How To Get Your Man. Elizabeth Harbison

had a really bad romantic history. Lots of boyfriends, lots of breakups. I sometimes felt like I couldn’t find the kind of guy I really wanted, so I’d have to settle for less. But then I found the guy. And he didn’t even know I existed.”

      Bonnie sat up and listened. This woman could be her. String of lousy boyfriends, equally long string of lousy breakups, fear that she’d have to lower her standards or end up alone, and then—this was the kicker—finding the man of her dreams only to have him be completely oblivious to her.

      “But this book…” The woman paused, her voice filled with emotion. “This book gave me ideas for getting his attention that I could use immediately. Actual, you know, techniques. Not a lot of academic philosophizing. Before I knew it, the man who hadn’t known I was alive for six months was asking me out.”

      “Tell them the rest,” Leticia interjected excitedly, then turned to the hostess. “You’re going to love this.”

      Bonnie sniffled and moved forward to hear better.

      The woman held up her left hand, displaying a glittering stone the size of a cupcake. “We’re getting married next month!”

      The audience squealed with delight and erupted into applause again.

      Bonnie wrote down the name of the book.

      Chapter One

      Men are very visual creatures. Discover his favorite colors and swathe yourself in them. This will make you a soothing, comfortable presence to him, though he won’t realize exactly why. This is the first step in our Plan of Seduction.

      Remember, color is very powerful and, just as you want to wear his favorites, you must avoid those he doesn’t like. An unpleasant association with a color you wear can make you someone to avoid, rather than someone to adore.

      —Leticia Bancroft, How To Seduce Your

       Dream Man

      “Joining the army or something?”

      Bonnie Vaness stopped in the middle of locking the dead bolt of her apartment and glanced impatiently behind her at Dalton Price, the building manager. “What are you talking about?”

      “That outfit you’ve got on. It’s the third ugly green thing you’ve worn this week.”

      Bonnie automatically put a hand to the new olive-green suit she’d gotten from Delaney’s Department Store over on Quince Street. It had cost half a week’s paycheck.

      “Not that you wouldn’t make a great soldier,” he went on, raking a hand through black hair. “Temper like yours…”

      “Shut up, Dalton.”

      He laughed. “Hey, I’m just saying—”

      “I know what you’re saying. You’re saying I look horrible in this. Thanks.”

      He gave a broad shrug. “Now did I say that? I didn’t say that. It’s not you, it’s the outfit. I’d think you’d be glad for the objective opinion, before you go trotting off into the world looking like that.”

      She didn’t look at him. She didn’t want him to see he was plucking away at her raw nerves like a bad street musician on a broken banjo.

      Of course, Dalton Price had been plucking at Bonnie’s nerves since second grade at Tappen Elementary School in Tappen, New Jersey, when he’d been the only one close enough to hear her accidentally call Mrs. Perry “Mommy.” He’d spent years tormenting her about that and every other stupid thing she was unfortunate enough to do in his presence. His imagination was limitless.

      “Don’t you have something better to do than critique my clothing?” she asked him, uncomfortably aware that he might be right about the outfit. When she’d tried it on, she told herself the greenish tint to her face was from the fluorescent lighting in the dressing room, but now she was starting to think it was the reflected olive green bouncing off her skin.

      She wasn’t about to let Dalton know of her doubts.

      “Isn’t there a hairy sink waiting for you somewhere around here?” She clicked the lock in place and turned to face him.

      Though she said it lightly, her curiosity about his job had been piqued for some time now. Ten years ago, Dalton had gotten a football scholarship to some college out west and everyone in town was abuzz about what a success he’d made of his life, and how he’d become an investment banker and married an actress from some since-canceled sitcom. Then, about four months ago, Dalton was suddenly back, divorced and with a nearly adolescent daughter in tow. Stranger still, despite his proximity to New York City, he wasn’t working as an investment banker. He was working as a super in what was a nice old building but certainly not fancy.

      Bonnie wondered if he’d ever really been successful or if that was his mother’s fantasy.

      At first she’d been sympathetic toward him, but he hadn’t been in town two days before he started giving her the same old guff he’d always given her. And she gave it right back.

      Some things never changed.

      He leveled a blue-eyed gaze at her now. A gaze which had, she knew, reduced many foolish women to quivering puddles of submission.

      It only ticked Bonnie off.

      “I fix everything that needs to be fixed,” he said, in answer to her question.

      “Yeah?” She dropped her keys in her bag. “Then fix my shower. It’s been dripping since Carter was president.”

      “Carter who?”

      Bonnie’s mouth dropped open just as Dalton gave a sly smile.

      “Man, you’re such a sucker,” he said.

      “I am not, I just…” She stopped. Yes, she was. He’d suckered her over and over. Someday she’d learn.

      “Don’t you have a bus to catch?” he asked her, interrupting her private reverie.

      “Oh! Yes.” Why did she find Dalton’s presence so disconcerting? “Paula’s waiting downstairs and she’ll kill me if we miss the bus into town because I had to stop and fight with you again.”

      He smiled and slipped a wrench out of his back pocket. “I’ll be around later. You can yell at me then. Meantime, I’m gonna go fix Mrs. Neuhouse’s leaky faucet.”

      “And my shower…?”

      “It’s on the list,” he said over his shoulder as he walked away.

      “I’d like to see this list.”

      “Come by later tonight.” He didn’t look back. “I’ll show it to you. It’s under my pillow.”

      It was hard to believe he got women with that kind of line. Bonnie figured there were a lot of girls out there who were so blown away by his looks that they didn’t care about anything else. Idiots. “Just fix the shower, all right?”

      “Daddy!” A young girl with pale gold hair came running around the corner. “Wait! Daddy!”

      Elissa. His nine-year-old daughter.

      Bonnie paused and watched the two of them together. She couldn’t help it. Not only was she enchanted by the girl—she had been ever since she’d first laid eyes on her—but she was also captivated by the sweet interaction between father and daughter. Bonnie’s own father had passed away in a car accident before she was old enough to know him, and she had always had a soft spot for good father-daughter relationships.

      For all Dalton Price’s faults, even Bonnie approved of his parenting.

      “I thought Mrs. Malone took you to school already,” he said to his daughter, with that tenderness that never failed to tug at Bonnie’s heart.

      Nelly Malone was an elderly neighbor who lived in the building. She was practically like a