The old brownstone was quaint, offering two levels and too many rooms. For years, her aunt had run an old-fashioned service offering ballroom dancing and dating etiquette. There was a time when those kinds of services had been in demand, but the last decade had seen a steady decline in business. Kayla had hoped to guide her aunt and help bring things out of the stone age. Her aunt had remarried last year and brought her new husband into the business. Kayla hadn’t had a chance to broach the newlyweds about business changes. Her aunt and new uncle had died too soon.

Kayla intended to carry on anyway. Men today didn’t need dating lessons but many executives required instruction on how to conduct themselves in social settings and learning foreign customs when entertaining international guests. With her language skills, she could add a modern dimension to an old-fashioned business. Ordering off foreign menus would no longer be a challenge for the American executive or traveler. And thanks to her well-targeted advertising, she’d just begun getting calls from the larger downtown corporations with offices overseas.

A far cry from the old-world charm school Charmed! had once been. Instead of giving class to the heathens as her aunt had been fond of saying, Charmed! would offer a broader, more modern range of services. When she’d inherited the school, the irony wasn’t lost on Kayla. The class bimbo with the classless mother, giving charm lessons. The memories still hurt and gave her an even stronger incentive to upgrade and modernize Charmed! until it no longer resembled its roots.

Much as Kayla had done for herself. She’d grown up on the poor side of town in an otherwise well-to-do area outside of Boston. While the other kids always seemed to sport designer labels and the latest fashions, she and her sister had worn their clothes until they were threadbare.