Plain Jane and the Playboy / Valentine's Fortune. Marie Ferrarella

act like you don’t want to be around yourself. Understand?”

      A little of Ricky’s disappointment abated. “I think so.”

      Jorge nodded. Since no one was approaching the bar at the moment, he decided to be more generous with his advice. “And this next point is the most important thing you’ll ever learn about dealing with a woman.”

      “What?” Ricky asked breathlessly, Ponce DeLeon about to uncover the fountain of youth.

      Jorge lowered his voice. “When talking to a girl, always make her feel as if she’s the prettiest girl in the room.”

      Ricky swallowed and glanced over at Lizzie Fortune, the girl who made the very air back up in his lungs. Lizzie was a distant Fortune cousin, just in town for the holidays. His heart had melted the moment he laid eyes on her this evening.

      He didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell with someone who looked like that. And he doubted that Jorge’s magic formula would have any effect on Lizzie.

      “What if she already is the prettiest girl in the room?” he wanted to know.

      “Then it’s even easier,” Jorge told him. “You can handle any girl. Just have confidence in yourself, Ricky, and the rest will be a piece of cake.”

      Ricky was still more than a little uncertain. Just breathing was enough for someone who looked like Jorge. But for someone like him, it wasn’t that simple. “And this always works?”

      “Always,” Jorge said confidently.

      But he could see that Ricky still had his doubts. The boy definitely needed a demonstration, Jorge decided. “Tell you what,” he proposed. “You pick any girl in this room and I’ll have her eating out of my hand in no time.”

      Ricky’s eyes widened far enough to fall out. “Any girl?”

      “Any girl,” Jorge agreed. “Just make sure she’s not married. We don’t want to start any fights here in my parents’ restaurant.”

      Ricky was perfectly amendable to that. “Okay,” he agreed, bobbing his head up and down. He was already scanning the crowded room for a candidate.

      Ricky stopped looking when his line of vision returned to the woman he’d spotted earlier, sitting by herself at a table. There was a frown on her face as she regarded her half-empty glass and she was very obviously alone. It was a table for two and there was no indication that anyone had recently vacated the other chair.

      There was even a book on the table in front of her. Was she reading? Whether she was or not, there seemed to be an air of melancholy about her, visible even at this distance.

      “Her,” Ricky announced, pointing to the woman. “I pick her.”

       Chapter Two

      Rising to the challenge, Jorge attempted to focus in the general direction that Ricky indicated.

      The woman was clearly the stereotypical wallflower. She was sitting at the corner table all by herself, twirling a lock of long curly brown hair around her finger, the festive lights shimmering off her shiny green dress.

      “Hey, man, I don’t want to get arrested just to prove a point,” Jorge protested. When Ricky looked at him quizzically, Jorge added, “She looks like a kid.”

      Ricky shook his head. “She’s not. I heard her talking to someone earlier. She works for some kids’ literacy foundation, tutoring them and sometimes holding fund-raisers to buy extra books. I think it’s called Red Rock ReadingWorks,” Ricky volunteered. He looked at Jorge expectantly. “She’s gotta be at least twenty.”

      Jorge grinned at the boy’s tone. He was thirty-eight himself, but he doubted Ricky knew that. “Then she’s ancient, huh?”

      “Hey, I’m fourteen. Everybody’s ancient to me.” Feeling as if he’d just put one foot in his mouth, Ricky quickly added, “Except you, of course.”

      Jorge’s grin widened. “Nice save,” he commented.

      Ricky glanced back toward the girl at the table before looking up at his hero again. Jorge hadn’t made a move yet.

      “Backing down?” he wanted to know.

      Nothing he liked better than a challenge, although, given his experience, the young woman at the table didn’t look as if she’d put up much resistance.

      “Not a chance,” Jorge told him. He looked around and then saw one of the restaurant’s employees at the far end of the bar. Perfect. “Hey, Angel,” he called over the din. The man looked in his direction and raised a brow. “Mind taking over for me for a few minutes? I haven’t had a break all night.”

      Jorge was the owners’ son and what he wanted, he would have gotten without question even if he wasn’t so affable. Angel nodded and came around to the other side of the bar.

      “No problem.”

      Untying the half black apron secured around his slim waist, Jorge surrendered it to Angel. He felt invigorated. He was back in hunting mode.

      Jane Gilliam had really hoped that coming to the party tonight would help her shake off the dark mood that had all but enshrouded her these last few days. Three days to be exact.

      Three days since Eddie Gibbs had unceremoniously, and without prior warning, dumped her.

      She probably wouldn’t have even known she was being dumped, at least not for a few more days, if it wasn’t for New Year’s Eve. She’d impulsively asked the man she’d been seeing for the last six months to this New Year’s Eve extravaganza that her close friend, Isabella Mendoza, had invited her to.

      Eddie had listened to her impatiently and then he’d turned her down. She hadn’t been prepared for that and when she’d asked him why, Eddie had bluntly told her that he would be spending New Year’s Eve with someone else.

      With his new girlfriend.

      Jane could feel the sting of tears starting again and she passed her hand over her eyes, wiping them away. Up until that point, she’d thought that she was Eddie’s girlfriend. But somewhere along the line in the last month, a month in which Eddie had been making himself increasingly scarce, he had decided that he “could do better”—his very words, each tipped in heart-piercing titanium—and found himself someone else.

      The only trouble with that was that he’d forgotten to tell her.

      Jane let out a long, shaky breath. She supposed she should have seen it coming. After all, it wasn’t as if she was a knockout. And cute guys like Eddie Gibbs didn’t stay with mousy girls like her, at least not for long.

      Women, Jane silently corrected herself. Women. She was twenty-five years old. At twenty-five, you weren’t a girl anymore; you were a woman.

      A very lonely woman, Jane thought glumly, looking into the bottom of her glass. The drink had long since become watered down, the ice cubes melting into what had once been a fruity piña colada. It had turned the liquid into an exceedingly pale shade of yellow.

      She needed to get out of here, she told herself. At this point, she didn’t know what she could have been thinking, agreeing to come here with Isabella. Seeing all these couples, whispering into each other’s ear, clearly enjoying themselves, was just making her feel more hopeless.

      More alone.

      Besides, it was getting pretty close to midnight, when the New Year was ushered in with heartfelt, soulful, passionate kisses. Seeing all these couples wrapped in each other’s arms, kissing in the New Year was much more than she was going to be able to stand.

      Up until three days ago, she thought she’d be kissing Eddie at the stroke of midnight. Now, she thought dejectedly, she’d probably be the only one here who had no one to turn to as the glittering silver ball on the wide-screen, flat-panel television reached the bottom