Camille Moreau had seen difficult customers, demanding customers, and customers who mistook a healthy credit limit for good taste, but the young man standing in front of her was proving to be an entirely new species. Ten minutes earlier he had looked like a handsome software engineer who'd taken a wrong turn into a very expensive boutique. Now he stood in a dress that fitted beautifully, studying himself with the cheerful concentration of someone who'd found an unexpected feature in a program he'd only meant to test. His expression kept changing as he discovered what the cut did when he moved, while Allison Kensington, who had brought him here for the express purpose of looking impressive, seemed to have forgotten how to form complete sentences. Camille was beginning to understand why Sophie had nearly bitten through her own lip trying not to laugh.

Tim caught Camille looking at him in the mirror and gave her the friendly smile of a man who had absolutely no intention of behaving. “All right,” he said. “You've established that Allison has excellent taste and terrible judgment. Where do we go from here?” He caught Allison's eye before she could object, and for a wonderful second her expression suggested she was deciding whether to kiss him or have him arrested. He'd been collecting those expressions since she found him at the bus stop, and each new one made the day considerably more interesting.

“First, we discuss what the dress is doing for you,” Camille replied, moving closer to the mirror. She indicated the fall of the skirt and the shape through the waist, giving him the same serious attention she would give any woman learning why one garment worked and another didn't. “The cut gives you a lovely line, and your build makes my work easier than I expected. A fitted dress, though, will ask more of the silhouette than this one does. If you want choices instead of a single successful outfit, we need to work underneath the clothes.”

Tim glanced at his reflection, then at the delicate silk on the padded bench. He'd expected the afternoon to involve shopping, possibly a humiliating encounter with shoes, and quite a lot of entertainment at Allison's expense. Discovering that the project had acquired actual technical depth was excellent news. “Foundation garments, then,” he said, and saw Camille's approving nod. “Shapewear, hips, chest, all the structural engineering. I assume there's a load-bearing calculation for my ass somewhere in there.”

Sophie made a noise like a squeaky toy being stepped on. Camille pressed her lips together, visibly reconsidered her professional obligations, and lost the battle with a laugh. Allison was less subtle; she turned to Sophie, who had already declared herself a fan of Tim's, and told her to stop encouraging him. “I'm not encouraging him,” Sophie protested, looking extraordinarily encouraged. “He came this way.” Tim, delighted to have acquired allies, told Allison that he appreciated a boutique with excellent customer service and a robust vendor-support model. Camille informed him that support could be withdrawn at any time, then went to retrieve the foundation pieces while Allison muttered something about an entire store full of traitors.

The garments Camille laid out were surprisingly ordinary, which disappointed the part of Tim that had expected a laboratory full of alarming technology. He lifted one piece carefully and examined its seams, trying to work out how something so innocuous could change a silhouette. Camille explained support, smoothing, and proportion with an easy practicality that made him comfortable asking questions he'd never had any reason to ask before. When he brought up tucking, she answered directly, stressing fit, comfort, and the importance of stopping if something hurt, while making clear that different clothes called for different solutions. There was no ceremony to the conversation and no suggestion that he had to prove anything about himself to be allowed to learn. Tim found that he liked her even more for it.

“What I'm hearing,” he said when she finished, “is that I need to stop treating this as a costume with accessories and start treating it as an entire system.” He'd meant it as a joke, but the words made Camille pause, and Allison watched him with an expression that wasn't quite teasing anymore. The day had begun as an absurd arrangement between strangers, yet he had grown genuinely interested in what these women knew and how much of their knowledge he could borrow. “Also, I may need a notebook,” he added, because he couldn't bear to leave a moment unspoiled when he could improve it. Sophie practically levitated with delight and announced that she'd take care of the notebook herself.

The fitting room became a temporary workshop, although Tim discovered that being the project was rather different from writing the specifications. He wrestled with an uncooperative foundation garment, put it on backward once, and developed a sincere suspicion that the manufacturer had designed its sizing chart as a personal attack. Camille offered instructions from outside the curtain, occasionally interrupted by Sophie, whose advice was useful in direct proportion to how much she was laughing. By the time he finally got everything positioned correctly, he was warm, slightly rumpled, and beginning to appreciate that looking effortless demanded a great deal of effort. Then he looked in the mirror, and his complaints evaporated.

