By Magic Alone

by Tracy Madison

  Scot scratched his jaw in an effort to appear nonchalant, but his entire body angled forward. “This would make an excellent promotional opportunity for Magical Matchups, don’t you think?” He leaned back, bracing his head with his hands, letting his question simmer in the air. “Yep. I can see it now: a full page, full-color ad in the paper with the proof that my grandmother’s dating service is the best in Chicago. Hell, who’s going to argue when the owner of Introductions is a client?”

  I gasped. “You wouldn’t!”

  “Wouldn’t I?” he demanded. “Are you sure of that?”

  I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I was too busy envisioning closing the doors to Introductions and punching the clock at my father’s firm.

  “The way I see this is fairly simple,” he said. “You agree to handle this my way, you don’t do anything to hurt my grandmother, and I won’t tell her a thing. We’ll keep all of this”—he gestured to the envelope—“our little secret. It won’t be that bad. A few weeks, maybe a month, and it will all be over.” Looking into his eyes, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he meant every blasted word.

  “I’m not Snow White,” I muttered, taken back to my conversation with Kara about Disney heroines. “I’m Little Red Riding Hood. And you, Scot Raymond, are most definitely not a prince.” He was the wolf. The big, bad, blustery wolf.

  My statement, which should have perplexed him, squeezed out a laugh. “You’re mixing up your fables,” he said. “How about a straight answer?”

  “Yeah. Fine. Whatever.” I batted my eyelashes. “We’ll date. I can hardly wait to get started.”

  The words of agreement were no sooner out of my mouth than Scot was at the door. “You’re supposed to see my grandmother tomorrow evening. I expect you’ll make that appointment and share with her how excited you are.”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled. “Excited. So very excited.” God. There wasn’t any way Leslie was going to understand. How could she, when I didn’t?

  “Good. Don’t give her a reason to doubt you, Julia. This is as much for your well-being as it is for mine and hers.” Pulling the door open, he said, “And I’ll pick you up Saturday around seven. Casual.” And with that, he was gone.

  I could barely breathe, let alone process the events of the evening. For a girl who never dated, I suddenly had a booked weekend. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on your point of view—neither guy was all that interested in me.

  No longer in the mood for pizza or Seinfeld, I spent a few minutes putting everything away. On the path to my bedroom, I saw that Scot had forgotten his jacket. I went to it, touched the soft leather with one hand, and then, in a moment I would never admit to another living soul, bent over and breathed in deeply.

  Scot’s scent was there, swirling within the pungent aroma of the leather. A delicious curl of heat wove in, startling and scaring me. I stepped back and let go of the jacket as if it were on fire. The next several weeks were going to be hell.

  Chapter Six

  I woke Friday morning in a state of groggy, thick-headed awareness. The weight of another person on my bed clued me in before I even opened my eyes. When I did, it was with little surprise to find Leslie’s catlike gaze directly on me. She’d perched herself on the edge of the mattress but sat with her body slanted toward me. She held a Venti-sized cappuccino cup in her right hand, which she took great pleasure in waving in front of my nose.

  “Come on, sleepyhead,” she said. “Time to get up and face the day.”

  “What time would that be?” I struggled to a half-sitting position despite the strong compulsion to curl into a ball and return to sleep, and reached for the takeout cup. Leslie pulled it away and took an exaggerated sip. “That’s just mean,” I whined.

  “This one is mine. Yours is in the kitchen, so get out of bed and meet me there.”

  I knew we needed to talk. Heck, I wanted to talk. But after the many hours I’d stayed awake the night before, I wasn’t so sure how coherent I’d be. “What kind?” I asked.

  “This one is a soy, sugar-free vanilla with an extra shot and no whip.” Seeing my scowl she said, “Yours is full fat, full sugar, real dairy, and I had them load it with extra whipped cream.”

  “Nice, but—”

  “Caramel. Two extra shots, so it’s high-voltage.” She headed for my door. “Oh, and a doughnut. Cream filled.”

  “White or Bavarian?”

