After Marjorie finished combing out my hair and dressing me in her own tank top and skirt—“the color of this tank will go great with your eyes”—she painted my lips a dark red, which I wasn’t sure I could deal with. Then she stroked on some blush and mascara.
“That’s really all you need. Your skin is gorgeous. What products do you use?”
“Um…soap and water?”
“In Colorado? How do you keep your skin from drying out? You should be moisturizing.”
Marjorie Steel certainly didn’t mince words.
“Good genes, I guess.” I nearly had to laugh at that one. They all knew where half my genes had come from, and they were not good. Although, even though my father was a complete psychopath, he was pretty damned good-looking. He had dark hair, nearly black, the same as mine, though his skin was olive and his eyes brown. My skin was fair and my eyes blue, like my mother’s.
Marjorie chattered on about getting me on a good skin care regimen. I gave up and stopped listening after a while. At one point, all three of them had their hands on me, doing something.
* * *
Ryan Steel was looking at me. I could tell. His eyes were burning two holes in my skin. I nervously picked up my wineglass and took a sip.
“What do you think?”
I set my wineglass down shakily, willing myself not to spill the red liquid. “What?”
“About the wine. What do you think?”
“Oh. It’s good.”
“I think it’ll work well with the spicy Asian stuff we’ll be having,” Ryan said.
I nodded. Was I supposed to say something? I wasn’t sure. The waiter came around and took our orders. I ordered teriyaki chicken, while Ryan ordered seared scallops and filet mignon. That sounded better than teriyaki chicken. I kept forgetting that this place was all-inclusive and I could order what I liked. But it was too late to change my order. Maybe Ryan would let me have a bite of his.
Of course for that to happen, I’d have to ask for a taste. No way would I have that much nerve.
I took another sip of my wine, this time letting it sit on my tongue for a moment to see what flavors I could identify. Mostly red fruit. Maybe a little earthiness.
“I want to propose a toast,” Marjorie was saying. “To Jade and Talon, to Jonah and Melanie, to all of us, and to this vacation that we all so richly deserve.”
Laughter erupted from our group, and we all clinked glasses. Soon the chef came to prepare our food for us at our table. I was quiet. He gave me something to focus on. He kept us laughing with his antics, making an onion volcano and challenging us to catch little pieces of shrimp in our mouths.
When he got to me, I shook my head.
“Come on, Ruby,” Marjorie urged. “It’s part of the fun.”
I didn’t want to look like an idiot. Though neither Jonah nor Talon had been able to catch one.
I opened my mouth, and the chef effortlessly pitched a small piece of shrimp right onto my tongue. I couldn’t help a smile before I closed my mouth and chewed and swallowed the seafood. The chef winked at me.
The guy was good. I smiled at him, silently thanking him for not making me look like a moron.
The teriyaki chicken was delicious, and of course I was too embarrassed to ask Ryan for a taste of his scallops and filet mignon. They looked amazing, though. The freshly made fried rice was the pièce de résistance, in my opinion. I gobbled up the stuff.
As I was pulling my napkin from my lap, hopefully daintily, a young blonde came bubbling up next to us.
“Hello there,” she said to Ryan.
“Oh, hi, Juliet,” Ryan said.
Juliet? She couldn’t have been any more than eighteen. I might have a hard and tight body, but it was the result of a lot of work. At eighteen, no work was required. Well, maybe a little. At eighteen, I’d begun my quest for physical strength after I found out I couldn’t get into the police academy until I was twenty-one. Up until then, I’d survived on leftovers at the diner where I worked as a waitress, thanks to a fake ID. I was never overweight, but I’d been a little soft. No longer.
Not that I didn’t look feminine. I used my workouts to create long, lean muscles, not bulky ones. I had no desire to look like a body builder.