The change wasn't magic, and that pleased him almost as much as the result. His own face looked back at him, framed by the long hair he'd worn for years, but the garment altered the relationship between his shoulders, waist, and hips enough to make the dress hang differently. He moved sideways to check the line, then turned to see whether it survived motion. He'd watched Allison walk into Maison Belle as though she'd bought stock in gravity and expected regular dividends; now, for the first time, he could see a practical route from the clumsy version of himself to someone who belonged beside her. It was a ridiculously ambitious route, and he was having an excellent time planning it.

When he stepped out, Sophie gave an appreciative whistle before catching Camille's warning glance and pretending she'd meant to cough. Camille examined the fit, adjusted one seam, and asked whether anything pinched or pulled. Allison, meanwhile, stared at Tim with the kind of undivided attention that ought to have come with a warning label. He let her look long enough to enjoy it, then tilted his head. “Should I be worried that you've gone quiet, or is this a favorable test result?” Allison opened her mouth, shut it again, and finally told him that he was becoming insufferable. Since she'd been smiling when she said it, Tim considered the verdict encouraging.

Camille moved on to hip and breast forms, explaining placement and proportion while Tim watched her work in the mirror. Sophie brought the promised notebook and a pen, which he accepted with more sincerity than she seemed prepared for. He asked about movement, support, the differences between necklines, and what happened when a dress looked wonderful on a mannequin but punished the person wearing it. Each question made Camille more animated; this was her craft, and she enjoyed having a student who treated it as something worth understanding. Allison enjoyed that too, Tim noticed, although she seemed determined to disguise the pleasure under increasingly elaborate expressions of exasperation. The disguise was not working, particularly when he adjusted the forms, turned toward her, and watched her eyes follow the curve of the dress before she remembered that he could see her.

“You're doing that deliberately,” Allison accused, pointing at him as though she could bring him before a jury. Tim considered the evidence, which was admittedly devastating, and decided not to offer a defense. He'd agreed to be her fake girlfriend because she wanted to make Clara jealous in Paris, but nothing in their arrangement said he couldn't make Allison jealous of her own composure in the meantime. “I'm learning from the best,” he told her, looking pointedly at her flawless clothes and those impossible shoes. Camille laughed, Sophie applauded, and Allison informed him that she had created a monster. He suspected she was beginning to enjoy the monster rather a lot.

By the time Camille put him back into the first dress, the effect had become sufficiently dramatic to stop even Sophie mid-comment. Tim knew he looked good because he'd checked the mirror from approximately twelve angles, but Allison's response was far more interesting than the mirror. She looked him over with slow, frankly appreciative attention, then caught him watching her do it and lifted her chin as though that settled matters. It did not. Tim took a step closer, conscious of the skirt brushing his knees, and asked whether her investment was meeting expectations. Allison held his gaze and said, “It's exceeding the budget,” in a voice that sounded much more like flirting than an accounting objection. Camille made a pointed show of rearranging scarves, allowing the two of them a moment that neither seemed willing to admit had become a moment.

The arrival of the shoes destroyed whatever dignity remained. Camille produced a sensible beginner's pair first, followed by a second box that made Allison recoil as though she'd seen a rattlesnake. Tim studied the first pair with suspicion, having already learned that attractive footwear could conceal ambitious engineering. When he stood, his ankles offered several opinions, none of them complimentary, and he sat down again before he could fall into an expensive display. Allison laughed so hard that she had to steady herself against a chair. He would have resented it if she hadn't looked so magnificent with her head tipped back, her perfect social composure abandoned, and genuine delight lighting her face. “Glad my suffering is doing something for you,” he told her, accepting Camille's offered hand and preparing to try again.

Camille taught him to keep his knees soft and place his weight carefully, while Sophie positioned herself like an extremely cheerful emergency-response volunteer. Allison took charge of his posture after the third attempt, stepping behind him to adjust his shoulders and then coming around to demonstrate the stride herself. Tim watched the economy of her movements and tried to imitate it, earning several corrections, a near collision with a rack of scarves, and one entirely unnecessary round of applause from Sophie. He also earned Allison's hand against his back and the brief warmth of her fingers at his waist. For a man who'd spent the morning waiting for a bus, he was getting a remarkably good return on the day.

