She stared at me for a long, heated moment, then rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Stay there.”
Ally left the room and fuck it, I stared at her ass.
She stomped back in, holding a folder and scowling. “I’m pissed off that you’re making me do this, by the way.”
“Do what?” I was so pathetically happy that she was speaking to me in multisyllabic words I would have let her slap me across the face with the folder.
“This is an inside spread on incredibly hideous winter coats from two years ago. Your father signed off on it.”
I glanced at the layout. They looked like sleeping bags in beiges and grays. Models slumping oddly inside them on a dingy gray background.
“Here’s one of yours,” she said, pulling the next layout from the folder. Similar to the first, this was winter boots. The models were in the studio on a set built out of square, wooden platforms. It was one of the first layouts I’d spearheaded after taking my father’s position.
“What’s your point?”
“Don’t play dumb. You’re not pretty enough for that,” she shot back. “You can tell that yours is better.”
“I had Linus and Shayla in my ear,” I insisted.
“Did you have them in your ear when you got dressed this morning or when you decorated your townhouse?”
“No,” I muttered.
“Look at how much better you, Linus, and Shayla made this,” she said, tapping the spread I did. “You’ve been doing the job, Dominic. Your father had shit taste and thought he was great. You have great taste and think you’re shit.”
“I’m relying on the opinions of others to do my job.”
“Who said it was supposed to be a dictatorship? You should be relying on the experience of others. You’re making it a team effort rather than an ego trip. And it works. Look at the next page.”
It was a spreadsheet tracking brand sales of the featured products. “Your layout outsold your father’s by more than double.”
“Our readership grew since he was in charge,” I argued.
“Look. If you want to have a pity party, have a pity party. But sooner or later, you might as well get used to the idea that you can do this job. Your father ruled with poor taste and an iron fist. Your mother let him. Just because you’re doing the job differently doesn’t mean you’re not as good, if not better.”
I flipped to another page. It was traffic stats on some of the web content I’d been in charge of. The video of Brownie French kissing me was one of the most popular videos we’d posted in the last twelve months.
“Why do you have these compiled and ready to go?” I asked, baffled.
“I told you I was going to be the second-best assistant you ever had. What kind of an assistant would I be if I didn’t have a ‘Stop Freaking Out, Boss’ file?”
She started for the door.
“Does this mean you’re speaking to me again?” I asked.
She didn’t even stop. Simply raised a bandaged middle finger over her shoulder. “Nope. Get back to work. Your pouty time is cutting into my to-do list.”
39
Ally
“How do we want to look tonight?” Linus mused, tapping a finger to his chin.
We were staring into the depths of Label’s Closet. Usually, I would be willing to take whatever would zip and hold in my boobs. But tonight I wanted something more.
“We want to feel beautiful and fierce,” I decided. “Have any miracles up your sleeve to accomplish that?” It would take one. A bright, shiny miracle given how I’d spent the past few months feeling like a garbage bag of a human being.
First I’d been a stripper, then I’d almost let my father get evicted from his nursing home, and finally I’d made a deal with the devil just to keep my little family afloat.
Linus looked me up and down and raised a skeptical, well-groomed eyebrow. “Would you settle for reasonably attractive and moderately assertive?”
“I would not.”
“Hmm.”
“Don’t do your hummy ‘it would take a miracle’ thing with me, Linus. I know you’ve got something up that fabulous sleeve of yours.”
With a wicked gleam in his eyes, he yanked a garment bag off a rack.
“Well, since you mentioned it…”
“What is it?”
“Don’t ask questions. Go get dressed because you know we’re going to need at least an hour on your makeup and that rat’s nest you call hair.”
Rolling my eyes, I took the bag and the criticism and headed into the restroom.
All uncharitable thoughts about how Linus must have been a mean sorority cheerleader kicked out of school for hazing in a past life evaporated when I unzipped the bag.
“Well, holy hell.” It was a miracle in a bag, and Linus Feldman was my fairy godfather.
I walked back into the room feeling like Cinder-freaking-rella. If Cinderella’s fairy godmother had given her a sexy, skin-hugging gown the color of crimson or, as I liked to think of it, Dominic Russo’s crushed heart.
“Not entirely hideous,” Linus said when I made a slow circle for him. He held out his hand. A pair of gold-dusted stilettos dangled by their straps from his fingers. “You’ll wear these, and you won’t whine about how much they hurt.”
I nodded dutifully. I was an obedient Cinderella.
A quick spin through the makeup lab, half an hour in the chair of a miracle-worker with a curling iron, and I looked like someone brand new. No more sad, poor, new girl lusting over her boss.
Nope. I was a breathtaking goddess deserving of tasteful lusting.
The dress. Oh, that damn dress. It was soft on my skin and a bold red. The skirt fell away from a split up my right leg. The fabric was light, airy layers of chiffon that billowed behind me like a cape when I walked—or stalked, as Linus instructed. The top ended an inch above my belly button offering a peek of stomach and pale, New York-winter skin. It had cap sleeves and zero cleavage. But the way it hugged my breasts was almost sinful. There was a silk tie at the back of my top that kept it cinched in under my breasts and when I moved, it felt like a caress.
And it wasn’t just the clothes. Or the sleek, smoky eyes. Or the bold lips and sex-tousled hair. I was remembering who I was underneath it all. Beneath the stress and the broken fingernails, the cheap clothes, and the just starting to catch up on sleep again. I was Ally Morales, and I had a value that went way deeper than what one man accepted or rejected.
“Well, hot damn,” Linus said.
Hot damn indeed. I nodded at my reflection.
“Where in the hell did you find this dress?” I asked.
He plucked a stray piece of fuzz off the cap sleeve. “It was a leftover from a shoot last year. We didn’t end up using it. None of the models could be pinned into it since it was made for someone with…” He gestured at my boobs. The dress had been made for them. “It’s Christian’s. He’ll like seeing you in it tonight.”
I thought I detected a hint of mischief in his tone.
“What are you up to, Linus?”
He spread his hands, the picture of innocence except for the smirk that played over his lips. “Your fairy godfather doesn’t need to have an ulterior motive.”