Little Lady, Big Apple - Softcover

One

My name is Melissa Romney-Jones, but between the hours of nine and five you can call me Honey.

That's when I'm at work, running the Little Lady Agency, London's premier freelance girlfriend service. During office hours, I'm Honey Blennerhesket, queen of scruffy bachelors and scourge of slacking domestics. The Little Lady Agency, my very own business, is the first port of call for hopeless single chaps who need to borrow a woman's expertise for the afternoon. You'd be astounded how many of them there are.

It's not, I should stress, as racy as it sounds, but it has completely changed my outlook on men, in more ways than one. As it says on my business cards, I offer -- or, rather, Honey offers -- every girlfriend service a man could need, except sex and laundry. Aside from that, I'll tackle anything, no matter how random or daunting, and it certainly keeps me busy. In the last year, for instance, I've advised on the purchase of hundreds of suits; put a couple of would-be grannies right off the idea of grandchildren; helped break off five engagements and assisted nine marriage proposals; salvaged three flats after three wild parties; bought stacks of godparent gifts; sent thousands of roses to spouses, secretaries, sisters, and secret girlfriends; and generally acted as the invisible woman most men need to keep them on the straight and narrow.

You're probably wondering why I can't just do all this as Melissa. Well, there are several very good reasons for that.

First of all, if the name Romney-Jones seems familiar, it's because my father, Martin, is the only Member of Parliament to have survived no fewer than four separate political scandals (two tax, one sex, and something murky involving an EU cheese producer in Luxembourg that I've never quite gotten to the bottom of ). When I started my business, I didn't want him to find out what I was up to, and now that things are working out rather well, I don't want him cashing in.

Secondly, if I'm being honest, in real life I'm a complete pushover, ground down by years of merciless advantage-taking by Daddy and the rest of my horrendously selfish family. So I found that creating bossy, supergroomed Honey sort of gives me permission to put my foot down where I'd normally fear to tread. Honey has much better shoes than I do, for a start. Most of them are stilettos, to go with the fitted pencil skirts and devastating bombshell sweaters I wear for work, and Honey's not afraid to stamp those stilettos when she needs to get results. Rather hard, too, if the situation demands. Sometimes I don't even notice the blisters till I get home. Plus, to be honest, there's something kind of sexy about being Honey. She never rounds her shoulders to hide her ample cleavage or worries about how she looks from behind. And I never realized that wearing stockings for work would have such startling effects on my out-of-office life....

Ahem. Anyway...

Thirdly? Well, everyone likes to be able to clock off at the end of the day, don't they? When you've spent hours ironing out endless male problems, it's nice to be able to walk away from them. And I do walk away. In dress-down Melissa's comfortable flats.

Quite apart from the delicious wardrobe, I absolutely love my work. No one can sack me, for one thing. Up until I started the agency, my CV comprised five personal assistant positions in five different estate agencies and one unfortunate spell working for my old home economics teacher, who, as I found out at my own expense, wasn't quite the lady I thought she was. Let's just say that when I escort a man to dinner, I don't expect to be the pudding course. But ironically enough, it was wearing Mrs. McKinnon's prescribed corset (and the blond wig I used as a disguise) that unleashed the straight-talking, wiggly walking force of nature that is Honey Blennerhesket, so I suppose I have something to thank Mrs. McKinnon for. I like to look on the bright side like that.

And, despite what my father might sneer about mummy's boys and hand-holding, I get a tremendous sense of job satisfaction from my work. There's something so gratifying about taking shambolic bachelors and revealing their inner foxes -- rather like tarting up derelict houses that no one can bear to move into, only to see them besieged with buyers the next week. Some of my clients do need an element of structural repair, as well as cosmetic improvement, but that's even more rewarding to sort out. Besides, Honey likes a challenge.

For a while I didn't think Melissa would ever be able to compete with Honey, who was just so much more...colorful than me. More confident, more dynamic, more everything, really.

But then the weirdest thing happened. We met -- I mean, I met -- someone: Jonathan Riley. He was tall, charming, courteous, with perfect teeth and a very handy fox-trot -- in short, a proper, old- fashioned gentleman. He was also running the Chelsea estate agency I used to work at and looking for a human shield to protect him from the London dating market while he got over the breakup of his marriage.

