After the Party. Jackie Braun

was hell being a fashionista on a thrift-store budget.

      “My gift does not work that way. It tells me what it tells me while I study your palm. I see a man,” the woman insisted a second time. “He is tall—”

      “Dark and handsome,” Ella finished impatiently.

      “Hey, you want me to continue or you gonna read your own palm?”

      Ella blinked in surprise. Just that quickly, the woman’s accent had relocated from East Europe to North Jersey.

      “Uh, sorry. Go on.”

      “Very well.” With her accent now back in the Baltic, Madame Maroushka continued. “He is lonely, this man. And not dark, at least not how you meant. I see fair hair and light eyes. He is searching for...someone.”

      In spite of the pressing nature of her visit, Ella couldn’t help but be intrigued. “But is he single?”

      Jersey made another appearance in Madame Maroushka’s speech. “Whaddaya think? I just said the guy was lonely and searching.”

      “Yes, but the two conditions are not mutually exclusive,” Ella felt the need to point out. “Last month, I went on a date with a guy who claimed to be lonely and looking for love. He also happened to be married.”

      A detail he’d failed to mention until his wife showed up at the restaurant where they were dining, wielding a set of knitting needles and threatening to pluck out Ella’s eyes.

      The corners of the palm reader’s mouth turned down in consideration before she nodded. “Okay. Point taken. But this one is single.” She traced a finger over one of the creases on Ella’s palm again.

      “So, is this handsome stranger looking to hire a woman?” Ella asked.

      When Madame Maroushka’s eyebrows shot up, Ella squeaked, “Not for that! I’m talking about a legitimate job. I can cook reasonably well, and I know how to scrub a toilet.”

      She’d had both a housekeeper and a cook while growing up, but she’d learned as an adult. Neither skill would put her fashion merchandising degree to any better use than the sales gig at La Chanteuse, but Ella couldn’t afford to be picky.

      “I do not believe he seeks either a housekeeper or a cook,” the fortune-teller said with a shake of her head. “I see the two of you at a social gathering.”

      “Like a party?”

      “I believe so. He is wearing a tailored dark suit and the two of you are drinking champagne poured from a bottle with a fancy black label.”

      Ooh. It must be some shindig if the host had sprung for Dom Perignon. Momentarily sidetracked, Ella scrutinized her palm.

      “Am I wearing the fuchsia cocktail dress with the ruched waist that I got on sale last month?” The tag was still attached to the sleeve and she’d been debating returning it. She really couldn’t afford the designer original, even if she’d gotten it for a steal. But if she had someplace to wear it— “No. Never mind.” She shook her head for emphasis. “I’m not going to be attending any parties. I don’t need to improve my social life. What I need is a job. Better yet, I need a career.”

      A sales job in retail was definitely the bottom rung of the ladder when it came to a career in the fashion world, but her well-connected ex-stepmother knew a lot of people in the industry. People whose ears she’d bent with vicious gossip and outright lies. No one wanted to hire Ella if it meant crossing Camilla. Whatever. Ella wasn’t averse to working her way up as long as she was working.

      Madame Maroushka frowned, causing the drawn-on mole just above her mouth to dip into one of the lines that feathered out from her lips. “This...this is most unusual.”

      “What?”

      “I see the party as your career.”

      “What? Do you mean I’m like a party planner or something?”

      “Could be,” the older woman allowed.

      “I like parties. I’ve been to enough of them.” Both the fancy variety in her previous life as the daughter of a high-powered Wall Street wheeler-dealer and the casual, keg-of-beer kind since her father’s fall from grace. She nibbled her lower lip, an idea hatching. “How much do you think people get paid for planning them?”

      Madame Maroushka shrugged. She was back in Jersey when she said, “Beats me. It probably depends on the kind of people you plan the parties for and the kind of parties they want you to plan. Know what I mean?”

      In other words, the deeper their pockets, the more they would be willing to pay. That made sense.

      “I know a lot of people with deep pockets,” Ella murmured half to herself. Until her father filed bankruptcy, she’d even called some of them her friends.

      Madame Maroushka glanced at her watch, her tone brisk and all business when she said, “Time’s up. Thanks for coming. Here.” She handed Ella a coupon.

      “What’s this for?”

      “The printing place two blocks up on the opposite side of the street. My nephew owns it. He is handsome and single,” she said with a smile. When Ella just stared at her, Madame Maroushka said flatly, “He’s running a special on business cards. You get five hundred for the price of four with this coupon. If you want to be a party planner, you’ll need cards and lots of them.”

      Why not? Ella thought. What did she have to lose? She paid Madame Maroushka and headed to the print shop where she blew the last of her meager savings on business cards and promotional fliers, which she then spent the following two days distributing all over Manhattan.

      Two weeks later, her efforts appeared to have paid off. She had a meeting with a client, and a very deep-pocketed one, too. There was only one downside to the job and it was a doozy. The party she was being asked to plan was a wake.

      ONE

      Chase Trumbull’s mood was in the toilet when he strode through the main doors of the New York skyscraper that housed Trumbull Toys’ corporate offices. It was a gloriously sunny Friday in June, just four hours shy of quitting time for those who punched a clock, with the weekend weather forecast calling for clear skies and highs in the eighties. But it felt like a cold and cloudy Monday given the rumors that were circulating and the grim financial news he’d just received.

      Even so, he wasn’t blind, much less dead. So, in spite of his foul mood, his steps slowed and his gaze detoured south to take in the view.

      As backsides went, the one on the woman who’d stopped midstride in front of him was one of the finest he’d seen in a long time. It was firm, nicely curved and packaged in a narrow zebra-print skirt that clung to its contours like a glove to the proverbial hand. The legs that extended from the skirt’s meager hemline were the perfect complement to a first-class ass. And the shoes—black with red soles that ended in daggerlike four-inch heels... Well, it was all he could do to hold back his groan. And that was before she bent over to retrieve something from the lobby floor.

      Of course, this was neither the time nor the place to indulge base instincts, even if a toned butt, killer legs, animal-print miniskirt and stilettos ticked all of the boxes on his libido’s wish list. He concentrated on the company’s projected second-quarter profits. Those certainly were dismal enough to banish the triple-X fantasy that had started to play in his mind like the featured film at a bachelor party.

      As it was, the sizable slump in sales from the previous four quarters had the board of directors on edge and stockholders beginning to defect. The finger was being pointed in a direction Chase didn’t want to look. And then there were those damned rumors.

      The woman straightened, turned slightly and, catching sight of him, smiled apologetically, leaving asymmetrical divots in her cheeks. One dent was midway between her mouth and ear. The other, just to the side of her lips.

      “I’m sorry. I hope I wasn’t in your