She stomps her heels and looks at me. “Don’t waste your time trailer trash. If I never got anywhere with him, you never will either. He’s married to his work.”
“Out!” he commands, and she finally gets the hint.
I swallow hard, my hands gripping the couch cushion beneath me. This perfect ten of a woman, at least physically, was trying to get with Henry for who knows how long and she didn’t wind up getting anywhere? So much for my thoughts of him protecting me extrapolating into protecting me in other ways.
“Are you hungry?” Henry asks, not missing a beat.
“Starving.”
“I’ve got an idea,” he says, extending his hand to mine.
This is my last chance. I already saw how dismissive he can be with people, and I don’t want to be thrown out with yesterday’s garbage like he just did to the woman who apparently worked for him. That being said she apparently was looking for more than just a working relationship…and he wasn’t.
“I don’t bite. I promise,” he says.
“If you’ve got food, I guess I’m in no position to argue,” I joke, and for the first time a smile comes across his face.
I take his hand and he leads me out of his office, to where I have no clue.
4
Hannah
Not fifteen minutes later and my stomach is absolutely stuffed with pumpkin pie topped with whipped cream.
Sitting on a bus for such an extended period of time doesn’t really make you tired at all. It was just the lack of eating that made me so lethargic to the point of passing out earlier.
“This way,” Henry says after placing the dessert fork down he used to feed me and then escorts me into another room in his sprawling estate.
I can hear wine glasses clinking in the backyard and we even pass a few guests in beyond elaborate Halloween outfits. These aren’t the kind you find at Target or Walmart, but the kind you pay a professional makeup artists to apply and Hollywood-level stylists to create for you.
“What’s in here?”
Henry smirks as he holds open the door and I enter slowly, looking around at costumes on one of those hanging clothes racks with wheels that you’d see on a movie set.
“This is…?”
“Your costume for tonight. Pick one, princess.”
“I…for the party?”
“I have other plans in mind.”
I look at all the outfits, moving closer to the rack and taking the fabric in my hands. My hands run over the immaculately crafted Cinderella outfit, Tinker Bell, Jasmine from Aladdin and more.
“But, why?” I ask, still unable to process what’s going on or how this is all happening so quickly.
“I want to take you out trick-or-treating.”
“Trick-or-treating? But I’m eighteen years old.”
“When was the last time you went trick-or-treating?”
I pause, cocking my head and pretending like I’m trying to remember but I already know the real answer.
“It’s been awhile,” I say, knowing the honest answer is I never got to do it, and not for a lack of want.
“Then I’d say it’s time to get back into the holiday spirit, wouldn’t you?”