As the admissions director for one of Manhattan's finest private schools, Libby Kimmelman is overworked, underpaid-and totally overwhelmed by flowers, chocolates and other bribes from zealous parents determined to enroll their little Einsteins.

The one parent who does intrigue her is Ned Donovan. Vermont-rugged, carpenter-sexy, he shows up in her office trying to explain how his ten-year-old genius son applied to the school without his knowledge. A widower with a lust for her marble fireplace, Ned is the kind of man whose natural earthiness seems so deliciously sexy in the city.

His knee-melting offer to strip her floors almost makes her forget her annoying ex, her exasperating teenage daughter and the fact that she is about to lose her magnificent, rentstabilized New York apartment. But is this building renovator after his son's admission, her old apartment...or, incredibly, her?