She surveyed herself in the mirror, and her heart dropped into her shoes. No way was she going to let Logan see her in this. In fact, screw anyone seeing her like this She ran her hands down the dress and shook her head. The cotton might have been comfortable and the design was simple, but the thing was so fitted that there was no angle of her body it tried to hide. Her boobs stared at her like they were asking for attention.
She grabbed her oversized jersey from the crumpled pile on the floor and covered the top part of the mirror. Save for her calves and Reeboks, she was completely invisible to herself.
Good enough.
"I'm sick. Can't come out." She coughed. "You should actually probably go. I feel pretty contagious."
"Don't be a baby," his deep voice called back.
"I'm only worried about you. See, I don’t want you to—"
"Come out, Andy, or I'll rip the door off the hinges myself."
She'd lied. Trying on the dress had been the easy part.
This? This was the real moment of truth.
* * *
The door swung open and his breath caught.
Like Invasion of the Body Snatchers meeting Pretty in Pink, there was no way in hell the woman in front of him was Andy Archer. Andy Archer had mousy brown hair, boxy shoulders, and an attitude big enough to cover the whole of California.
This woman? She had curves in all the right places. Her shoulders were delicate, accentuated by her creamy white skin. This woman was hot.
Beyond hot, really.
How had he never noticed Andy's incredible figure? Her round, perky breasts and her narrow waist? He'd known she was about average height, but with her legs exposed, he saw now just how lean and trim the muscles there were. Like she was made to wear heels, even in her dirt-smeared Reeboks.
"I've changed my mind," she said, pulling on the hem of the dress. "I look ridiculous. I can't do this."
"You look great. You just need practice." He cleared his throat, suddenly very aware of how difficult it was not to stare at her chest. "Try the next one."
She disappeared behind the door without another complaint and he headed back onto the sales floor. She probably wouldn’t notice he was gone, and even if she did, the time apart would be worth it. He had to get his head on straight.
Both of them.
It was only the shock of her transformation that made his heart beat faster when he saw her, nothing else. The thrill of a job well done. Like winning a game or hitting a homerun. It had nothing to do with Andy. Even if she looked good now, she was still Andy.
Ball-busting, sports-obsessed Andy. She was practically a guy, for crissake.
Before today, most of their conversation had involved statistics and techniques. The fact that she sort of, maybe, looked like a girl now didn't change the fact that if he ran into her on the street, he was much more likely to ask her to grab a beer than to go on a date.
He headed back to the dressing rooms and almost as soon as he parked in front of her door again, it opened. And so the onslaught of his inner torment began. Dress after dress, she stalked out and emphasized new parts of her body he'd never noticed before. Her toned arms, her flat stomach, her round ass.
By the last dress, he was certain of two things: first, she had been born to show off her body. And second? Planning a day alone together had been a very, very bad idea.
There was no questioning that his job had been well done, but the pulse in his groin every time that dressing room opened had nothing to do with that success and everything to do with the way she twirled around and showed off that incredible figure. The way her green eyes shined. The little line of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
The plan had been to make her more approachable in order to win her new clients, not so that he could imagine her naked...
He swallowed hard, trying to bat back the all-too intriguing question of what exactly she looked like under all her new, pretty clothes. Or what she might have looked like in that see-through black teddy.
"This is it." She emerged in a red dress that hugged her hourglass frame like it was made for her. The “V” of the collar dipped into her impressive cleavage, and as he looked over the garment, the only thing he could imagine was exactly how easy it would be to remove.
He cleared his throat. Matt's sister. She was his buddy's sister.
But God help him if that meant anything at the moment.