Moonstruck In Manhattan

“I want you,” Zach said. “But there’s no room. We can’t.”

“Oh, but we can,” Chelsea corrected, drawing his mouth to hers.

Sensations flooded through him as her mouth moved on his, her tongue probing. Her heat, her scent, her taste, swirled in his head until he couldn’t separate them. All night long, he’d watched while she danced in other men’s arms. Now she was his. Slipping his fingers beneath the thin straps on her shoulders, he began to push them aside.

“No.” Chelsea drew back. “You can’t take off my top. I’m sewn into it. If you loosen it, the skirt won’t stay up.”

“Damn the skirt,” Zach said. “I need to touch you. I’ve been waiting to touch you all day. And you dragged me into this closet….”

“To have my wicked way with you.” Settling back on the shelf, Chelsea grinned seductively. Then, taking his hands, she ran them along her thighs, pushing the skirt out of the way. “Now, Zach, don’t tell me you’re complaining….”

Dear Reader,

What happens when a single girl navigating her way through the dating scene in a big city gets a little help from a skirt that has the power to draw men like a magnet?

That’s what the heroine of Moonstruck in Manhattan is about to discover!

Sick of the singles scene in the Big Apple, Chelsea Brockway has sworn off dating, period! From now on, she’s just going to write about it. And she sees her friend’s supposed man-magnet skirt as her ticket to a lucrative contract with Metropolitan magazine. All she has to do is prove to Zach McDaniels, the sexy new editor-in-chief, that the skirt works. And it does, all too well….

If you enjoyed Moonstruck in Manhattan, don’t miss the rest of the SINGLE IN THE CITY miniseries: Tempted in Texas by Heather MacAllister in January 2002, and Seduced in Seattle by Kristin Gabriel in February 2002. In the meantime, I hope Zach and Chelsea’s romantic adventures will brighten your holiday season.

Happy Holidays!

Cara Summers

P.S. I love to hear from readers. Write to me at P.O. Box 718, Fayetteville, NY, 13066. And check out our Web site at www.singleinthecity.org!

Books by Cara Summers

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

813—OTHERWISE ENGAGED

HARLEQUIN DUETS

40—MISTLETOE & MAYHEM

56—THE LIFE OF RILEY

Moonstruck in Manhattan

Cara Summers

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my Aunt Kathleen—for introducing me to Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey Twins when I was seven. And for always being there for me—in the best of times and in the worst of times.

To my Uncle Jimmy, too—and to the romance that you and Aunt Kathleen have lived together.

I love you both.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

Prologue

“THE BRIDE is not going to throw her bouquet.” Chelsea made a wide sweep with her foot under the table and located the sandals she’d kicked off earlier. Her feet were killing her. Getting married on a California beach at sunrise sounded romantic. But it wasn’t so much fun when the bridesmaids had to walk around the rest of the day with sand in their shoes.

“What are you talking about? She has to throw her bouquet!” Gwen said. “Torrie is the most conventional person I know.”

“I might even get up the energy to make a try for it. That is if I could believe catching a bunch of posies would get me a decent date,” Kate said.

“A date? What’s that?” Gwen asked.

“It’s been that long, huh?” Chelsea asked and then joined in the laughter. After rooming together during their senior year in college, she and Kate and Gwen had each gone on to pursue career goals in separate cities. But they’d managed to keep in touch by phone. Chelsea couldn’t help recalling how often they’d had similar conversations over the years, discussing the dating wasteland they’d encountered in the big city. And the dangers, she thought as a little band of pain tightened around her heart.

Loud cheers and whistles drew their attention to a raised platform at the far end of the dance floor where the groom was removing the garter from the bride’s leg.

“You’ve got to be wrong, Chels,” Kate said starting to rise from the table. “The bouquet comes right after the garter.”

Chelsea grabbed her arm. “But it’s not the bouquet she’s going to toss. It’s the skirt.”

Her two friends stared at her, comprehension, surprise and finally amusement flickering across their faces.

“Not the man-magnet skirt?” Gwen asked.

“The one she picked up on that island during her cruise?”