  “White.” Her lips twitched, and when I swung my legs off the bed, she grinned. “Yep, figured that would do the trick. Hurry up, though. It’s already seven thirty and I’m normally at work by now. So are you, for that matter.”

  “Day off,” I murmured.

  Leslie’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Really?” At my nod, she said. “Well, we can’t all have days off, so get a move on. Or I take the doughnut and coffee with me.”

  I nodded and stumbled to the bathroom. As a paralegal, Leslie had a job that was always crazy and, more often than not, long. Depending on the complexity of the cases she was assigned, and sometimes the publicity level, she could be in the office at five in the morning and not home again until eight or nine at night. Sometimes later. She loved what she did, though, so that made the hours easier to bear. So she said.

  I splashed cold water on my face in an effort to jar myself awake. It helped, but a shower would’ve been better. It wasn’t until I ran a brush through my hair that Leslie’s grin fully registered. The expression seemed to reinforce my earlier guess: Leslie believed Scot wanted to talk to me about her. Yeah. That would explain the coffee and doughnut, too. Which meant it was up to me to go out there and give her the bad news.

  Ugh. Double ugh. Returning to bed was becoming more appealing by the second. I hadn’t even begun to consider how to cover this particular topic with Leslie, let alone any of the others. Scot was right: this whole situation was a mess. It had the potential of ruining my friendship with Leslie and even harming my relationship with Kara, whom I’d known longer. Their friendship meant the world to me.

  Bracing my hands on the sink, I tried to think of the right words to say. Nothing came to me.

  Leslie’s voice filtered through the closed door. “Two more minutes and I’m coming in to get you.”

  I sighed. “No reason to. I’m on my way out.” But I couldn’t see how this was going to have a happy ending.

  When I entered the kitchen, Leslie was pulling the petrified dish of spaghetti from the microwave. Wrinkling her nose, she tossed it in the trash. “Okay, this is disgusting. How long has this been in here?”

  “Just since last night. I . . . ah . . . sort of forgot about it.” I gulped. “You know. With Scot showing up here and all.”

  Guarded hope swirled into her tawny eyes. “Wait. Don’t say anything until I’m ready. I want to hear everything, but let me heat up your coffee first.”

  Because two more minutes of waiting meant two additional minutes of guaranteed friendship, I nodded. I could always tell how good a mood Leslie was in by the care she took with her clothes and makeup. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Leslie always looked good. But some days she looked spectacular. This was one of those days.

  She wore her hair in an extravagant twist, with soft tendrils framing her face, drawing attention to her high, aristocratic cheekbones. Her cosmetics were applied lightly but with an expert hand, and she had on what she called her lucky suit. An Armani knockoff, it was still excellent and very well constructed. Pale pink, the soft, crepelike fabric swirled just above her knees, showing off her long legs. The fitted jacket cinched at her waistline, accentuating her curves, all but screaming “I am woman, hear me roar.”

  In other words, she looked like a million bucks. She knew it, too.

  I stifled a gasp. Oh, no. I’d worried about telling Leslie about Scot because of her regrets. Because of the friend code. But this was so much worse. That fact she’d worn that suit today said everything I needed to know: she still wanted Scot back.

  My two minutes were up. Leslie hande
d over my coffee and doughnut, plopped into one of the kitchen chairs, and motioned to the one next to her. She has long arms, so I chose the seat across the table and scooted back a little. Just in case.

  My friend sighed, a soft and breathy whisper of a sound that made my heart crack. “Here’s what I know: Scot called me yesterday and said he really needed to talk to you. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about, just that you probably wouldn’t want to see him. I didn’t understand that, but told him about your weakness for Vito’s. What’d he want?”

  I sipped my coffee before answering—mostly because once we started down this path, there would be no turning back. To give Leslie credit, she didn’t squirm once while waiting. “Yeah, he mentioned that. He . . . wanted to discuss his grandmother.”

  I watched Leslie carefully, waiting for her to absorb that information before I moved forward. The expectation in her eyes dimmed but didn’t completely disappear. “His grandmother? Why would he want to talk to you about his grandmother?”

  I twisted my fingers, wishing I had a paper clip. “She’s Verda.”

