A New York Love Story by Cassie Rocca Read Free Book Online

on paper. Yet Lib could do it, in spite of her serious and staid attitude that made her look anything but romantic.
    The typical client question,
what would you recommend as a gift for
… is what had brought Clover in. She was indispensable for this. She had worked for three years as a sales person at a mall in Maine, and when she had arrived in New York she was ready for a change. An unusual ad in The New York Times had led her directly to an interview with Liberty. Selecting the
perfect gift
was almost a vocation for Clover. She loved to see someone unwrapping a gift. She loved seeing the expression of surprise and joy when the gift was exactly right. For her it was an easy way to make people happy. She was intuitively able to understand dreams, tastes and expectations. She listened carefully to her clients and to their stories. She encouraged them to talk about the person for whom the gift was intended. It wasn’t always easy to find exactly the right thing, especially when the people who asked for her help didn’t have a clue… but she tried. There was always an important detail – hidden somewhere in a corner of their memory. Her task was to find it. Her ability to listen attentively was the secret.
    But in her own life, even though she talked and talked a lot, no one seemed to pay much attention. They never really listened to her to know what she might like as a gift. In fact, she had started to make a
wish list
– a sort of letter to Santa Claus – to give to anybody who asked her, “What would you like for Christmas?”
    Clover was crazy about surprises, and yet no one had figured this out. So, every year she sent an email to her mother with a couple of gift suggestions for both her and her brother. This way, she received
two gifts
, since her birthday also happened to be in December. Her brilliant strategy saved her from having to show fake smiles and to hide her disappointment in front of another anonymous and boring gift.
    This gift problem was something that she would never let happen to her clients. She had promised this to herself ever since she started this job. That afternoon three people were waiting for her advice on how to make someone happy. One of them was a girl who hoped to impress her inattentive relatives with irresistible gifts. Clover was especially interested in this young woman, since she had found herself in a similar situation. Although, in her experience, not even the most compelling gift had conquered her mother and brother! She hoped her client might have better luck.
    While waiting for the green light at a crossroad, she looked around with the same amazement she had felt the first time she had arrived in New York City. She loved its rhythm, the sounds, the variety of people and the immense skyscrapers looming over her. During the Christmas period, the level of chaos increased dramatically, yet Clover enjoyed this energy. It made her feel a part of something bigger, and she felt less lonely.
    Shop windows were especially alluring: full of lights and colors, and so imaginative! She couldn’t help but stop and look at them, even though her mission was to get in and out of the best shops in the city. But suddenly something else caught her attention. On the side of a bus that had stopped at a red light, she saw a large ad. Cade Harrison was staring at her: the gaze that took your breath away, his sculpted body able to provoke hot thoughts even in a convent girl, and that charismatic smile that could knock you down… Exactly the same effect his smile had on Mrs Kendall three days ago.
    She recalled the episode in detail. She understood that someone like him had to be kind and charming – sometimes she had to do the same for work. Yet Mr Harrison had an exceptional talent. He was able to go from a serious, diffident and bored expression to a warm smile full of empathy in a second. That ability had to be one of his main strengths as an actor worthy of an