“You got it,” Chelsea said. They’d all listened countless times to the story of how Torrie’s cruise ship, blown off course by a storm, had dropped anchor at a small out-of-the-way island, and how she’d found this little shop where an elderly seamstress had sold her a special skirt. According to the woman, each spring, the old ladies of the island gathered on a moonlit beach to spin the fibers of the lunua plant into thread. Any woman who wore a garment woven out of this thread that had been supposedly “kissed by moonlight” would draw men like a magnet. And one of those men would be her soul mate.

Privately, Chelsea had always wondered if those island women had been sitting on that beach smoking the fibers and spinning stories instead of thread. While the skirt was a great basic black that fit Torrie perfectly, none of them had ever been able to see anything special about the “fibers” or the “thread.” Still, Torrie swore by it, crediting the skirt with attracting men every time she put it on. And now she claimed it had brought her new husband to her.

“You’re putting us on,” Gwen said, glancing at the bride and groom. “She’s not going to toss the skirt. She doesn’t even have it up there with her.”

“She’s wearing it,” Chelsea said. As if on cue, Torrie began to hike up the yards of satin cascading from her waist. “She told me she wasn’t going to take it off until he said, ‘I do.’”

When the three of them pushed back their chairs and rose as one, Kate said, “This is not a very good testimonial to being single in the city. We’ve all got to be desperate to believe in a moon-kissed skirt!”

“I want to catch it,” Chelsea said.

Gwen and Kate turned to stare at her.

“You? We thought you’d sworn off men after Boyd the bum.”

Kate’s elbow cut Gwen short. “We’re not going to mention his name ever again. Remember? A low-life cad like that does not deserve one more minute of our time. And I think it’s great that you’re going to throw yourself back into the dating jungle, Chels. At least one of us should be out there.”

“Oh, but I’m not…I mean…,” Chelsea paused, touched by the concern she saw in her friends’ eyes. Truthfully, she didn’t want the skirt to attract men. She had entirely different plans for Torrie’s man-magnet skirt. But Kate and Gwen looked so happy for her…

“You go, girl.” Gwen said. “If she tosses it our way, we’ll swat it to you.”

“Love you,” Chelsea said, throwing her arms around them for a quick, three-way hug.

By the time they’d elbowed their way in front of the other single women who’d crowded onto the dance floor, Torrie’s wedding dress was back in place and she’d begun to swing the skirt over her head like a lasso.

As Chelsea watched it move in a circle, she thought she saw a silvery flash of light like the glitter of the moon on the rippling surface of the sea. Then suddenly, the skirt was sailing through the air. Leaping high, she snagged just the edge of the fabric between her fingers.

A cheer went up around her and a funny little tingle shot through her as she clutched the skirt close to her chest.

A special plant and the kiss of moonlight? Ridiculous. However, a skirt that supposedly acted like a magnet on men was just the kind of gimmick she needed to sell her next article to Metropolitan magazine.

Glancing down at it, she thought she caught just a glint of silver again, and an image filled her mind—she was sitting behind an editor’s desk at Metropolitan, pen in hand, writing a regular column.

That was her dream.

It was just her imagination that for a split second she’d seen a man in that chair with her.

1

“TAKE IT OFF. Take it all off!” Leaning over the top of the bar, Daryl shot Chelsea one of his five hundred-megawatt smiles.

She stared at her roommate as she pulled her coat more tightly around her. “Right here? In the middle of the restaurant?” She waved a hand toward the wall of windows separating them from a steady stream of pedestrian traffic. “With half of Manhattan looking on?”

“Sweetie, you said it couldn’t wait until I got off work.”

“It can’t,” Chelsea said. “I wouldn’t have bothered you here if it wasn’t an emergency. Couldn’t you take a break and we could go into one of the private dining rooms?”

Daryl rolled his eyes as he swiped a cloth over the top of the gleaming bar. His long dark hair was pulled back and fastened at the nape of his neck and small gold hoops hung from his ears. “Christmas is exactly a week away. And while I know that it’s not your favorite holiday, the rest of the world goes all out for it. The private dining rooms are booked solid. If you want my help with that skirt, you’re going to have to unveil it right here, right now, before the place gets really busy.”