  “What?” Incomprehension colored Leslie’s tone as if I’d suddenly started speaking in French. Or Swahili. “That can’t be right.”

  “It is. She is, I mean. Verda is Scot’s grandmother.”

  “My Verda—I mean, Verda from Magical Matchups?” Leslie’s eyebrows rose. “Are you positive?”

  “Yeah.” I pushed out a smothered laugh. “Small world, right? Who’d have guessed that in a city this large, my greatest competitor is none other than your ex’s grandmother.”

  “Wow. I wasn’t expecting—” Leslie’s hold on her cup tightened enough that the lid popped off on one edge. “Why would Scot want to talk to you about Verda? You two don’t even know each other.”

  “Well, you see, that’s not completely true. Not anymore.” I licked my suddenly dry lips. “I visited Magical Matchups the other night, after dinner with my parents, and . . .” The words got stuck in my throat. I swallowed another mouthful of coffee, but it didn’t help.

  “You’re nervous,” Leslie said, stating the obvious. “Why? I think it’s awesome that you went to Magical Matchups. That was my—Kara’s—idea in the first place, remember?”

  “Yeah. Well . . .” I told myself to just get on with it. “There’s more to it, Les.”

  Puzzlement and unease flickered over my friend’s face. “I’m listening. You met Verda . . .?”

  “Yes. And we talked. And then Scot walked in.” I babbled out the rest of the story in a rush of blurred-together syllables. Most of the story, anyway. Let’s just say I hit the high points and hoped those would be enough. Through it all, Leslie stayed silent and played with her coffee cup, flipping the lid off and then snapping it back on. I found myself focusing on the sound rather than my own voice. Which actually helped in a strange way. After what felt like forever, I finished by saying, “And . . . um . . . that’s about everything.”

  Leslie slid backward in her chair. “So to wrap up, Verda believes you and Scot are destined for each other, Scot doesn’t want to break a promise to her, and you have agreed to date him for a few weeks.” She tapped her long, manicured, pink-painted nails on the table. “Maybe a month. Because if you don’t, he’ll rat you out and tell all of Chicago that you’re a client of Magical Matchups. Is that everything?”

  I coughed. “Pretty much, yes.”

  “I see.”

  Bracing myself for an explosion, I drained the rest of my coffee in one large swallow. She continued to click her nails and stare off into the distance.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Hm? Yep, I’m fine. Just piecing all of this together.”

  Huh. She didn’t look mad. Or hurt. In actuality, she appeared composed and calm. How odd was that? “So, this doesn’t upset you?”

  She blinked long, mascara-coated lashes. “Why would it?”

  “He’s your ex,” I pointed out. Never mind the fact that she wanted him back. “Isn’t that, like, friendship rule number one? Never date your best friend’s past boyfriends?”

  “But you’re not.”

  “But I am.” Combing my fingers through my hair, I sighed. “That’s what this conversation is about.”

  “Are you trying to upset me?” she asked.

  “No . . .?”

  “Are you dating Scot because you want to date Scot?”

  She’d worded the question calmly enough, but a thread of anxiety existed beneath the calm. I heard it plain as day. “No. I already told you—”

  “Are you interested in having a relationship with Scot?”

  “Hell, no.” That much I was sure of.

  “Do you want to roll around in bed with him and do naughty things?”

  Um. Yes? No? Honestly, I hadn’t quite decided on that, so I evaded the question with another truth. “Yeah, right. We could barely handle being in the same room together last night. And we were clothed.”

  She expelled a loud sigh of relief. “Then why should I be upset?”

  All of that and we were right back to square one. I figured I should be as honest as I could. “Perhaps because Verda has decided that Scot and I are a match.”

  “Verda’s wrong.” Leslie crushed her now-empty cup between her hands. “She has to be wrong, because you and Scot might as well exist on different planets.” She screwed her mouth into a misshapen grin. “And I am not referring to Venus and Mars.”

  “Okay, then, Leslie. I don’t know. I’m tired and cranky and I’ve been really worried about telling you all of this. I figured you’d be mad at me.”

