Présentation de l'éditeur
Playing “Winter Wonderland” for last-minute Christmas shoppers has got to be the all-time low point of Stephanie Glassman’s career. The aspiring jazz soloist and single mother has no singing prospects, no man in her life since her hot fling with a movie stuntman, and a social life that consists of having her two best friends over for high-calorie Sunday brunches. Even her grandmother’s having more sex than she is. That is, until toddler Jake’s irresistible father hurtles back into her life.
Albert promises fidelity, plus married life filled with the best sex Stephanie’s ever had. But there’s a tantalizing new wrinkle: Frank Waterman, rising star and Stephanie’s old crush, is suddenly semi-available and interested. And her stalled career seems to be heating up. But when her big break erupts in a scandal that puts her on the front page instead, Stephanie’s in a whole new league. Now, with fame at her door and two hot guys fighting over her, Stephanie’s got some big decisions to make…and they may surprise everyone—including her.
Extrait
Chapter 1 “Elizabeth Arden?”
It was the third Saturday before Christmas and Stephanie Glassman, resident pianist at the Oxford Street branch of Debenhams, was sitting at a white baby grand on the ground floor, playing “Winter Wonderland.” She couldn’t have looked less Elizabeth Arden–like if she’d tried. Unless, of course, Miss Arden used to celebrate the festive season by dressing up in a tacky Mrs. Claus Christmas outfit, which included a fur-trimmed thigh-high skirt and Teutonic blonde wig with plaited Alpine shepherdess-style earphones.
As she carried on playing, Stephanie looked up from the keyboard and saw a bulky, tweedy woman standing at her side. She was weighed down with carrier bags, and her face exuded faint desperation and the urgent need of a large gin. Stephanie had been at Debenhams for two weeks now and the haunted, get-me-out-of-here Christmas shopper look was one she had come to recognize only too well.
“I’m looking for her Perpetual Moisture,” the woman panted, desperation rising. “It’s for my sister-in-law in Stoke Poges. She swears by it. Lord knows why she bothers. Got a face like a fossilized custard skin. Harrods and Selfridges have both run out. Of course, if I had my way the poisonous old boot would get a box of Newberry Fruits and a Jamie Oliver video and be done with it.”
While the woman paused for breath, Stephanie gave her a warm, sympathetic smile.
“The Elizabeth Arden counter is just over there.” She nodded. “Behind Dior.”
“Right, well, if they haven’t got it I think I’ll plump for a foot spa. That way I can always live in hope she might electrocute herself.” Stephanie thought it best to remain noncommittal—at least regarding the electrocution bit. “A foot spa’s always useful,” she said. “Or gardening gloves and a pair of pruning shears, maybe.”
With that the woman huffed off toward the Elizabeth Arden counter and Stephanie segued into “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
Being Jewish, Stephanie’s family didn’t do Christmas—something for which she knew her mother, Estelle, had always been eternally grateful. The spring cleaning, shopping, baking and fish frying frenzy of Passover was enough to send her racing for the Valium—without having to cope with Christmas as well. Stephanie, on the other hand, had always rather resented the family’s lack of Christmas celebrations.
Traditional as they may have been where Passover was concerned, her parents weren’t particularly observant. For a start, they ate nonkosher food. When she was a kid they went out for Chinese dinner nearly every Sunday night. Her father was a ferocious advocate of cha siu pork, believing its medicinal qualities to be infinitely greater than those of chicken soup. Her grandmother, who usually accompanied them on these jaunts, refused to touch the pork. On top of this she always insisted on going through what Stephanie called her preening ritual, whereby s
