Page 1 of Making Over Maris

Chapter One

“You want me to what?” Soda spurted out of Sara Grant’s nose. She mopped it up and gaped at Jack Maris, at his coke-bottle glasses, his scraggly, crumb-strewn beard, his ubiquitous black t-shirt with some vague video game reference splattered all over it.

“You heard me, Sara. I want you to make me attractive to women.”

Holy crap.

Yeah. That’s what she’d thought he’d said.

She shuddered and stared down at the lunch table, at her suddenly unappetizing tuna salad. “Jack—”

“Listen, Sara. I know I’m kind of a dork…”

Kind of?

“And I’m hardly Brad Pitt.”

Hardly?

“But I really need your help with this.” He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “Please?”

She tried to ignore the crack in his voice. They’d been friends, coworkers and partners in crime for years. He’d been the one who told her about this job at the company he’d started with his friends—badgered her to apply for it, even. Because of that alone she’d do almost anything he asked.

But this? Impossible!

And it wasn’t just the physical aspect of things. It wasn’t that he was dumpy and doughy and extraordinarily…be-furred. Seriously. A Wookiee would be jealous.

No. It wasn’t all that scruffy hair or the beer belly or the fact that he always looked vaguely unkempt.

Okay, maybe not vaguely.

The real challenge was the simple fact that Jack was utterly clueless about women.

He’d been an über-nerd since high school. A brilliant nerd, but a nerd nonetheless. To think she could magically transform him into some steamy hunk, to teach him how to be romantic, to unlearn him of all his hideous habits to the point that women—normal women—would want him, was ridiculous.

She shook her head. “No.”

He surveyed her in silence, tapping his finger on the table as though he was running computations in his head. He did stuff like that. A lot. Jack was always thinking. His jaw clenched. “I’ll pay you.”

Sara balled up her trash and tossed it across the room into the mini basketball hoop the guys had set up over the break-room trashcan. Two points. “You couldn’t pay me enough.”

Aw, hell. She hadn’t meant to sound so flippant. Truly she hadn’t. The wounded expression flickering across his features made her wince. But it was there for a second and then gone, quickly replaced by a flare of resolute determination. Sara winced. She knew that expression.

“Come on, Grant. There must be something you want. Something you really want?” He waggled his brows. Two furry caterpillars warred on his forehead. “You know I can afford it.”

Yeah. He could. Though it was not apparent from his sartorial ineptitude, Jack was a freaking bazillionaire. However, that didn’t make the prospect of taking on such a ridiculous project more appealing.

Still…she did want something. She only mentioned it because there was no way—no way—he could deliver.

“Okay… I want to spend my thirtieth birthday atop the Eiffel Tower with a glass of champagne in my hand and Mr. Right at my side.” It was her fantasy. Had been forever. Since she was a girl. But that milestone was only a couple months away and all she had was a bedpost scarred with the notches of “perfect men” who hadn’t worked out.

And Todd still hadn’t called her back. She didn’t even want to think about how that made her feel.

The notion of a romantic thirtieth birthday with the man of her dreams seemed suddenly ridiculous.

Which probably accounted for the sarcasm in her voice.

But Jack was oblivious to the sarcasm. He was oblivious to most things.