He turned for his door, but Ashley’s hand on his arm stopped him. It was as if he was wearing no jacket at all. The warmth of her touch cut right through the wool. He looked down at her slender fingers curved around his biceps.
“You can’t hide from things. You definitely can’t hide from me. I’m a very perceptive person. That’s why I have the job I do. I see things in people they don’t see in themselves.”
He turned his sights to her face, fighting the sensations coursing through his body. Warmth. Attraction. A deep, desperate desire to weave his fingers through her hair, cup the back of her head and claim the kiss he’d deprived himself of the night they went on their date. The look in her wide brown eyes was one of the most sincere he’d ever seen. It would’ve been so easy to give in to the way she made him feel at that instant. But he owed Lila too much. “Good night, Ms. George.”
She shook her head and patted him on the shoulder. “It’s Ashley, Chambers. You’ll get it eventually.”
Ashley had given Marcus a slew of top-secret nicknames—Tower of London for his stature, the Earl of Handsome for obvious reasons and the British Pain-in-the-Butt, reserved for moments like last night. She had very few problems figuring out most people. Marcus was another case. Why did he dislike her so much? After her scolding at the HOA meeting, she’d spent much of the night trying to sort it out. She’d devoted most of the ride to her office that morning to thinking about it, too. The man had it all. So why be so unhappy? Why be so closed off?
A knock came at Ashley’s office door. Grace from network publicity poked her head inside, her wavy auburn hair in a messy bun that only someone truly self-assured could pull off.
“You ready for me?” She didn’t wait for an answer, breezing into Ashley’s office in a tailored gray suit and heels. The benefit of having accepted the office space the network had offered was that meetings were a simple matter of strolling down the hall. The downside was being under their thumb.
Ashley nodded, untangling herself from confusing thoughts about Marcus. “Yes. Of course.” She collected a stack of papers on her desk, turned to a clean page on a legal pad and picked up a pen. It was time to get to work. There were several final details to discuss for the Manhattan Matchmaker premiere party.
“So? Do I dare ask what happened with your building board meeting last night?” Grace took a chair opposite Ashley’s desk, resting her laptop on her knees. Grace had been a champion of Ashley’s show from the very beginning, and they’d become good friends over the three years they’d worked together.
“They decided that one more complaint from the Tower of London and I have to hire a new contractor.”
Grace winced. “Ouch. Harsh.”
“Tell me about it.” The uneasy feeling in her stomach returned. Marcus had too much control over the one thing in her life that was strictly hers. “Bottom line? He hates me. That’s pretty clear by now, and I can’t get past the idea that it’s about more than the mess in the hall.”
“I can’t fathom anyone hating you, Ash. It sounds to me like he’s just an uptight guy. He shook your hand after a date. Who does that?”
“Don’t remind me.” Yet another piece of evidence supporting her supposition. Marcus simply disliked her. “Let’s just get to work. I have a million things to do before the party Thursday night. The people over at Peter Richie are going to strangle me if I don’t show up for my final dress fitting this afternoon.”
Grace shook her head in dismay. “Ash. Peter Richie is one of the hottest designers on the planet, he’s giving you a dress for your party and you still haven’t shown up for your final fitting? It’s two days away.”
“I know. I’m terrible.” The truth was that she’d been avoiding it. Peter had been gracious and generous, but she was keenly aware that the Manhattan Matchmaker had been afforded the luxury, not the real Ashley George. A designer making a couture gown for her? Ludicrous. The real Ashley had grown up with dresses her mother had made.
Grace opened up her laptop. “If you haven’t dealt with your dress, I don’t even want to guess the status of you finding a date.”
Ashley’s lips twisted into a tight bunch. She’d been hoping the network would forget they’d made the request for her to find a date for the premiere party. “They’re still insisting on this?”
“Yes. The premiere is a network function to publicize your show. And don’t forget they still haven’t given you an answer on the new show you pitched to them. You do not want to be anything less than a woman who says yes.”
“They’re just fixated on this because of those stupid gossip website photos.”
“The image of you buying ice cream and a candy bar on a Saturday night did not help your image. And that affects the ratings.”
“That was three weeks ago and I had the world’s worst PMS. It has nothing to do with not having a boyfriend.” Although if she’d had a boyfriend, she could have sent him out for the ice cream. “I hate the fact that anyone cares about this.”
Grace began tapping away at her laptop. “And not just a little. You know it’s the most popular topic on the Manhattan Matchmaker message boards. Your fans want to see you happy. They want to know that the woman who finds true love for everyone else can find it for herself. And the last time I checked, Ash, you live on this kind of attention.”
Actually, Ashley didn’t live on that kind of attention. She existed on it. She made money because of it. After she’d watched her parents struggle for years, working tirelessly and never getting ahead, it was nice to know she’d broken that particular family tradition.
Ashley sucked in a deep breath. “You’re going to have to set me up with someone or call a male escort service. I have no prospects.”
“No way. Word will get out if I try to arrange something. I can just see it in the papers.” With a dramatic sweep of both hands, Grace made a nightmare materialize. “The Manhattan Matchmaker Can’t Find Her Own Match.”
“Hey. That’s not fair. You know I’m intentionally taking a break from men.”
“And my grandmother would say that you fall off the horse, you need to get right back on it.”
“Yeah, well, my saddle is out of commission. I haven’t even been on a real date since James broke up with me.”
Grace’s eyes flickered in a way that made Ashley squirm. “That’s not true. The Tower of London? You’ve been on a date with him.”
It felt as though Ashley’s heart had seized up in her chest. “No. That was not a date. It was a disaster.”
“He asked you out. That counts as a date.” Grace scooted forward in her seat, her eyes brimming with entirely too much excitement. “Just think. If you get him to come to the party, it’ll be that much harder for him to complain about your apartment.”
“What about ‘familiarity breeds contempt’?”
“Now you’re just making excuses. What’s his real name again? Marcus...” She glanced down at her computer and began typing.
“Chambers,” Ashley grumbled. How exactly was this going to work? Oh, wait. It wouldn’t. Marcus would say no, and that would make every hallway encounter excruciatingly miserable.
“Here he is.” Grace nodded as she looked at her laptop screen, her eyes scanning back and forth. “Chambers Gin...famous British family...divorce.” She looked up. “Divorce?”
“Yes. I told you that. Remember? He has a baby. Lila. I don’t really know much other than his wife came from a prestigious family, too, and whatever happened between the two of them, she took off six weeks after the baby was