” she said with a satisfied smile.
“Great,” he muttered.
“Well, I didn’t want to be unreasonable.”
This time Peyton was the one who said nothing. But he suddenly realized it wasn’t because he was irritated with their lopsided bargaining—as if Ava was any kind of bargain. It was because it felt kind of good to be sparring with her again. He remembered now how, despite the antagonism of their exchanges in high school, he’d always come away from them feeling weirdly energized and satisfied. Although he still sparred with plenty of people these days, none ever left him feeling the way he’d felt taking on Ava.
“But Peyton, you’ll have to do things my way,” she said, pulling him out of his musing.
Peyton hated it when people told him they had to do things any way other than his own. He waited for the resentment and hostility that normally came along with such demands to coil inside him. Instead, he felt strangely elated.
“All right,” he conceded. “We’ll do this your way.”
She grinned. He told himself it was smugly. But damned if she didn’t look kind of happy to have taken on the task, too.
Four
S
carcely an hour after Ava agreed to be Peyton’s makeover artist, she sat across from him at a table in a State Street restaurant. He’d asked her if they could get started right away, since he was eager to get on with his corporate takeover and had already lost a week to his previous stylist. And since—Hey, Ava, would ya look at that?—it was coming up on noon anyway, lunch sounded like a really good idea. After ensuring that one of her morning clerks would be able to pull an afternoon shift, too, Ava had agreed.
As surprised as she’d been by his request to help him out, she was even more surprised to realize she was happy to be doing it. Though not because he was paying her, since the figure she’d quoted him would barely cover the cost of the two additional salesclerks she’d need at Talk of the Town to cover for her. The strange happiness, she was certain, stemmed from the fact that she would finally be able to make amends for the way she had treated him in high school. It was that, and nothing more, that caused the funny buzz of delight that hummed inside her.
Anyway, what difference did it make? The point was that she would be helping Peyton become a gentleman, thereby ensuring he added to his already enormous financial empire. The point was that she would be performing enough good deeds over the next week or so to counter a lot of the mean things she’d said and done to him in high school. And the point was that, by helping him this way, she wouldn’t have to bare her soul about the specifics of her current lifestyle. Specifically, she wouldn’t have to tell him how she didn’t have any style in her life, save what she was surrounded by at work every day.
What would telling Peyton about what happened to her family sixteen years ago accomplish? It wouldn’t change anything. Why shouldn’t she just do this nice thing for him and make some small amends for her past? No harm, no foul. They could complete the mission, job well done, then he could be on his way back to the West Coast none the wiser.
Yeah. That’s the ticket.
She sighed inwardly as she looked at Peyton. Not because of how handsome he was sitting there looking at the menu—though he was certainly handsome sitting there looking at the menu—but because he was slumped forward with one elbow on the table, his chin settled in his hand. He had also preceded her to the table and seated himself without a second thought for her, then snatched up the menu as if it he hadn’t eaten in a week. Combined, the actions gave her some small inkling of what his previous Henry Higgins had been up against.
“Peyton,” she said quietly.
His gaze never left the menu. “Yeah?”
She said nothing until he looked up at her. She hoped he would realize she was setting an example for him to follow when she straightened in her chair and plucked the menu delicately from the table, laying her other hand in her lap.
He changed his posture not at all. “What is it?”
She threw her shoulders back and sat up even straighter.
“What?” he repeated, more irritably this time.
Fine. If he was going to behave like a child, she’d treat him like a child. “Sit up straight.”
He looked confused. “Say what?”
“Sit up straight.”
He narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth as if he were going to object, but she arched one eyebrow meaningfully and he closed his mouth again. To his credit, he also straightened in his chair and leaned against its back. She could tell he wasn’t happy about completing the action. But he did complete it.
“Take your elbow off the table,” she further instructed.
He frowned at her, but did as she said.
Satisfied she had his attention—maybe a little more than she wanted—she continued with her lesson. “Also, when you’re in a restaurant with a woman and the host is taking you to your table, you should always invite her to walk ahead of you and follow her so that—”
“But how will she know where she’s going if she’s walking ahead of me?” he interrupted.
Ava maintained her calm, teacherly persona. “This may come as a surprise to you, Peyton, but women can generally follow a restaurant host to a table every bit as well as a man can. Furthermore,” she hurried on when he opened his mouth to object again, “when the two of you arrive at the table, if the host doesn’t direct her to a chair and pull it out for her, then you need to do that.”
