Can’t leave. Can’t give up, not yet. Ms. Right was somewhere out there, he just needed help finding her.
Although to look at Kimberly Logan, it was difficult to imagine this woman being a matchmaker. From the moment she’d sailed through the door, she’d seemed more like a machine than flesh and blood. Most women wearing a silk suit looked soft, feminine. Even though it was a nice shade of purple, it fit her like a suit of armor. That bun number only added to her strict look.
Snapping that pencil in two cinched it, though. This was a woman who needed some serious loosening up.
A woman who, also, from that perplexed look on her face, might appreciate an explanation for his strong reaction to that damn commercial. It’d be in his favor, too. If she understood what turned his crank, she’d know what to leave alone.
“I hated that commercial,” he muttered.
She arched an eyebrow.
He scrubbed a hand across his face. “That image—me looking like a meatball Zorro with a woman in my arms—is the last image the public has of The Phantom. Feels rotten for that to be my parting shot, you know? It’s my biggest regret in life, something I’ll never repeat again.”
She nodded, all poise and sophistication.
Reminded him of women from his past. The coiffed, moneyed ones who hung out ringside during matches and tipped their way backstage afterward. Women who were privileged, uptight and desperate for some guy they viewed as wild and bad to help them relax a little. He’d made the mistake of indulging a few of them, then realized their game. They didn’t want him.
They wanted The Phantom.
“So,” said Kimberly, pushing the burrito aside with her manicured pink nails. “Who is that man they discovered?”
“Pardon?”
“You said that women might love the persona, but not desire the man behind it,” she prompted. “And I was wondering, who did they discover behind the mask? I need to know you, understand your dating history so we can plan our strategy. That’s how we differ from other agencies, and why our success rate is so high. I’m your success coach, as you probably read in our ad. In that capacity, I work closely with you, get to know you, so I can maximize our approach for your success.”
Her clipped, assured tone was as smooth and polished as the furniture in this room. The only soft thing in the area was the sunlight from a corner window sifting through a ficus tree, creating a pattern of light and leaves on the floor as delicate as lace.
Plus, there was nothing personal in here. No family pictures, kids’ finger paintings, nothing to show she had a life other than work.
“Women didn’t like the homebody,” he admitted.
She raised her eyebrows, a signal for him to elaborate.
“Homebody,” he muttered, shifting in his seat. “You know, the guy who bakes brownies. Wants the picket fence and two-point-five kids.”
“I can’t imagine any woman not wanting that…”
“Oh, I can.” He snorted a laugh. “Nice guys finish last.”
“May I suggest,” she said gently, “that you’re a nice guy who maybe tries too hard?”
That hurt almost as much as a ringside body slam. “Baking brownies is trying too hard?”
“What do you do at night…besides bake?”
“Sit in my favorite armchair, listen to music. Watch cable if a good movie’s on.”
“While waiting by the phone.”
He shifted in his seat. “No.”
“Where’s the phone?”
“Next to the armchair.” Okay, she was smart. Uptight, but smart.
“You’re too available,” she said quietly. “People don’t respect someone who’s at their beck and call.” Her eyes softened, their pewter color shifting to a soft gray, and he wondered if she had firsthand experience in this area.
She took a sip of her coffee and set it down. “We need to make you more…unattainable.”
Kimberly jotted a note on the application, then put down her pen. “I have an approach that would work excellently for you. I’ve used it before with men and they’ve all ended up married to the woman of their fantasies within a year. I call it my Bad Boy Makeover.”
He frowned. He knew it. These regimented types always loved the bad boys. “I don’t want to be bad.”
“Wasn’t The Phantom bad?”
“He was known for defeating evil, saving the woman.”
“We’ll be doing something similar. Women eat it up. You’ll have to turn the ringer off on your phone because so many of them will be calling you.” She opened a drawer. “Let me get my notes, explain in a bit more detail.”
She extracted a navy-blue folder. “Here we go!” she said, opening it. “Step one,” she read. “Look like a bad boy. Step two, act like a bad boy. Step three, make women melt. Step four, kiss her ’til she whimpers. Step five, love her ’til she screams. Step six, pick ‘the One.’”
He blinked, digesting the stream of words, all punctuated with bad-boy this and that. He’d once dated a woman who loved writing “Honey-Do” lists, which had struck him as odd considering all she needed to do was ask him for help and he’d be there.
But this success coach’s bad-boy list was stupid. A perversion of a honey-do list. If you want a honey, do this. And this. What was step five? Love her ’til she screams? This edgy, armored broad thought she was going to teach him how to do that?
Was she freaking crazy?
He tapped his finger on the chair of the arm, figuring he could be out of her office and back on the street in ten strides.
Last chance for love, buddy.
He cleared his throat, rubbed a spot on his forehead. “And, uh, these work?”
“I’ve had an eighty-five percent success rate. Like I said, women love bad boys.” She leaned forward, a seductive look softening her features.
And for a moment, he saw something he liked in her. Something tender, almost needy. The opposite of everything she plastered on her earnest, coiffed self. And in that moment, he had a flash of understanding about this woman. Just as she externally made over others, she’d done so with herself.
And he wondered what was so soft, so vulnerable inside that she’d built this fortress of a person.
“I can make you over in three months,” she said.
Three months? In ninety days, he finally might have the one thing that had eluded him all these years. A loving partner, someone with whom to share his life, his dreams. A woman he could coddle and pamper and love for the rest of his life.
But a makeover?
Celine wailed about never finding love again.
“I’ll do it,” said Nigel.
2
Step one: Look like a bad boy
“LOOK LIKE A BAD BOY,” Nigel muttered to himself the next morning, giving his head a slow shake. He thought back to all the times he’d made one of his three kid sisters go back to her room and change clothes that were too tight, too low cut, too short before leaving the house. How many times had he reprimanded them, “Dressing bad isn’t good.” Who knew those words would come back to haunt him.
Come to find out, once you were grown-up,