“Stop leaning forward,” Allison said, close enough that her perfume distracted him from the advice. She adjusted him once more, and he turned his head to answer before remembering that she was standing inches away. For a moment neither of them moved, and the playful noise of the boutique receded behind the sudden awareness of her hand at his waist. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, returned to his eyes, and seemed to irritate her by betraying the journey. Tim smiled because he couldn't help it, and Allison gave his shoulder a little shove that was affectionate enough to feel like an invitation to do it again. Camille's cough from across the room was suspiciously theatrical.

Practice improved matters slowly, which Tim found reassuring. He managed a few clean passes across the open floor, grew careless, wobbled on the turn, and started over with new respect for the skill involved. When Allison demonstrated a step, he studied how she shifted her weight rather than just where she put her feet; when she caught him studying, she looked absurdly pleased. The longer he worked, the more he found himself enjoying the attention, not merely because an attractive woman was watching him but because she was taking his effort seriously. He liked Allison's competitive streak, her willingness to teach, and the way a successful pass made her smile before she remembered that she was supposed to be annoyed with him. He decided, without quite admitting it to himself, that he wanted many more afternoons like this one.

Then Camille opened the second box. The heels inside were exquisite, perilous, and so completely impractical that Tim fell for them at first sight. Allison made a sound of genuine protest, which of course improved their appeal, and Sophie announced that this was her favorite day at work. Tim was barely able to stand in the shoes, but for several thrilling seconds he saw the combination in the mirror and understood why people voluntarily suffered for beautiful things. Camille and Allison bracketed him as he attempted one step, then another; the second sent him grabbing for Allison's arm, where he found her steady and far too close for his concentration. “Current bug,” he informed her gravely, trying to recover his dignity. “Excellent feature request,” Allison replied, and then she laughed at her own joke before he could congratulate her on learning the language.

Camille called a halt before Tim's enthusiasm could injure him, explaining that sore feet were an excellent way to acquire bad habits. She offered to hold the more ambitious heels until he was ready for them, and Tim accepted with the grief of a man being separated from a new sports car. Allison told Camille not to encourage him, then caught Tim looking at the shoes with undisguised longing and softened despite herself. He was still plotting how many paychecks the shoes might cost when Allison slipped her arm through his and steered him toward the next rack. “Come on, Barbie,” she said. “You have more work to do, and I would like my girlfriend in one piece for Paris.” Tim liked the word *my* rather more than was probably wise.

The rest of the afternoon moved through dresses, skirts, a blouse that changed character completely with the right foundation, and a cardigan Sophie insisted made him look dangerously approachable. Camille refused to sell them a month's wardrobe on the first day, pointing out that Tim had only begun to learn what he liked and what he could comfortably manage. Allison, already halfway through proposing an extravagant collection, looked personally offended by a merchant declining to take her money. Tim found this delightful until she accidentally mentioned fourteen days of clothing and all three women went suspiciously quiet. He filed the number away without comment, though he couldn't resist giving Allison a look. She warned him that he was not to interpret anything, which naturally ensured that he spent the next five minutes interpreting it.

The handbag argument broke out when Sophie presented a small, beautiful bag as though revealing the solution to a humanitarian crisis. Tim asked whether it could hold his laptop, and the expressions he received suggested he'd just proposed storing soup in the company server. Allison took the bag, opened it, and began listing things he'd need throughout a day in clothes with insufficient pockets. Every practical example made perfect sense, which annoyed him because he was hoping to win on principle. Camille was openly enjoying the defeat, and Sophie looked prepared to name the handbag after herself. In the end Tim carried it around the shop, discovered that it solved several problems, and informed Allison that he and the bag had reached a provisional professional understanding. “That's how every great romance begins,” Sophie observed, and Allison told her she was on very thin ice.

