Chapter 8
Ten minutes later, I was standing in the skimpiest cocktail dress I had ever seen. The kind of dress that just might fall off in a gentle breeze. Give up and surrender without putting up a lick of fight. Two wide silk straps cut at a diagonal down the front of it, leaving triangular cutouts through which you could see my back and hips. The shoulders were also bare, and save for a delicate little zipper holding the whole thing together—it was hanging on by a prayer.
“Gemma,” I muttered under my breath, “why did it have to be Gemma?”
Gemma Arlison was an ironically-named diamond heiress who Nick had dated off and on for the better part of two years. She had become a regular fixture at the house (along with about half a dozen others), and as such, she still had leftover clothes in several of the closets.
Things had finally ended for good when Nick saw for himself what the rest of us had been telling him for months. The girl didn’t have a brain. Just very, very large breasts. (He had a habit of
confusing the two.) They had split, as amicably as was possible, and not two weeks later—she had married a billionaire oil tycoon from Texas. I think Nick was actually hurt.
To be frank, I really didn’t have the giant curves to pull this kind of dress off. While her ample bosom had stretched the fabric to its limit, the silk hugged comfortably around me, clinging like a second skin. A shimmering sapphire kind of skin that exactly matched the color of my eyes.
“Why couldn’t he have dated the kind of girl who would wear an entire dress?” I groaned, rotating in front of the bathroom mirror in dismay. The huge cutouts revealing wide portions of my ivory skin were particularly troublesome. Especially considering it was winter in New York. “Maybe she also left a coat in here...?”
Sure enough, an ankle-length trench coat was hanging just inside. The kind that was tailor-fitted to make me feel like I was in a designer version of the Matrix. There was even a pair of sparkling Louis Vuitton stilettos to match.
I swept up my fountain-curled hair when I was done, securing it in the kind of tendril-draping up do it did so well, and touched up my makeup from the night before. When I was finished, I stepped back to survey the finished product.
“Not bad. A little fucking formal for a day at the office, but not bad at all.”
By the time I wandered back downstairs, I was actually feeling quite confident indeed. At least, I was until I ran into Nick in the kitchen.
The second he saw me, a very peculiar expression flashed across his face. He dropped his eyes immediately, but couldn’t manage to hide his smile.
At once, my stomach was sick and my hands were clammy.
Oh gosh—I looked ridiculous! Why hadn’t I just asked to run home so I could change into my own clothes? You know—something that required more fabric than a scarf?!
“I know, it’s not...” I blushed and looked down, sweeping a stray curl back out of my face. “Clearly, it’s not something I would usually—why are you making that face?!”
“I’m sorry,” he bit his lip with a grin, “it’s just...I’ve taken off that dress many times.”
Many, many times.
My face blanched, as my hands nervously smoothed it down. “Well, believe it or not, it was actually the warmest dress I could find. And by warmest, I mean...”
He laughed softly.
“I know exactly what you mean.”
Of course he did. He had fucking dated the girl.
...in this dress.
All at once, I felt incredibly uncomfortable.
“You know what—I’m just going to call a cab and go home really quick to change. I’ll be back in less than an hour, and then the two of us can sit down and come up with a list of—”
“Absolutely not—we’re going out!”
He grabbed my wrist in a blur of speed, and started pulling me towards the door. I looked around desperately for Louise—surely, she wouldn’t allow me to wear such a thing—but he had already pushed the door for the elevator, and before I knew it, we were heading down.
“Nick,” I pulled the coat protectively around me, an unintentionally pleading tone coloring my voice, “wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do—I can meet you there, okay? There’s no need for me to—”
He held up a silencing hand, staring down at me with a slight frown.
“Ms. Wilder, you were contracted to be my publicist, isn’t that right?”