Still So Hot!. Serena Bell

anyone can do this, you can. I wish you’d been a dating coach when I was a teenager.”

      Julie had spent most of her high school years throwing herself recklessly into relationships with popular older boys and then weeping and sulking through dinner when, inevitably, things didn’t work out for her. Elisa had rarely been able to use the home phone because Julie always tied it up crying to her friends. It was beyond Elisa how Julie could make the same mistake over and over again, but the pattern had continued to the present day.

      It was possible, Elisa sometimes thought, that she’d become a dating coach partially to alleviate the frustration of watching helplessly as Julie flung herself against a brick wall, but of course she’d never told her sister.

      “You just say the word, Jules. I’ll drop everything and work with you.”

      “You’ve got bigger and better things going on.” If there was any hint of sadness in her voice, it was overshadowed by her clear pride in Elisa’s work. “Next week, your phone’ll be ringing off the hook.”

      “Your mouth, God’s ear.” She was tempted to knock on wood.

      Julie sighed. “I should let you go. You’ve got a long evening ahead of you, huh?”

      “Yeah. Glad you called, Jules.”

      “Good to hear your voice, Lise.”

      “Love you.”

      “You, too.”

      She set the phone on the night table and collapsed back on her throne of pillows. For the first time today, she was alone and not desperately trying to fix this star-crossed weekend. The lack of imminent disaster felt glorious. Across the resort, Celine and Brett had met for their fake destination date, and that would close the door on all this silliness. Brett would fly home, and she and Celine would do their boot camp weekend, and maybe, just maybe, everything wouldn’t fall apart. This could still become a victory for Rendezvous.

      Her business was so new. She had a great start, but her ambitions were even grander. Eighteen months ago, things had been different. She’d been a cog in a wheel, a senior “relationship guru” at a matchmaking franchise. She got a salary, and in exchange, she followed rules. This many matches per week. This many dates per month for each client. This many new clients. Numbers were the point, regardless of whether the matches made sense or the dates were meaningful or the clients were admirable human beings.

      She’d followed the rules at first, but after a year, she’d started to see how those regulations made things worse for women who’d been through dating hell. Meaningless dates translated to more rejections. Bad matches led to more breakups. Elisa did better—meaning she made more women happier—when she followed her own guidelines, setting up dates only between people she genuinely believed would like each other and pushing for ongoing contact only for couples she truly thought had a future. The number of solid-looking marriages that came from her work—the only measure that mattered to her—was better than anyone else’s in the company.

      Maybe the franchise owner was jealous of Elisa’s success, or maybe she’d just drunk way too much Kool-Aid, but for whatever reason, she cracked down on Elisa with full force, putting her on notice. The owner told her that she had to make her quota in the last ten days of the month. There was no way Elisa could do that without sacrificing her clients’ happiness, and she told her boss so.

      Her boss fired her without notice. Elisa left the office with only her contact list—partly because no one had told her that she couldn’t take it with her, but mostly because she would have died before she’d leave her clients hanging. She planned to call every one of them to let them know she’d left and to apologize for having to abandon them while they were still single.

      Only it hadn’t worked out that way. Every client she’d called had begged her to take them with her.

      At first she’d laughed. It had seemed like a crazy joke. Of course she couldn’t take them with her. She didn’t have a job, and there was no way she was going to start making matches out of her living room.

      But that’s what they wanted. They pleaded with her. They told her that they’d meet with her in a coffee shop, the park, their own living rooms, if that was what it took. They said she made them feel good about themselves. She boosted their confidence, offered them control of their destinies.

      She convinced them they didn’t have to date jerks.

      The outpouring of support made her cry, and then it bolstered her. Why couldn’t she do it? All she needed were clients, a telephone, an office and maybe—down the line—an assistant. That wasn’t so much, really. She’d taken out a loan to get the office space, set up a business and gradually transitioned her title from “matchmaker” to “dating coach,” bringing in new clients and adding services. Evening and weekend workshops and classes. Boot camp outings. Boot camp weekends.

      Things were looking good, but she dreamed of offering her services to a wider audience, of evangelizing the notion of hiring a dating coach. If she could grow demand, if she could increase her own reach....

      Six months ago she’d been grateful to still have clients. Now she wanted more.

      She’d confessed her ambitions to Julie, who’d been incredibly supportive. “Not more, bigger. Celebrities. Because if you do that, the idea of hiring a dating coach enters the popular consciousness. And if you’re the dating coach that all the big names have, you’re the person everyone wants. They know, if you’re good enough for Mila Kunis, you’re good enough for them.”

      “But how do you get into that market? You have to have a celebrity to get the celebrities, right?”

      Julie had puzzled over that for a minute, then said, “I know someone who knows Celine Carr’s publicist.”

      And two days later, Haven had returned her call.

      “Celine’s not easy,” Haven had said. “And she’s made more of a mess of dating than just about any other aspect of her life.”

      Elisa doubted that, because she knew Celine’s brief stint in rehab had been followed not a year later by a term in an eating disorder clinic, or so the tabloids and entertainment magazines had said. But maybe that wasn’t true. Look at how news was born—by crazed, aggressive paparazzi. It was a wonder anything factual ever got printed.

      “We’ve got image consultants, we have all that stuff going on,” Haven said. “You can focus completely on the dating stuff. I’ve heard great things about you. But I’d like to meet you before I make a decision.”

      Haven had arranged a meeting, and Elisa and Celine had immediately hit it off. Or at least Elisa had been charmed by Celine, and Haven had told Elisa, “You’re amazing with her. She listens to you. If anyone can get her to shape up, you’re my gal.”

      Since then, Elisa and Celine had met almost weekly, working on Celine’s self-image, talking about what the star wanted from a relationship and discussing strategies for a healthy approach to dating.

      Which was why it was a bit of a mystery to Elisa why Celine was still picking up strange men in drugstores. Elisa would have to address that one with Celine later tonight.

      Elisa had aimed for nonchalance when she’d told Brett about her phone conversation with Haven this afternoon, but it had been a little tenser than Elisa had let on. Haven had been pretty riled up when she’d heard about the paparazzo on the plane. She’d been torn between staying with her mom in the hospital and flying to St. Barts to check out the situation for herself. Elisa had reassured Haven a million times that the situation was under control, but Haven kept saying, “You don’t know Celine.” Finally Haven had said she’d take a look at what, if any, photos or other material had made it online and would decide based on that whether she thought Elisa needed reinforcements.

      Elisa would have to make sure that everything else went smoothly from this point on. When Brett and Celine were done, Celine’s evening with Elisa would start. If Elisa and Celine wanted to make the most of