By late afternoon a modest collection of clothes, foundation pieces, jewelry, hosiery, practical heels, one nightgown, and the handbag had gathered on the padded bench. Sophie decorated the notebook with enormous letters reading SOFTWARE ENGINEER BARBIE QUALITY ASSURANCE, apparently having decided that subtlety was for stores with less interesting customers. Tim laughed when she presented it, then surprised her by tucking it carefully into his laptop backpack. He had learned more than he expected, and the women had treated him as someone capable of learning rather than as a novelty. Camille reminded him that buying the clothes was the easy part; living in them, especially when tired or distracted, required practice. That sounded like a challenge worth accepting, although he could see Allison recognizing the same possibility and beginning to worry about what he'd do with it.

Camille looked between them as they prepared to leave, taking in Allison's nervous attention and Tim's apparently bottomless supply of cheerful provocation. “You brought him here to make another woman jealous,” she told Allison, who had the decency to look mildly guilty. “And now you've spent the entire afternoon staring at him yourself.” Sophie stopped sorting tissue paper and waited with the bright, shameless interest of a woman certain that the final scene was about to be worth watching. Allison opened her mouth, presumably to defend her dignity, but Camille wasn't finished. She pointed out that Tim had listened, learned, and taken their work seriously, all while discovering he could unsettle Allison with a smile. Camille gave Allison the sort of look that suggested the bill for this afternoon might turn out to be the least expensive thing she'd brought home.

Tim felt the joke settle into something unexpectedly tender, especially when Allison looked at him instead of answering Camille. The beautiful, impossible woman who'd picked him up at a bus stop seemed suddenly less interested in winning an argument than in understanding what, exactly, she'd done to herself. He didn't try to rescue the moment with a performance, though he was sorely tempted. Camille allowed them a breath of silence before ruining it with a reminder that Tim still had Allison's credit card. Sophie nearly collapsed against the counter, Allison swore with surprising elegance, and Tim decided that Camille Moreau was one of the great women of his generation.

Outside Maison Belle, the evening had cooled and the bus stop was exactly where Tim had left it several geological ages earlier. He looked at the little shelter, then at the shopping bags being loaded into Allison's Bentley, and considered the spectacular inadequacy of his original plan to go home after work. Allison caught the look and asked whether he was having regrets. He told her that he was considering the fascinating career possibilities of quality assurance in luxury women's clothing, especially with such enthusiastic management. She rolled her eyes, but when he offered to carry all the bags, she insisted on taking half. Their hands brushed as they shared the load, and Tim found himself liking the tiny, ordinary cooperation more than he could easily explain.

Allison spotted Bistro Regency across the street and announced that they were having dinner. Tim asked whether he was being fed or subjected to further testing, and she told him that if they were going to appear at Julie's wedding as a couple, they should probably try acting like one in public before Clara got a front-row seat to their incompetence. He found this difficult to dispute, though he noticed how quickly she managed to say the word *date* before correcting it to *fake date*. He was very generous about the correction, limiting himself to one deeply irritating smile. When she accused him of enjoying her discomfort, he pointed out that she'd bought him shoes specifically designed to make him suffer and that he was entitled to find alternative entertainment. She laughed, took his arm, and led him toward the curb.

Crossing the street turned into another lesson. Allison negotiated the curb in her extraordinary heels with a movement so practiced it barely registered, but Tim, fresh from an afternoon of near-disasters, noticed exactly how she shifted her weight. He copied her, with considerably less grace but gratifying success, and saw her watching his feet when they reached the other side. “You copied me,” she said, sounding pleased before she managed to disguise it as accusation. Tim told her that she happened to be very good at the thing he was trying to learn, which was why he'd been paying attention. Something in her expression softened so suddenly that he nearly forgot the joke he'd prepared. Instead of teasing him, she slowed her pace to match his as they entered the restaurant, her hand resting lightly against his back.

Bistro Regency was warm and busy, full of low conversation and the clink of glasses, and Tim found himself enjoying the curious sensation of arriving with Allison rather than merely following her. She navigated the room with casual assurance, greeting the host by name and accepting a table without the slightest hint that she'd once considered dinner an operational necessity. When they sat, he remembered the skirt and the handbag before either betrayed him, then looked up to find her watching with unmistakable approval. He informed her that fear of disappointing Camille had become a powerful motivator, which made her laugh, and they settled into menus with the comfortable anticipation of two people who'd had a very strange day together. Tim couldn't remember the last time he'd enjoyed someone's company this much without trying to impress them. The thought was almost alarming, so he did what any sensible engineer would do and changed the subject to dinner.