Tearing her gaze away from Daryl, Chelsea glanced quickly around the trendy eating spot. At eleven-forty-five in the morning, the bar was still empty. In the main dining room, a few of the tables were already filled, and the maître d’ was seating a couple at a nearby table.

“Chels,” Daryl prompted. “It’s not like I’m asking you to strip. Just take off your coat. Isn’t it time that you gave that man-magnet skirt a little test drive?”

Still, Chelsea didn’t remove her coat. As ridiculous as it might be, the whole idea of wearing the skirt in public made her a little nervous. It had hung in her closet for three weeks, ever since she’d gotten home from the wedding. She hadn’t even tried it on until this morning when she’d gotten the phone call from Metropolitan magazine. The editor had asked her to wear the skirt when she came in to sign the contract.

Could a “lucky” skirt help a single girl attract men in Manhattan?

That was the question that had sold not one, but three articles. Now it had a bubble of panic growing in her stomach. She wasn’t quite sure what bothered her most—the slim possibility that the skirt might actually work or the more certain probability that it wouldn’t.

“What’s up, Chels?” Ramón asked, wiping his hands meticulously on a towel as he hurried toward them. “I’m in the middle of creating a soufflé, but I got the message that there’s some kind of emergency.”

“Chelsea has a skirt problem,” Daryl explained.

“A skirt problem!” Ramón—her cousin who had sworn her to secrecy about the fact that he had been born Raymond—narrowed his eyes and glared at her. Standing at six feet three inches and weighing in at over two hundred pounds, he looked as though he’d be more comfortable wearing shoulder pads and a football jersey. But Ramón was perfectly at home in a chef’s hat and apron. His four years in the marines allowed him to run his kitchen like a well-oiled military machine. “You dragged me away from my soufflé to solve a skirt problem?”

“Calm down. I need you to take my place behind the bar so that I can work a little fashion magic,” Daryl explained. “You know what a fanatic our friend Pierre is.”

Ramón glanced at his watch. “I can give you sixty seconds. No more.”

Winking at Chelsea, Daryl exchanged places with Ramón. “You may be able to run your kitchen like a boot camp, but we artists can’t be rushed.”

Chelsea bit down on the inside of her cheek to prevent a grin. In spite of the fact that they were total opposites and reminded her of Neil Simon’s odd couple, Daryl and Ramón were the best of friends. She’d met Daryl while waitressing at a tiny Italian restaurant in the village. Ramón had fixed her up with the job when she’d first arrived in Manhattan.

Ramón had been a line cook and Daryl had been bartending part-time while taking classes at the fashion institute. Soon, the three of them had begun spending most of their free time together, talking about their dreams of making it big in New York. Six months ago, each bearing scars from their battles in the Manhattan dating scene, they’d moved into an apartment together and formed a “singles club.” For the length of time that it took them to establish themselves in their chosen careers, they’d each sworn to steer clear of any serious relationships. If they even went out on a date, they had to pay a twenty-dollar fine.

“Okay. Off with the coat!” Daryl said, snapping his fingers. “And stand over there by the windows so that I can get the full effect.”

Chelsea shot one more glance around the dining room. Besides the man and woman seated a short distance from the entrance to the bar, there was a group of four women just arriving at the maître d’s desk. It wouldn’t be long before the restaurant was filled, so it was now or never.

If only she didn’t feel so torn about the skirt. In spite of what she’d let Gwen and Kate believe, the last thing she wanted in her life right now was a man. She hadn’t been able to forget that strange feeling that had run through her when she’d caught the skirt—nor the image of that man sitting in the chair with her.

“Fifty seconds and counting,” Ramón said.

Drawing in a deep breath, Chelsea pulled off her coat and tossed it on a bar stool. When she glanced down at the skirt, her stomach plummeted. It looked just as bad as it had in the mirror that morning, sagging at her waist and falling well below her knees. A man magnet, it wasn’t! Men were much more likely to take one look and run in the opposite direction. That was not going to give her the three articles she’d promised to deliver to Metropolitan.

“It’s too big,” Ramón announced. “And you now have forty seconds.”