“But I thought you women hated it when men pull out a chair for you, or open the door for you, or do anything else for you.”
“Some women would prefer to do those things themselves, true, but not all women. Society has moved past a time when that kind of thing was viewed as sexist, and now it’s simply a matter of common—”
“Since when?” he barked. Interrupting her. Again. “The last time I opened a door for a woman, she about cleaned my clock for it.”
Ava managed to maintain her composure. “And when was that?”
He thought for a minute. “Actually, I think it was you who did that. I was on my way out of chemistry and you were on your way in.”
Ava remembered the episode well. “The reason I wanted to clean your clock wasn’t because you held the door open for me. It was because you and Tom Sellinger made woofing sounds as I walked through it.”
Instead of looking chagrined, Peyton grinned. “Oh, yeah. I forgot that part.”
“Anyway,”
she continued, “these days it’s a matter of common courtesy to open a door for someone—male or female—and to pull out a woman’s chair for her. But you’re right that some women prefer to do that themselves. You’ll know a woman who does by the way she chooses a chair when she arrives at the table and immediately pulls it out for herself. That’s a good indication that you don’t have to do it for her.”
“Gotcha,” he said. Still grinning. Damn him.
“But from what you’ve told me about the Misses Montgomery,” Ava said, “they’ll expect you to extend the courtesy to them.”
“Yeah, okay,” he muttered. “I guess you have a point.”
“Don’t mutter,” she said.
He narrowed his eyes at her again. But his voice was much clearer when he said, “Fine. The next time I’m in a restaurant with a woman, I’ll let her go first and watch for clues. Anything else?”
“Oh, yes,” Ava assured him enthusiastically. “We’ve only just begun. Once you sit down, let her open her menu first.” When he started to ask another question that would doubtless be more about when women had changed their minds about this sort of thing—as if women had ever stopped having the prerogative to change their minds about whatever they damned well pleased—she continued, “And when you’re looking at your menu, it’s nice to make conversation over the choices. Don’t just sit there staring at it until you make a decision. Ask your companion what she thinks looks good, too. If you’re in a restaurant where you’ve eaten before, you might even make suggestions about dishes you like.”
He considered her for another moment, then asked, “You’re not going to make me order for you, are you? I hate that.”
“
I
won’t make you order for
me,
” she said. “But some women like for men to do that.”
“Well, how the hell will I know if they want me to or not?”
Ava cleared her throat discreetly. He looked at her as if he had no idea why. She stood her silent ground. He replayed what he had just said, then rolled his eyes.
“Fine. How...will I know?” he enunciated clearly, pausing over the spot where the profanity had been.
“You’ll know because she’ll tell you what she’s planning to have, and when your waiter approaches, you’ll look at her, and she’ll look back at you and not say anything. If she looks at the waiter and says she’ll start with the crab bisque and then moves on to the salad course, you’ll know she’s going to order for herself.”
“So what do you think the Montgomerys will do?”
“I have no idea.”
“Dammit, Ava, I—”
She arched her eyebrow again. He growled his discontent.
“I hate this,” he finally hissed. “I hate having to act like someone I’m not.”
Ava disagreed that he was being forced to act like someone he wasn’t, since she was confident that somewhere deep inside he did have the potential to be a gentleman. In spite of that, she told him, “I know you do. And after your takeover of the Montgomerys’ company is finished, if you want to go back to your reprobate ways, no one will stop you. Until then, if you want your takeover to be successful, you’re going to have to do what I tell you.”
He blew out an exasperated sound and grumbled another ripe obscenity. So Ava snapped her menu shut and stood, collecting her purse from the back of her chair as she went.
“Hey!” he said as he rose, too, following her. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? You said you would help me out.”
She never broke stride. “Not if you won’t even try. I have better things to do with my afternoon than sit here watching you sulk and listening to you swear.”
“Yeah, I guess you could get a crapload of shopping done this afternoon, couldn’t you?” he replied. “Then you could hit that restaurant where you know everyone’s name. Some guy there will pull out your chair for you and do all the ordering. And I bet he never swears.”
She halted and spun around to face him. “You know, Peyton, I’m not sure you
are
fit for polite society. Go ahead and bulldoze your way over two nice old ladies. You were always much better at that than you were asking for something politely.”