He understood the menu in roughly the way he understood an unfamiliar programming language: the pieces were recognizable, but somebody else had clearly invented the rules. Allison, on the other hand, knew the restaurant, the food, and probably the chef's childhood nickname, so Tim closed his menu and asked her to choose for him. She looked over the top of hers as though he'd made a more intimate proposal than ordering fish. He explained that she was the local expert and he trusted her judgment, which left her staring at him long enough that he began to worry she'd misunderstood. “Allison, it's dinner, not a kidney,” he said gently. That rescued her into laughter, although the expression that followed suggested there was something behind his easy trust she wasn't used to receiving.

When the server arrived, Allison ordered with the effortless competence Tim was discovering he found thoroughly attractive. She asked one precise question about preparation, made a small substitution, and closed the menu with the serene confidence of a woman who expected things to go well because she'd bothered to find out how they worked. He liked watching her lead, and he liked even more that she didn't apologize for it. Allison seemed less certain how to handle this than his teasing; she asked twice whether it bothered him to let her decide, and he answered as plainly as he could. “You're excellent at being you,” he said. “I don't know why I'd want you to be worse at it just so I could feel better at something.” Her gaze dropped briefly to her water, and he had the sense that he'd accidentally said something much more personal than he intended.

The food arrived before either of them needed to decide what to do with the moment. Tim tasted his dinner and reluctantly admitted that Allison's choice had been superb, which she received with the kind of satisfaction ordinarily reserved for closing a multimillion-dollar deal. He made the mistake of looking at her plate, and she immediately informed him that hers was better. Since he was beginning to understand that the two of them enjoyed making small contests out of almost anything, he challenged her to prove it. She cut a bite and offered to move it onto his plate, but he leaned forward instead, raising his eyebrows in a silent question. Allison caught on, gave him a look that should have scorched the tablecloth, and fed him from her fork anyway. The bite was excellent, though he suspected his reaction had rather less to do with the food than with the look on her face afterward.

He returned the favor a few minutes later, and Allison accepted with the deliberate dignity of someone refusing to admit she'd been flustered. They began stealing tastes from each other's plates, which was a much better way to spend dinner than studying whether she could convincingly introduce him to an ex-girlfriend. Allison caught him looking at her mouth and took a leisurely sip of wine, watching him over the rim of her glass. Tim made a show of studying the dessert menu, although he was holding it upside down; her laugh told him she'd noticed. Tim watched Allison handle her knife, lift her glass, and settle comfortably into those remarkable heels, catching himself borrowing some of her movements without conscious effort. She noticed, because of course she did, and when he told her he was learning from her, she smiled with such open pleasure that he almost reached across the table to take her hand. He didn't, but the urge stayed with him.

Their plates were nearly empty when a small voice rose above the restaurant's comfortable hum. Tim first noticed it because it was pitched at exactly the frequency of a child trying very hard not to cry, and then because Allison stopped in the middle of a particularly persuasive argument about whose dessert they'd be sharing. A little girl in a yellow cardigan stood beside the broad planter near the corridor to the restrooms, gripping the strap of a tiny pink bag. She couldn't have been more than five. She looked from one crowded table to another, searching faces that weren't the one she wanted, while the adults around her remained absorbed in their conversations. Tim set down his fork, and Allison followed his gaze; by the time he stood, she was already flagging down a server with the brisk, composed expression he'd begun to find dangerously attractive.

Tim crouched a few feet from the girl, careful to leave her room to move if she wanted it. Up close, he could see she'd been trying to be brave for a while, which was an impressive effort considering that her lower lip was trembling. “Hi,” he said, making sure she could see him before he spoke again. “I think you've run into the same problem I had earlier. This place is much bigger once you have to find your way around it.” The girl looked at his dress, then at his face, evidently weighing whether a person in pretty clothes could be trusted to understand something so serious. Tim had survived Camille's advanced course in shoes and a full afternoon of Allison Kensington; he felt reasonably qualified to handle a skeptical five-year-old. “I'm Tim,” he added. “What's your name?”