  A real smile wreathed her face. “I was shocked at first. But now that the idea has set for a few minutes, I really am okay with it.”

  The ball of stress that had been weighing me down evaporated. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that. I swear, I’ll get out of this arrangement as soon as I can. I promise! Hopefully, I won’t have to go out with him more than a few times.”

  Leslie sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, effectively removing a layer of her lipstick in the process. “I don’t want you to try to get out of the arrangement, Julia. Don’t you see? This is perfect. If he’s dating you, I don’t have to worry about him falling for someone else, and while you’re dating him, you can try to convince him to give me—us—another chance.”

  Her request jarred me like a physical blow. “Exactly how am I supposed to accomplish that?”

  “Just . . . well, let him know that I’ve changed. That I’m not afraid of my feelings anymore, that my relationship philosophy isn’t the same as yours. Oh! And Verda! I’ll talk to her. And you can too! To try to convince her that I’m the better match for Scot.” Leslie’s guarded hope returned, shiny as a brand-new penny. “It could work.”

  “I don’t know. This doesn’t feel like a good idea,” I managed to say. “Scot . . . Well—”

  “What?” Leslie demanded. “Did he say something about me last night?”

  Oh, no. I didn’t want to tell her this. But averting my gaze, I nodded. What if her hope of getting back together with him was entirely impossible?

  “What did he say?”

  Chicken that I was, I tried the one maneuver that usually did the trick with Leslie. “Don’t you have to get to work?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said. “So the quicker you spit it out, the less late I’ll be.”

  I opened my mouth but closed it just as fast. Then I steadied myself and said, “Sweetie, he said that you two are over. That you know you’re over. He . . . ah . . . seemed pretty absolute.”

  She turned away. “Yeah. I know that. I haven’t shared this with you, but I contacted him a few weeks ago. Told him how sorry I was and that I’d like to give us another try. He shot me down, Julia.” Leslie shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “He said he forgave me, which is great and all, but . . . he also gave me the friend speech.”

  I took this new information in, and while I didn’t—couldn’t—comprehend the level
of misery my friend was going through, it cut me to the quick just the same. “And you still want me to do this? Talk to him and try to convince him to give your relationship another go? Even knowing how he feels?”

  She swallowed. “It’s probably a stupid idea. We only dated for a few months, and we haven’t seen each other for longer than that, but . . . I guess I’m not ready to give up on him after all. Not yet. So this—you pretending to date him—might help.”

  Her voice wavered, and that was what made my mind up. Leslie rarely broke down.

  “It might not make a difference,” I said. “He might not want to hear it, or maybe he really has moved past you, but if this is really this important to you, then—”

  Leslie bounded from her chair and squashed me in a tight hug. “Thank you! Thank you so much. I know it’s a long shot, and I won’t blame you if nothing changes.”

  Semi-uncomfortable, I patted Leslie on the back, trying to reconcile myself with what I’d just agreed. Was I nuts? Probably. Extracting myself from my friend’s grip I said, “There’s something else, though, Les. Scot doesn’t like me a heck of a lot, so anything I say might have the opposite effect.”

  “Take it slowly,” she suggested. “But really, Julia, if this doesn’t pan out, it’s okay. At least there’s now a chance, which is something I didn’t have yesterday.” Suddenly realizing the time, she gathered up her belongings and fluttered her fingers in a good-bye wave. “Now I really have to leave. Thank you so much!”

  I stayed at the table, staring at my untouched doughnut, for quite a while. Leslie’s parting statement should have put my fears to rest. I mean, as long as she understood that I wasn’t a miracle worker, there was no harm in going along with her plan. But I feared the light in her eyes and the spring in her step spelled disaster.

  Two hours later found me glaring at Verda’s envelope as if it were about to eat me alive. I didn’t know what to do: open it and go through everything to prove to Scot that I was the coldhearted bitch he thought but possibly save my company, or throw the dang thing away, forget I ever had it, and continue along at Introductions left to my own devices until the business either sank or swam. Sure, Verda was expecting me later today, but seeing as I’d agreed to date her grandson, I sort of figured she wouldn’t care whether or not I filled out the paperwork.