Why had she thought this could work? Just because the two of them had managed to be civil to each other for ten minutes in her office? Yeah, right. Ten minutes was about the longest the two of them had ever been able to be in each other’s presence before the bombs began to drop.
Well, except for that night at her parents’ house, she remembered. Then again, that had been pretty explosive, too...
“Excuse me,” she said as civilly as she could before turning her back on him again and making her way toward the exit.
She took two steps before he caught her by the arm and spun her around. She was tempted to take advantage of the momentum to slam her purse into his shoulder, but one of them had to be a grown-up. And she was barely managing to do that herself.
She steeled herself for another round of combat, but he only said softly, sincerely, “I’m sorry.”
She relaxed. Some. “I forgive you.”
“Will you come back to the table? Please?”
She knew the apology hadn’t come easily for him. His use of the word
please
had probably been even harder. He was trying. Maybe the two of them would always be like fire and ice, but he was making an effort. It would be small of her not to give it—not to give him—another chance.
“Okay,” she said. “But, Peyton...” She deliberately left the statement unfinished. She’d made clear her terms already.
“I know,” he said. “I understand. And I promise I’ll do what you tell me to do. I promise to be what you want me to be.”
Well, Ava doubted that. Certainly Peyton would be able to do and say the things she told him to do and say. But be what she wanted him to be? That was never going to happen. He would never be forgiving of the way she had treated him in high school. He would never be able to see her as anything other than the queen bee she’d been then. He would never be her friend. Not that she blamed him for any of those things. The best she could hope for was that he would, after this, have better memories of her to replace the ugly ones. If nothing else, maybe, in the future, when—if—he thought of her, it would be with a little less acrimony.
And, hey, that wasn’t terrible, right?
“Let’s start over,” she said.
He nodded. “Okay.”
She was talking about the afternoon, of course. But she couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be if they could turn back the clock a couple of decades and start over there, too.
* * *
The last time Peyton was in a tailor’s shop—in fact, the only time Peyton was in a tailor’s shop—it had been a cut-rate establishment in his old neighborhood that had catered to low-budget weddings and proms. Which was why he’d been there in the first place, to rent a tux for Emerson’s prom. The place had been nothing like the mahogany-paneled, Persian-carpeted wonder in which he now stood. He always bought his clothes off the rack and wore whatever he yanked out of the closet. If the occasion was formal, there was the tux he’d bought at a warehouse sale not long after he graduated from college. His girlfriend at the time had dragged him there, and she’d deemed it a vintage De la Renta—whatever the hell that was—that would remain timeless forever. It had cost him forty bucks, which he’d figured was a pretty good deal for timelessness.
Ava, evidently, had other ideas. All it had taken was one look at the dozen articles of clothing he’d brought with him, and she’d concluded his entire wardrobe needed revamping. Sure, she’d been tactful enough to use phrases like
a little out-of-date
and
not the best fitting
and
lower tier.
The end result was the same. She’d hated everything he brought with him. And when he’d told her about the vintage De la Renta back in San Francisco and how he’d worn it as recently as a month ago, she’d looked as though she wanted to lose her breakfast.
Now she stood beside him in front of the tailor’s mirror, and Peyton studied her reflection instead of his own—all three panels of it. He still couldn’t get over how beautiful she was. The clingy leopard-print dress she’d worn the day before had been replaced by more casual attire today, a pair of baggy tan trousers and a creamy sweater made of some soft fuzzy stuff that didn’t cling at all. She’d left her hair down but still had it pulled back in a clip at her nape. He wondered what it took—besides going to bed—to make her wear it loose, the way it had been Saturday morning. Then again, as reasons went for a woman wearing her hair loose, going to bed was a pretty good one.
“Show him something formal in Givenchy,” she said, speaking to the tailor. “And bring him some suits from Hugo Boss. Darks. Maybe something with a small pinstripe. Nothing too reckless.”
The tailor was old enough to be Peyton’s grandfather, but at least his suit wasn’t purple. On the contrary, it was a sedate dark gray that was, even to Peyton’s untrained eye, impeccably cut. He had a tape measure around his neck, little black glasses perched on his nose and a tuft of white hair encircling his head from one ear to the other. His name was the very no-nonsense Mr. Endicott.