“Maisie.” Her voice barely carried over the dishes, and her fingers tightened around her bag. “My mommy said she'd wait, but I came out and I can't find her.” Tim nodded as though this were an entirely reasonable problem, because it was, and told her they could get the restaurant people to help without her having to search every table herself. When Maisie asked whether she'd been bad, he felt something twist in his chest. “Oh, sweetheart, no,” he said, gentler now. “You were trying to find your mom. That's what you're supposed to do when you're lost. The grown-ups can handle the rest.” He offered his hand palm up, letting her decide, and was surprised by how fiercely those little fingers closed around two of his.

Allison arrived with the floor manager and a server before Tim had finished explaining the plan to Maisie. She'd already asked them to check the restrooms and the entrance, and the manager had someone speaking discreetly to the host so a searching parent wouldn't be sent in circles. “Hi, Maisie. I'm Allison,” she said, lowering herself just enough to meet the girl's eyes without towering over her. “We're going to find your mom, okay? Nobody needs to go anywhere alone.” Then Allison looked at Tim, took in the small hand holding his, and somehow managed to communicate an entire page of logistical instructions with one raised eyebrow. Tim answered with a tiny nod. He was staying right where he was; she could run the rescue operation. It was a division of labor he could get very used to.

While Allison coordinated with the staff, Tim settled onto the edge of an upholstered bench beside the planter so Maisie wouldn't have to stand in the middle of the restaurant feeling conspicuous. She sat beside him without letting go, and he asked about the pink bag, which turned out to contain three crayons, a plastic dinosaur and a napkin drawing of what might have been a horse if horses had seven legs. The dinosaur was called Lady Sparkles. Tim considered that a magnificent name for a dinosaur and informed Maisie that Lady Sparkles looked like someone who knew how to handle an emergency. Maisie sniffed, then informed him with the absolute confidence of a child defending a friend that Lady Sparkles was a *she* and also very brave. “Well, naturally,” Tim said. “I wouldn't dream of arguing with her.” He put the dinosaur in charge of the napkin, and Maisie finally giggled.

He stayed where she could see him and let Lady Sparkles do the difficult part. When she asked again whether her mother was coming, he answered that Allison and the restaurant staff were looking and that he would stay with her until they found her. Maisie appeared satisfied by the promise, at least enough to begin explaining why the dinosaur needed a crown. Tim listened carefully, because a crown for Lady Sparkles was clearly a matter requiring expert consultation, and nearly missed Allison returning. She had a pleased, relieved look in her eyes and was walking beside a woman whose face was pale with the particular terror of having lost sight of a child. The woman spotted Maisie before Allison had a chance to say anything, and crossed the remaining distance at a speed that suggested the restaurant ought to clear a runway.

“Mommy!” Maisie launched herself off the bench, leaving Lady Sparkles in Tim's lap, and collided with her mother's knees. Her mother swept her up, holding her so tightly that Tim could almost feel the force of the relief from where he sat. The explanation came in breathless pieces: Maisie's mother had been waiting at a table near the restrooms, Maisie had come out through the other door, and they had each been looking for the other on opposite sides of the dining room. Allison supplied the practical details quietly, confirming the manager knew they'd been reunited and making sure the woman's belongings were still at her table. Tim stayed seated for a moment, holding the dinosaur and giving mother and daughter a little room to cling to each other without an audience. He understood perfectly well that he was surplus to requirements now, and that was exactly how he wanted it.

Then Maisie twisted in her mother's arms and pointed directly at him. “I couldn't find you, Mommy, and I was scared, but the beautiful princess helped me!” Her mother looked at Tim in his dress, at the dinosaur occupying his lap, and at Allison beside him with a look of barely suppressed astonishment. Tim, who had been called many things in his thirty-five years, found that beautiful princess was an unexpectedly lovely addition to the collection. Maisie went on to explain that the princess had stayed with her, that Lady Sparkles was in charge, and that the other pretty lady had gone to find Mommy. She delivered this account with the cheerful certainty of someone who had survived a major adventure and was now entitled to tell it as many times as necessary.

Her mother thanked them both, still shaky enough that the words kept catching. Allison reassured her that the staff had been wonderful and that Maisie had handled herself beautifully; Tim handed Lady Sparkles back with appropriate ceremony and told Maisie to keep the dinosaur's emergency credentials current. That produced another giggle and a solemn promise. When mother and daughter finally went back toward their table, Maisie waved over her mother's shoulder with the hand that wasn't clutching Lady Sparkles. Tim waved back until they disappeared around the corner. Only then did he notice Allison watching him with the sort of expression that made him want to check whether he'd accidentally put his lipstick on crooked.

