Fat Chance by Rhonda Pollero Page A

third box from his trunk. They were those cardboard put-it-together-yourself things that I have yet to master. His looked pristine.
    Was it possible that the work gods had smiled on me and I was a Honda Accord away from a new estate client? I put him somewhere in his thirties, definitely within the parents’ estate zone. He was definitely from out of state. Floridians didn’t wear black Hugo Boss slacks and Ike Behar black shirts. At least not in the daytime when the temperature was already nearing eighty and it was barely past nine.
    As soon as I saw him reach to close the trunk, I stepped out of my car and slipped my most recent purchase from the Coach outlet in Destin on my shoulder. It was from the SoHo collection, and the pink was a perfect splash of color to complement the gently pre-owned Ralph Lauren ruffled black and white shirt-dress I’d picked up on eBay. The dress retailed for over one-fifty, but I’d gotten it at less than a quarter of that, even after adding in dry cleaning to get rid of any remnants of pre-ownership. My round toe pumps came in handy, adding a couple of inches to my five-foot-three frame.
    “Need some help?” I asked, casually strolling in his direction.
    “That would be great.” He handed me a box by the press-thru handles. It barely weighed a pound.
    After folding his suit jacket over the top box, he hoisted everything and started toward the door. He had an exceptional butt. And I was happy to trail behind, drinking in the scent of Acqua Di Giò eau de toilette, one of my all-time favorite men’s fragrances. I hurried around him, quickly admiring his broad shoulders as I reached for the door handle.
    “Thanks,” he said.
    Recognizing the remnants of a New York accent, I instantly started planning our dating future. Of course dating a New Yorker would mean Christmases in the city, Broadway plays—hell, I’d almost reached that romantic moment in a hansom cab, where he was offering me a signature blue box from Tiffany’s, when Maudlin Margaret’s voice turned into a total buzz kill.
    “You’re late.”
    You’re bitter. “Traffic,” I lied.
    Margaret pushed back her chair and came out from behind the horseshoe-shaped reception desk. I half expected her to have a whip or something. I wouldn’t put corporal punishment past Vain Dane.
    “You must be Mr. Caprelli.”
    “Guilty,” he said, placing the boxes on Margaret’s sacred ground and offering her his hand. “Mrs. Ford, right?”
    She batted her lashes. “Call me Margaret, please.”
    My stomach turned at the sight of her flirting with my possible future husband. Peeking around the torso of Mr. Caprelli, I asked, “Messages?”
    Margaret reluctantly turned her gaze on me. “Mr. Dane wants to see you in his office at nine thirty.”
    “I’ll take that,” Caprelli said as he turned and took the box from me. “Thanks for your help.”
    “I can carry this for you, just tell me who you’re here to see.”
    “Not necessary. But thank you…?” totally hot Caprelli asked.
    For a split second, the question hung in the air as I tried valiantly to remember how to speak English. “Uh, Finley.”
    “Thanks, Finley.” He punctuated the greeting with a smile that made my knees more than just a little weak as I turned and walked across the lobby to the elevators.
    Crap. I went up to my office on the second floor. I had ten minutes before I had to answer the call of the senior partner. My guess was he’d seen the snippet in the morning paper about the skeleton in my house. Dane, Lieberman isn’t a large firm, but it’s a prestigious and discreet one. My hopes that he’d missed the small article were dashed, so I spent what little time I had preparing my own defense.
    This wasn’t the first time I’d gotten into trouble with Vain Dane, but he could hardly hold me responsible for a vagrant climbing into my house to die.
    After pouring a generous mug of coffee from the pot under the credenza behind my desk, I opened the