My brain had to rifle through its filing cabinet to place the name. Oh, the art gallery guy. “Maybe.”
“He said you took his number.” I had. I’d liked him.
So why hadn’t I called him?
I jumped at the loud bang at my door.
“Harper,” Amanda called from the corridor.
Shit, this was it. I took a deep breath. “Gotta go,” I said into the phone and hung up. I glanced in the mirror by the door, removed a clump of mascara from the corner of my eye, and smoothed down my hair. I could handle a couple of hours with a guy who was my boss and his daughter. Especially now Vegas was over and any attraction I’d had to him had disappeared. This would be a piece of cake.
Being in a cab with my boss and his daughter after we’d agreed to stop having sex was beyond weird. I’d let my sympathy for Amanda override my logic when I’d agreed to go shopping today. I’d underestimated how awkward spending time with Max would be. I thought it would be a simple case of saving a fourteen-year-old from her uncompromising, uncaring father. The problem was I’d forgotten the father in question was my boss and had seen me naked.
“Do you agree?” Amanda asked, looking at her dad.
We’d taken a cab uptown and Amanda had been chattering away about the kind of dress she wanted to buy. Max seemed to have little interest in her as he stared out of the window.
“I think it’s going to rain,” he said.
“Dad.” She punched him on the leg and he caught her hand and wrapped it in his. “Do you agree about the dress?”
“I’m not committing to anything until I see it.”
“Well, if we don’t find something today, I’m going naked.”
Max chuckled. “If you were a couple of years older, I might worry. Right now, I think your teenage angst is my insurance policy against that happening.”
“I don’t understand what you just said,” she said.
“And so that’s a double win for me, peanut.” As he scooped his arm around her shoulder to pull her close, he caught my jacket sleeve. “Sorry,” he said and I smiled, staring at my hands in my lap. Unclear whether I was imagining things, I wanted to stare at the two of them. They seemed comfortable with each other, happy to be in each other’s company. A pang of jealousy ran through me.
“Here we are,” Amanda announced as the cab pulled up.
The humidity hit me as I got out of the car.
“It’s definitely going to rain,” Max mumbled, staring up at the sky.
He held the door open, gesturing for me to go before him as Amanda led the way into a boutique. I hoped this would be a one-stop shop and I’d be back home by lunchtime.
As we started looking around, Max found a chair outside the dressing rooms and concentrated on his phone rather than his daughter. Typical. Why had he come at all?
“What about this?” Amanda asked, holding a long purple gown against herself as she turned toward me.
I grinned. “We should definitely try it.”
We picked out six dresses in total, and Amanda managed to sneak a couple of strapless ones in that I was sure wouldn’t go down well with her father.
“We can do shoes and a bag once we get the dress,” I said as Amanda stopped on the way to the dressing room, transfixed by a table of sparkly evening bags.
I hung up the dresses I was carrying, then shut the curtain on Amanda.
“Harper, will you stay there while I change so you can see it before my dad? I want to surprise him with the perfect choice.”
“Of course,” I replied and leaned on the wall opposite Amanda’s room. “Which one are you going to try on first?”
“The purple one. Uh-oh,” she said. “My dad isn’t going to like this one.”
The moment she opened the curtain, I knew she was right. Max would never go for the dress. And I couldn’t blame him. A twenty-five-year-old would have to make an effort not to look slutty in it. The neckline dipped very low in a big swath of fabric, but it was so low her bra was showing.
“I don’t think it suits you,” I said, not wanting to hurt her feelings or for her to feel as if her dad’s opinion was the only one that counted. “People say that you should wear the dress, the dress shouldn’t wear you. Now I’m not sure what that means, but I think we’re in dangerous territory. What about the shorter one?”
Next she appeared in a beautiful yellow dress with spaghetti straps, diamanté beading across the bodice, and a netted skirt that fell just above the knee.
“What do you think?” I asked, grinning.
“I think my dad would like it,” she replied, but the look on her face said even though she thought her dad would approve, she wasn’t in love with it. “But I think I want to look more . . . grown-up.”
I nodded. The dress was beautiful on her, though it was a lot like a bigger version of something an eight-year-old might wear. And if Max would like it and she didn’t, then we wouldn’t even show it to him. “Try the royal blue one. I think it would look great against your black hair, and silver accessories would go beautifully with it. It’s more sophisticated.”
She turned and swept up her hair and I realized she was asking me to unzip her. “Would you wear it?” she asked as I helped her out of her dress.
I nodded. “Yes. It’s beautiful. Not that I would have anywhere to wear a dress like that.” I closed the curtain so she could dress in private.
“On a date?” she asked. “Do you have a boyfriend yet?”
My stomach flipped over as I remembered our conversation in the laundry room. Had she told Max anything I’d said? I glanced at the exit to the changing rooms. Could Max hear our interaction? “No, not at the moment.”
“You’re super pretty. When I’m older, I want to love my job, but I want someone to love me, too.” I’d not ruled out love. It had just never found me. Maybe Grace was right and I was looking for perfection. “My dad’s like you. Always busy with work. He always says that between work and me, he has more than enough for any man.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that. She clearly wanted her dad’s approval, and I was getting the impression the two of them actually talked. Maybe they were closer than I thought. “Do you hang out a lot?” I asked, lowering my voice.
“Me and my dad? Yeah. Like all the time,” she replied.
Before I got a chance to ask Amanda more questions about her and Max’s relationship, she opened the curtain, grinning. “I really like this one,” she said, stepping out in a long skirt of pleated crepe, which had a slit up the side.
“It’s really pretty.” I leaned forward to even out the skirt. “I love it. This looks beautiful.” The shoulders were a contrasting silver material that came down and crisscrossed around her bust, in a Greek-like style. There was no cleavage, but at the same time it was dramatic. “And it looks gorgeous against your hair. Let me grab some shoes. Stay there.”
As I walked out of the dressing rooms, my eyes met Max’s as he looked up from his phone.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
I nodded. “Just getting some shoes.”
As I passed, he grabbed my wrist. I froze. Almost immediately he dropped my hand. “Sorry. I just wanted to say thank you. This means a lot to Amanda.”