HaBO: Ex-Military Bodyguard and a Heroine in a Costume Shop

You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!

This HaBO is from Gisela, who is looking for a contemporary romance from some years back.

I’m freshly new in the site but I knew about this section for some time now. I’ve been looking for a book that I lose while moving to college, I hope you can help me out.

What I remember is that the heroine was a elementary teacher and gets engaged to a boring uptight lawyer (I think he was a lawyer) and her teacher friends make her take a vacation. She doesn’t want to but finally she agrees to go to Los Angeles and visit a cousin.

In Los Angeles she helps the cousin in a costumes and disguises store.

In that store too she meets a guy who is looking for a certain costume. He’s a model’s bodyguard.

His story is that he was military or something, and there he met a guy who became like his brother and entrusted him his sister (the model) while the brother was doing some voluntary work. The model is in love with the bodyguard but he likes her as a sister. And she has some alcohol problems.

Back to the main story. The model passed out I think and she has a schedule so the bodyguard goes back to the store because the teacher looks a lot like the model. I don’t know how but the teacher agrees to act like the model. I think it is a Christmas event and she acts all sweet and kind which is not the model’s character.

The bodyguard falls for the teacher and after the event he takes her home or some place and they have sex. I think she was a virgin….

I can’t remember more of the story. I think the teacher goes back to her town but is in love with the bodyguard and still plans on marry the boring lawyer… or breaks out with him. I don’t know.

Please help me 🙂

Oh, my goodness, I love books like this. I read every other sentence and think, Of course! Of course the heroine looks just like a model.  Of course she can disguise herself as said model for a party at a moment’s notice. And of course the ex-military bodyguard has a thing for the heroine. And of course she was a virgin.

And yet, even while I’m rolling my eyes, I totally want to read this.

I bet there’s a makeover scene, or something close to it, right? Of course there is. Why wouldn’t there be?

Does anyone recognize this story?