“Stop making me feel like I’m on Cape Canaveral,” Daryl said as he circled Chelsea. “I think if I just nip it in at the waist and shorten it about six inches…”

“No, you can’t make any permanent alterations. The island woman who sold it to Torrie said that might interfere with the skirt’s power.”

Daryl’s brows shot up. “I thought you didn’t believe in all that moonlight and magic mumbo jumbo?”

“I don’t. I mean, I don’t really believe it, but I’ve just been offered a three article contract with Metropolitan magazine, and it would be nice if something happened when I wear this skirt.”

“You sold your idea!” Daryl gave her a quick, hard hug. “Hooray for you!”

Keeping one eye on his watch, Ramón gave her a thumbs-up salute. “Way to go, Chels! Thirty seconds.”

“Lighten up, Ramón. We should be opening a bottle of champagne.”

“No, he’s right, Daryl. You both have to get back to work, and I’m on my way over to Metropolitan to sign the contract right now. I just thought before I did, I should try the skirt on—” Pausing, she glanced around the restaurant again. The couple the maître d’ had seated were totally engrossed in their conversation, and the only people even looking at the skirt were her two roommates. She breathed a small sigh of relief. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s a bust,” Ramón said. “If that skirt has any special power, wouldn’t Daryl and I be affected by it?”

“Heavens no,” Daryl said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’m not attracted to women and you’re her cousin, Ramón. I’m sure that makes a difference.”

“The secret to any successful endeavor is planning. Perhaps you should have tried the skirt out before you sold the idea, Chels.”

The sympathetic look that Daryl shot her nearly made her smile. Ramón’s little planning lecture was one they’d both heard before. Frequently. And it certainly had merit. If she ever found the time to follow Ramón’s advice, she wouldn’t have to go through life improvising her way out of scrapes. Like the one she was almost in right now.

“Torrie said it didn’t have the same effect on all men.” She glanced down at the skirt again. “Right now, I’d be happy if it could elicit something other than raucous laughter. I look pathetic in this.”

“Not to worry,” Daryl said as he slipped his hands beneath her sweater. “We’ll just use a runway model trick. Hand me the stapler, Ramón.”

Ramón grabbed the stapler from its position near the computer and slapped it into Daryl’s hand. “Twenty seconds.”

“A little tuck here…now one on this side…and one in the back. The trick is to make sure the tucks are small so they’re not so noticeable. There.” Daryl passed the stapler back to Ramón. “Now the tape.”

Ramón slapped the tape dispenser into Daryl’s hand. “Ten seconds.”

“This part would be easier if you could slip the skirt off,” Daryl said to Chelsea.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

With a shrug, Daryl dropped to his knees and reached up under her skirt.

“Enemy approaching at three o’clock,” Ramón said in a stage whisper.

Chelsea and Daryl turned in unison to see the maître d’ bearing down on them. He was a short man with a receding hairline and a mustache that curled up at the ends even when he was frowning. He reminded Chelsea of Hercule Poirot.

“What is going on here?” he asked in an accent that Chelsea pegged as wannabe French.

“Just a little fashion emergency, Pete,” Daryl said.

“The name is Pierre. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“We’ll be done in a sec.” Ripping off a piece of tape, Daryl folded up a section of Chelsea’s skirt and secured it.

“Stop that right now. First you’re fondling her under her sweater, and now you have your hand up her skirt! What will the customers think?” Pierre asked, then raised his eyes to pin Chelsea with a glare. “Miss, I’ll have to ask you to…”

Even as his sentence trailed off, Chelsea glanced past him to the couple seated just beyond the entrance to the bar. The woman wasn’t staring at her. But the man was. On second thought, he was scowling. She felt Daryl’s hands reach under her skirt again.

“Daryl, I think you’d better—”

“Miss,” Pierre paused to clear his throat. “I’d like to apologize for the behavior of our bartender. If you would allow me the pleasure of seating you at one of our best tables, I can offer you a complimentary lunch.”

Chelsea stared at the maître d’. A moment ago, he’d been frowning. Now he was beaming a smile at her and offering her a free lunch.

“Turn,” Daryl said as he ripped off another strip of tape.