“What?” he asked when she remained suspiciously quiet. Allison glanced toward the corridor, then back at him, and her mouth quivered before she managed to control it. “You got promoted to princess,” she said. Tim pointed out that the title had been conferred by a qualified member of the public and ought to be respected, preferably with a tiara. Allison laughed, but the sound caught on something softer, and she touched his arm with a tenderness that didn't feel like part of their ongoing competition. “She was terrified,” Allison said. “And within five minutes you had her discussing a dinosaur's coronation.” Tim shrugged, more interested in seeing the relief on the mother's face than accepting a compliment. “You found her mom. I was just keeping Lady Sparkles out of trouble.”

“You were exactly what she needed.” Allison said it quietly enough that Tim didn't have a joke ready, then she seemed to realize how earnest she'd sounded and rescued them both by adding, “Although I should warn you that if you insist on a tiara, Camille is going to consider it a purchasing emergency.” Tim took the offered escape with gratitude and informed her that a crown would probably interfere with his headroom in the car. Allison rolled her eyes, but she slipped her hand into his as they walked back to the table and kept it there until the server arrived to clear their plates. Tim glanced down at their joined hands, still rather pleased that Allison had reached for his without thinking. He'd agreed to this ridiculous adventure because a spectacularly beautiful woman wanted to make her ex jealous, and spending a weekend in Paris playing her gorgeous girlfriend had sounded like an excellent use of his time. The dresses were fun, the challenge was irresistible, and making Allison blush had become his favorite recreational activity. But Maisie's declaration had lodged itself somewhere unexpectedly important, especially after seeing Allison look at him as though the little girl had gotten something exactly right. He'd started this adventure wanting to help Allison win her breakup, and somewhere between the heels, the laughter, and the way she held his hand, he'd begun wanting something considerably more permanent. He wanted to be Allison's princess, and the truly ridiculous part was how happy that made him. When the server offered dessert, Tim asked for the menu with an enthusiasm Allison seemed to find suspicious, but he had no intention of explaining himself just yet.

Dessert brought the nightgown back into the conversation, though neither of them understood at first why that particular purchase troubled Allison. She stared across the table with the expression she'd worn in Maison Belle when Camille mentioned fourteen days of clothes, then asked why a fake girlfriend needed a nightgown for a weekend in Paris. Tim considered the question while watching her slowly realize that she'd bought more than a weekend's worth of possibilities. Camille's final lesson came back to him: there was an enormous difference between dressing successfully for an afternoon and living in clothes when you were tired, distracted, or halfway through an ordinary morning. He wanted the second kind of competence, and he was beginning to suspect Allison wanted to see him acquire it. “You do realize I need practice outside the boutique,” he said, trying not to grin at her increasingly suspicious expression.

Allison crossed her arms and invited him to explain what that meant, sounding like a prosecutor who already knew a crime was in progress. Tim described mornings when he would need to remember the right foundation pieces, evenings when his feet hurt, and all the ordinary habits that a wedding weekend would expose if he only practiced under Camille's supervision. He reminded her that he'd copied her at the curb without thinking, then pointed out that learning from someone excellent was considerably easier when that person was available to teach. Allison's eyes narrowed as the argument became obvious, and he watched the exact moment her objection collided with her appetite for a good plan. “Absolutely not,” she said, even though he hadn't yet suggested anything. Tim told her that preemptive rejection was an unfair procurement practice, and she laughed in spite of herself.

“I'm proposing a controlled training environment,” he explained, adopting the sober tone he normally reserved for convincing colleagues to stop deploying untested code. “You already know everything I'm trying to learn, you have a house, and I have an inconvenient tendency to pick up useful habits from you. I'm not suggesting you become my full-time babysitter. I'm suggesting that the best way to prepare for pretending to live together for a weekend might be to spend some actual time living together first.” He paused just long enough for her to see the outrageous conclusion forming. “I should move in with you.”

