Operation Cinderella Read Online Free PDF Page A

he’d declared her lunatic, outrageous, and, of course, brilliant.
    “Voilà!” He swept away the towel and pale hair slid free.
    Macie sucked in her breath, feeling as if she was staring at a stranger. “Wow, that’s quite a…change.” Though blond was her natural color, she’d been dyeing her hair darker for so many years now that she’d as good as forgotten what she used to look like.
    Franc sent her a self-assured smile. “What can I say? False modesty isn’t modesty at all and a frickin’ fairy godfather couldn’t have pulled this off in two hours.” Pulling a black comb and scissors from the container of Barbacide solution set atop the black marble-topped counter, he addressed her reflection. “Speaking of fairy tales, don’t you think that bit about your past employers being Christian missionaries might have been…well, a tad over the top?”
    “Actually, I think he ate it up.” Leaning back in the black, vinyl-covered chair while Franc gently combed out the tangles, she decided she’d better tell him the rest before he started with the scissors. “By the way, you’ll probably be hearing from him soon.”
    The comb snared on a strand. Franc snapped up his head. “Why would I?”
    Macie bit her bottom lip, wishing her glass of wine were within easier reach. “He asked me to e-mail him my references, and I couldn’t risk giving him some bogus address and then having him find out, so I, er…gave him your and Nathan’s landline.” She cast a look behind to the curtained office where Franc’s accountant and life partner was busy going over the books.
    His perfectly plucked brows shot upward. “Nathan and I are supposed to be the Christian missionary couple you’ve been working for?”
    She slipped her hand from beneath the smock and patted his bicep. “Relax, Brother Franc, it’s no big deal. Your first name’s the same only spelled with a K . All you have to remember is that you have a wife, Nadine, and two teenage kids.”
    He struck a pose reminiscent of Nathan Lane in the film version of The Bird Cage and batted his eyes. “Really, Macie, we’re not drag queens. Nathan’s falsetto is slightly superior to mine but still not terribly convincing.”
    Macie chuckled. “If he insists on talking to the wife, stall. Tell him she’s out at a church bake sale or praying or…something, and then give me a buzz. My assistant editor, Terri, was a theater major at NYU. She can help us out.”
    The comb-out complete, he started dividing her hair into sections. “And what about our fictional children? Do the little darlings have names?”
    Macie hesitated. “Chloe and, um…Zachary.”
    “Zachary, hmm, interesting choice.” Looking ahead into the mirror, she caught him rolling his eyes at the mention of her on-again-off-again boyfriend. For the past two months, they’d been in the “off” phase—barring a few late night booty calls that he’d put out and she’d…answered.
    Busted, she sunk down into her seat. “If I get stuck, it’ll be easy to remember.” Bringing the subject back around, she added, “Anyway, the four of you are about to set off for a two-year mission to… How does Belize sound? I know how you hate the winter in New York.”
    Running a hand through his mousse-spiked hair, he nodded. “Thoughtful. And who are you, by the way, or are Nathan and I the only ones with aliases?”
    She tried out the guileless gaze and Stepford wife smile the good women of her hometown wore on a regular basis. Batting her eyes and stretching her lips to the limit, she drawled, “Why, I’m Martha Jane Gray, pleased to make your acquaintance.”
    Their eyes met in the mirror. “You sound terrifyingly authentic.”
    She hesitated, and then admitted, “I ought to. I grew up in a tiny town in Indiana called Heavenly.”
    “Sounds quite…bucolic.”
    She smothered a snort. Heavenly was an egregious misnomer. The town was home to a paper mill and was about as butt ugly as small town