“Customers are looking at us. I don’t want you to get fired,” Chelsea said in a low tone. She didn’t want him to get hurt either. The scowling man was beginning to look dangerous.

“I just have one more section to fix. Turn.”

Even after she did as she was told, Chelsea felt the scowling man’s eyes boring into the back of her neck. Her skin had started to prickle. She could have sworn she felt that gaze move right down her body to where Daryl was fastening the last bit of tape to her hem.

“YOU HAVEN’T HEARD a word I’ve said.”

Zach tore his gaze from the woman at the bar and fastened it on his favorite aunt. He was sure that Miranda McDaniels would have been his favorite hands down, even if she hadn’t been his only aunt. From the time he was a child, she had personified the word flamboyant to him. She was also one of the kindest and most generous people he knew. “Yes, I have. You’re trying to convince me that—”

The rest of his reply was cut off by the arrival of a waiter to take their drink orders. Zach managed to suppress a smile when his aunt ordered a martini straight up with a cherry. The waiter never missed a beat as he scribbled it on his pad.

“And you, sir?”

“I’ll have bottled water.”

As soon as the waiter had moved away, Zach grinned at Miranda. “Let me guess. The cherry will go with your outfit.”

“Exactly,” Miranda said. “Not to mention my nails.”

Not many women could carry off the bright red wool suit and the wide-brimmed hat, but his aunt could. On impulse, he took her hand and raised it to his lips.

“You’re trying to distract me.”

“Am I succeeding?”

Miranda sighed. “Have you heard anything I’ve said?”

“You’re trying to make me believe that my father really intended for me to run Metropolitan magazine. But it’s not going to work. The bottom line is that he left it to you in his will because he was sure that I couldn’t be trusted with it.”

Miranda McDaniels sighed and shook her head. “You’re a lot like him, you know. Stubborn, opinionated—” She broke off her sentence to follow the direction of her nephew’s gaze. “Well, well. No wonder you aren’t paying two cents worth of attention to anything I’ve said. She’s very pretty.”

“The bartender would agree with you,” Zach said. “He hasn’t been able to keep his hands off her since she took her coat off. Of course, that skirt hides nothing. She might as well be naked.”

Miranda’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about? She’s fully clothed. In fact, that skirt is too long.”

“Can’t you see her legs?” Zach asked. They were much longer than he’d imagined and he’d been thinking about them quite a bit since she’d taken off her coat and stepped toward the window. With the light behind it, he could see right through the thin material of the skirt. She wasn’t very tall, but below her waist she was all legs. A little fantasy of just how those legs might feel wrapped around him had begun to play and replay itself in his mind. He couldn’t seem to shake it loose. He felt exactly the way he had several times as a teen, totally paralyzed by a hormone surge.

“I’ve heard of men undressing women with their eyes, but this is the first time I’ve actually witnessed it taking place,” Miranda said.

Zach tore his gaze away from the woman at the bar to find his aunt laughing at him. He felt the heat rise in his cheeks. That hadn’t happened since he was a teenager, either.

She leaned closer to him. “If you’d like I could make a quiet exit stage left and you could go introduce yourself to that young lady.”

Zach frowned but he couldn’t prevent his eyes from returning to the woman in the bar. “A lady would hardly be wearing a skirt like that. Nor would she allow a man to fondle her in a public place.”

Miranda’s eyes widened. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak about a woman in quite that judgmental way before. You sound like your brother.”

“Ouch!” The corners of his mouth curved as he pantomimed pulling an arrow out of his heart. “Way to hurt a guy.”

“Drastic measures were called for. One stuffy prude for a nephew is all I can handle.”

“Speaking of Jerry, how does our esteemed congressman feel about your decision to put me in charge at Metropolitan magazine?” Zach was sure it must have come as an unpleasant shock to his older brother that Miranda was going to do what his father had failed to do—hand the publishing part of his empire over to the black sheep of the family. “He must have given you a hard time at the board meeting.”

“On the contrary. He had no choice but to support my recommendation. If he’d made any strenuous objection, it might have looked as if he was stabbing his brother in the back.” Miranda’s lips curved. “You have to be very careful not to do that when your campaign for public office is based on restoring family values.”