Posing as Jonathan's girlfriend in smart restaurants and glamorous cocktail bars all over London wasn't exactly what you'd call work. The hard part was trying to keep my professional distance at the end of each date. Well, that and keeping my wig straight. Just as I was miserably sure he was falling for Honey the blond bombshell, he told me he'd fallen for me -- frumpy old Melissa underneath! Only he didn't think I was frumpy. When I'd gotten over being amazed, I was very, very happy.

And I still am. Quite extraordinarily happy.

The three best things about Jonathan are that he's a real grown-up man: he has properly tailored suits; he can order food in three languages; he buys his own moisturizer without a shred of embarrassment; and he never, ever, leaves the bathroom door open when I stay over at his enormous house in Barnes.

He's also strong enough from all the squash and running that he does to sweep me into his arms and make me feel tiny and fragile. And once he's swept me into his arms, he's also very good on the, ah, follow-through, if you know what I mean.

And thirdly, Jonathan actually listens to me. We have lovely weekends away in the English countryside (he's been too busy for us to have a proper holiday), trailing round stately homes while I recycle all the useless facts about moats and knights from my history lessons and he nods in apparent interest. He asks me where I want to go for dinner, or how my day was, and then remembers what I said.

Bonus: he's not afraid of my ghastly father.

The only negatives about Jonathan are that he's very busy and doesn't always get my jokes. My best friend, Gabi, would add that he also has bright red hair, but frankly that's a positive for me, since we both have to keep out of the sun.

He is, in short, a complete dreamboat.

However, being practically perfect during working hours didn't mean I wasn't still prone to lateness and snagged tights in the mornings. I was already seventeen minutes behind schedule, and since Gabi was supposed to be helping me on my first job of the day, I had no doubt that those seventeen minutes were about to double.

I was running late because my flatmate, Nelson, had phoned our local radio station to add his considered opinion to a heated debate about recycling and had insisted on my hanging around to record his contribution on the kitchen radio.

Gabi was running late because there was a sample sale in Hampstead, for which the doors opened at 7:00 a.m.

At 8:33 a.m. we were both scuttling down the street toward the agency, knowing full well that Tristram Hart-Mossop would be waiting for us outside Selfridges at 9:00 a.m. on the dot, and I wasn't anywhere near ready for that.

"I don't see why we can't just go straight to Oxford Circus!" panted Gabi.

"Because I need to get changed! Come on, we're nearly there." I walked briskly down Ebury Street. My old boarding school was the type that encouraged brisk walking.

"Jesus, Mel, you move fast for a big girl. What kept you, anyway?" she gasped. "A morning quickie with Dr. No?"

"Certainly not!" I should explain that Gabi worked part-time in the estate agency that Jonathan managed, and she had great trouble seeing him in a nonmanagerial role. He had a rather "results-oriented" management style. While Nelson tended to refer to him sarcastically as Remington Steele on account of his all-American, cleancut jawline, the girls in the office -- apparently -- liked to call him Dr. No.

Jonathan, I might add, rarely said no to me.

"He likes to get off quickly in the mornings," I added. "He's usually ready to go by seven."

Gabi snorted dirtily. "That's what I meant."

I looked at her, baffled. "No, I thought you were asking me if we'd -- "

"Forget it," she said. "Your kind of innocence should have a preservation order."

Gabi and Nelson were always baiting me with double entendres. I never got them. With a family like mine, one grows up habitually looking the other way.

"Nothing wrong with having an innocent mind," I said, unlocking the door and pushing it open.

There was the usual stack of interesting-looking mail, but I didn't have time to check through it. Instead, we bounded up the stairs two at a time, past the frightfully discreet beauty salon on the ground floor, where Chelsea wives snuck off for their Botox and electro-tweakage, and into my office.

I threw my huge handbag on the leather sofa and handed Gabi the bunch of ranunculus I'd bought on the way.

"Right," I said, peeling off my cardigan. "I'm going to get changed. Stick these flowers in water, would you?"

"Okay," said Gabi, looking round for a vase. "God, this place is comfy. I've seen less cozy houses."

"That's the point."

My office was a little second-floor flat: The main room was my lilac-walled, calming consultation space, with a tiny bathroom, an even tinier kitchen alcove, and a small second room, in which I kept spare c...