Allison leaned back and closed her eyes, but Tim had seen the flash of pleasure before she hid it. A few hours ago, she'd met an attractive stranger at a bus stop and devised a scheme to parade him in front of Clara as evidence that her life had improved. Now she was considering whether to invite that same stranger into her home, and she was having difficulty pretending the idea didn't delight her. When she opened her eyes, she adopted the polished expression of Kensington Logistics' chief executive, a face Tim suspected had terrified entire conference rooms. She began listing practical objections, but every objection turned into a question about timing, space, or expectations. Tim answered each one sincerely, delighted to discover that underneath the comedy they were having a real conversation about something both wanted.

He promised he wouldn't arrive with a truck and empty his apartment into her house without asking, and Allison looked absurdly relieved by the distinction. She told him that there would be boundaries, practical arrangements, and conversations they weren't going to settle over dessert. He agreed readily, though he pointed out that he'd been asked to play the part of her girlfriend and that ignoring the living arrangements would be a rather glaring defect in their testing plan. Allison laughed, reached for his hand again, and shook it as though they were closing a deal, except she kept hold of it afterward. “Fine,” she said at last, her smile bright enough to make the word feel like a gift. “You can move in. We'll work out the details tomorrow.”

Tim had prepared for several more rounds of negotiation, so the victory caught him off guard. For a moment he simply stared at her, and Allison looked enormously pleased to have managed the same trick he'd been playing on her all day. She asked whether he'd finally run out of remarks, then gave him a triumphant little smile that made him want to kiss her across the table. He settled for telling her that her project-management style had some alarming strengths. “You're welcome,” she said, with such warmth that he forgot to answer. The waiter arrived with the check at precisely the moment Tim might have said something reckless, and Allison returned to familiar ground by reaching for it.

She seemed surprised when he made no attempt to wrestle her for the bill. Tim reminded her that she had asked him out, bought the clothes for their shared scheme, and invited him to Paris, which made paying for dinner a remarkably straightforward question. When she pressed him, he understood that the money itself wasn't the point. Allison was accustomed to people having opinions about her wealth, her authority, and how much space she should be allowed to occupy, and Tim had no desire to join that tiresome chorus. He told her that if he wanted a woman who was less clever, less decisive, or less gloriously herself, he would have found a different bus stop. She laughed softly, then went quiet and studied him in a way that made him feel unexpectedly seen.

Outside, the night air was cool against Tim's skin, and the first step down from the curb reminded him that his heels had plenty of opinions left to express. He watched Allison shift her weight, copied her without thinking, and realized that she'd deliberately slowed so he could match her. Their shopping bags waited in the Bentley, along with the nightgown that had somehow acquired the power to rearrange his living arrangements. The bus shelter across the street stood under its little pool of light, innocent of the damage it had done to two perfectly respectable adults. Tim looked at it, then at Allison, and started laughing at the scale of what had happened since morning. Allison followed his gaze, pieced it together, and laughed even harder.

“We met this morning,” she said, staring at him as though that information had only just reached her desk. Tim reminded her that she'd approached him while he was waiting for a bus, then talked him into becoming a spectacular fake girlfriend in order to irritate an ex. She corrected him on *spectacular*, pointing out that she had known his potential from the beginning, and he thanked her for her confidence while making a point of adjusting the handbag on his arm. Allison looked at the bag, his dress, his shoes, and finally his face, where he was making no effort whatsoever to conceal how much he liked her. Her grin widened as the final absurdity occurred to her. “We met this morning,” she repeated, “and you're already bringing the U-Haul.”

Tim laughed so hard that he had to stop walking, and Allison caught his arm before his heels could turn the moment into a medical emergency. She was laughing too, her cheek briefly against his shoulder as they steadied each other beside the Bentley. Allison kept hold of his arm a little longer than his balance required, and Tim was having far too good an evening to point it out. Tim hadn't solved the problem of Paris or figured out how to walk in impossible heels, but he did know one thing with increasing certainty: Allison Kensington was going to be a spectacular amount of trouble. He could hardly wait.

Thanks for joining Tim and Allison in a perfectly sensible arrangement between two adults who should know better. Allison has the plan and the credit card. Tim keeps finding ways to improve the specifications. Neither seems concerned that they're enjoying the assignment this much.

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