Feet First. Leanne Banks

pea. How’s Romeo?” she asked, speaking of the cat who wasn’t really Jenny’s. He had just sort of shown up at her front door one day with one eye missing, his ribs sticking through his fur and enough fleas to take over the world.

      “He wanted a hug,” Stella said.

      Jenny’s heart twisted. Stella was the one who probably wanted a hug. The little girl reminded Jenny of herself at that age. She wore a lost expression except when she was drawing pictures or making a craft project. Stella’s mom had arranged for after-school care with another neighbor, but when Stella got bored she went to Jenny’s apartment to play with Romeo.

      “Well, he’s lucky to be getting hugs from little Miss Magic,” Jenny said, giving Stella a squeeze and scratching Romeo behind the ears.

      Stella beamed at the mention of the nickname. Jenny had told Stella that her smiles were magic.

      “Did your mom have to work late again?” Jenny asked. Taking in Stella’s nod, she asked, “Cookies or SpaghettiOs?”

      “Both?” Stella said hopefully.

      Jenny smiled. “What’d you have for lunch today?”

      Stella wrinkled her nose. “Gross meat loaf.”

      That explained the hunger. “How about if we eat the cookies while you do your homework?”

      “Okay,” Stella said.

      Forty-five minutes later, after they’d consumed the SpaghettiOs, Jenny helped Stella with her story problems as both of them munched on warm chocolate chip cookies. Jenny barely resisted rolling her eyes at the story problems. She’d hated them as a kid and she hated them now. The extraneous information drove her nuts. They finally finished the problems and moved onto Stella’s paper on bees.

      Halfway through, a knock sounded at the door and Stella’s mother, Anna, poked her head inside. “Is my girl here?” she asked with a tired smile.

      Stella scrambled to her feet and dashed to give her mom a hug. “Hi, Mommy!”

      Jenny watched the two embrace and felt another twist of her heart. They truly only had each other. “Thanks for letting her come over,” Anna said over Stella’s head. “My boss kept me late again. I know she gets bored. I’m enrolling her in an after-school program as soon as I can afford it.”

      “No problem. I enjoyed having Miss Magic for a while.”

      Stella beamed. “G’night, Jenny!”

      “’Night Miss Magic,” she said and closed the door behind them. She turned around and gathered the dishes from the table and washed them in the sink. The dishwasher was on the blink again.

      Her mind wandered to the meeting with Brooke and Marc. She felt a rush of excitement. She had really been asked to design Brooke Tarantino’s wedding shoes. Sure, the heiress was going to be a handful, but Jenny wasn’t worried. Her many previous jobs had provided her with opportunities to work with some prize jerks and eccentrics. Brooke was still searching for herself. Jenny understood that.

      Her doorbell buzzed. She glanced at the clock and smiled, guessing who it was. She didn’t bother to answer. Two and a half seconds passed, and Chad, whom she’d met when she’d worked at O’Malley’s, sauntered through the door.

      With coal-black hair, olive skin, dark eyes that flashed passion and a body hot enough to make every woman who saw him want to eat him with a spoon, he strutted behind her, looped his arm around her shoulder and rubbed his lips against her cheek.

      “Hello, gorgeous. Come with me to Loco’s Tavern tonight and burn up the dance floor,” he said seductively against her ear.

      She took a quick whiff. He always smelled better than she did. “What are you wearing this time? It smells delicious.”

      “I smell delicious,” he said. “It’s Curve. So come and dance the night away with me.”

      “You can’t fool me. I know this is Ladies’ Night at Loco’s Tavern. You want me to give you all my cheap drinks while you burn up the floor with someone else.”

      Jenny looked into his smoldering eyes and sighed. Darn shame he wasn’t the least bit attracted to her or any other woman. He had a boyfriend of his own.

      “Where’s Paul?”

      “He’s working graveyard this week. I was feeling bored, so he encouraged me to hit Loco’s with you.” He paused a half beat. “Hey, I’ll even dance with you.”

      “That’s what you said last time…before you left me in the dust to enter the salsa contest.”

      “I won’t abandon you this time. I promise. You might even talk me into teaching you a little salsa.”

      That stopped her. Chad was an awesome dancer.

      “I’ve about given up on being discovered,” he said in a glum voice.

      “I never understood that, anyway. If you want to be a model, you should go to New York.”

      “I could always be a shoe model,” he hinted with a broad smile.

      He’d hinted the same more than once. As if she had any pull with the higher-ups at Bellagio. “I told you before,” she said, sliding her hand over his cheek and lowering her voice. “Your feet aren’t big enough.”

      He gave a snort of indignation. “My feet are plenty big. In fact, my feet are so big I’ve gotten oohs and ahhs over how—”

      Jenny covered her ears. “I told you I don’t want to hear about your sex life.”

      “You started it by denigrating my—” He cleared his throat. “Feet. Enough.” He grabbed the dish towel from her hand and tossed it to the counter. “Let’s hit the ball, Cinderella.”

      She allowed herself to be swayed. A night out with a gorgeous guy who would teach her to salsa didn’t sound too bad. “I can’t stay late. I have work tomorrow.”

      He shrugged, snatching her purse from the back of a kitchen chair and tugging her toward the door. “So, you always have work? You answer the phone and shuffle paperwork. How many brain cells does that take?”

      “Depends on the day. Sometimes it takes all my brain cells.” Tomorrow she was meeting and negotiating with Marc.

      He shot her a curious but skeptical glance. “And you have a feeling tomorrow is going to be one of those days, my spooky little girl?”

      Although he knew her feelings had turned out to be right on more than one occasion, he still liked to tease her about them.

      “Yep,” she said, thinking about Marc and feeling an itch at the back of her neck. “I have a feeling I’m going to need all my brain cells at top performance tomorrow.”

      Two hours later she’d downed two martinis and was laughing at her own efforts to salsa.

      “C’mon, Jenny, you can do it,” Chad coaxed her when she fumbled over her steps for the umpteenth time. “Release your inner passion, your inner diva, and follow.”

      Concentrating, she shook her head. “If I look very very hard, I may find my inner passion, but I’m not sure I have an inner diva.”

      He gave her a hard snap, sending her reeling away from him, before he jerked her back against him. “Then you must create her. If you’re going to succeed at salsa, you must release your inner passion and inner diva, and follow.”

      He squeezed her waist, directing her to take a step in the direction he wanted to go. “Follow with passion. The diva knows she can demand what she wants and get it.”

      “How do you know so much about salsa and women?” she asked, evaluating his words.

      He twirled her around and she enjoyed the dizziness. He wouldn’t let her fall. He would seduce her into dancing, but not into bed. She was safe.

      She