Surprise Seduction (10 page)

“Come on, Adrienne.
 
We all pitched in for this.”

“Don’t make us resort to kidnapping.”
 
The sparkle in Sheila’s eyes warned Adrienne that her roommate meant business.

Adrienne frowned at her friend.
 
Sheila knew better than this.

Still, seeing the determined light in her friends eyes, she put away the project she’d planned to work on, grabbed her purse from her desk drawer, and faced the smiling women.

She had a lot to decide before the party tonight.

“Let’s get this over with.”

“Take the ace wrap off your boobs before you put that dress on,” Sheila ordered from the other side of the dressing room door.

Adrienne gave a wry smile and unwrapped the bandage that helped keep her full chest from attracting attention.

She lifted the shimmery, blue-green dress and let the silky material glide over her body.
 
The material hugged against her, exposing more curves and skin than it covered.

“It’s too little,” she called out to keep in character.
 
In reality she loved the dress.
 
Surely, if she planned to tell Chase the truth anyway, it wouldn’t hurt if she quit dressing like a nun?

Or was that her vanity talking?
 
Truth was she wanted to knock the man’s socks off…and other pieces of clothing.

“Step out and let us be the judge of that,” Sheila demanded from outside the door.

Adrienne tugged the skirt down lower on her thighs, but only managed to expose more of her breasts.
 
Frustrated, she opened the door and stepped out with her arms crossed over her chest.

All three women and the saleslady who’d joined their party stopped their conversation and stared.

“Do you think it’s too short?”

“Something’s not right.”
 
Sheila circled Adrienne, eyeing her carefully.
 
“The glasses.
 
You don’t really need them, do you?”

Adrienne kept one arm over her chest as she placed her glasses in Sheila’s outstretched hand and pretended to squint.

Sheila still wasn’t satisfied.
 
She reached up to Adrienne’s hair and pulled out one, then another of the clips holding her hair in place.
 
She removed all the pins and fluffed Adrienne’s long tresses out.
 
The swish of her hair tickled the bare skin of her back.

“Much better,” Sheila assured.

“What I want to know is why you’ve been holding out on us?
 
You have a killer bod, girlfriend,” Lucy whistled.
 
“And I’d kill for your hair.”

She’d been holding out more than her friends knew.
 
But they’d know tonight.
 
Everyone would know the truth.
 
But, she’d tell Chase first.
 
She had to.

“I’m green with envy,” Rosie added as she glanced down at her slightly more than generous hips.

Adrienne looked in the mirror at the woman in the slinky dress.
 
It seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d dressed to attract attention.
 
In reality it had been barely over a month.

So much in her life had changed.
 
Mostly, though, she’d been the one to change.
 
Even before her father died, she’d started getting bored, but since his heart attack she’d morphed, spread her wings, and was ready to fly.

“Here’s the others.
 
Go try them on.”
 
Lucy handed Adrienne a stack of business suits, dresses, and pantsuits.

Adrienne stared down at the clothes.
 
Bright colors.
 
Loud patterns.
 
Silky.
 
Shapely.
 
Sexy.
 
There would be no hiding in these clothes.
 
But then she was through with hiding, and her real wardrobe was in her mother’s home in Chicago.
 
Her mother and Drew’s home.

She probably would need more clothes.
 
What did it matter if Drew was tracking her accounts?
 
After tonight, it wouldn’t.

Adrienne’s gaze lifted to her three friend’s expectant looks.
 
“You want me to try these on?”

“There’s more on the rack outside the dressing room.
 
You can only have eight back here at a time.”
 
Rosie rubbed her hands together in glee.

Adrienne mouthed an ‘O’.
 
She lifted the first outfit from the stack and went back inside the private stall.
 
She hung the pantsuit on the hook and stared at it.
 
Hot pink and made to fit like a glove.
 
She slipped the party dress off and put the pantsuit on.

Thirty minutes later, Adrienne walked between the dressing room stalls feeling like a runway model showcasing Paris’ finest.
 
She whirled and twirled as they brought one outfit after another for her to model, laughing at her own silliness.
  
Not only clothes, but jewelry, matching shoes, and all kinds of accessories.
 
And all at unbelievable prices.
 
Lord, she’d been shopping at the wrong places!

“Oh, Adrienne,” Rosie sighed.
 
“I wish you could get them all.
 
You look so wonderful.”

“Well, thanks to Chase, you can at least get the dress for tonight,” Sheila said.

“What do you mean?
 
Thanks to Chase?”
 
Adrienne’s eyes widened in question.

Lucy and Sheila exchanged looks.

“When I asked Chase if I could borrow you today, he wanted to know why.
 
I told him what we had planned, and he insisted on contributing to the cause, so to speak,” Sheila answered, her eyebrows waggling.

“Why would he do that?” Adrienne gasped.

“You tell us,” Lucy demanded with a cheeky grin. “Maybe there’s something you haven’t told your best pals?”

Adrienne’s eyes widened and she emphatically shook her head.

“You know what he thinks about me.”
 
Adrienne reminded them of her supposed sexual preferences.
 
Lucy and Rosie were in on that part of her deception, had said that in the real world one did what one had to do to get a job and survive the hard economic times.
 
“Maybe he felt sorry for me, or was embarrassed by how I dress.”
 
Her voice trailed off as she wondered if that were true.
 
Did she embarrass Chase with her boring, sexless clothes?
 
The way she dressed shouldn’t matter as long as she did her job well.
 
But why else would he give Sheila money to buy her something to wear?

“All I know is he told me to help you find a nice outfit that didn’t reach your ankles.
 
Maybe he just wants a glimpse of those long legs you hide from everyone, but me.”
 
Sheila winked with faux seductiveness at Adrienne.
 
“Are you hitting on me?”

Adrienne gasped, then burst into laughter.
 
“Yeah, want to be my date tonight?”

“Sorry, I’m taking Tim the cameraman.”

“The guy from News at Nine?” Rosie asked.

“Yep, I’m going to star in his new film.”
 
Sheila’s lips puckered, and she blew Adrienne a kiss.

“You are so bad,” Adrienne teased.
 
She longed to tell Lucy and Rosie the whole truth, but she couldn’t risk Chase finding out until she told him.
 
She bought several of the outfits, giving the explanation that she had some money saved and couldn’t think of a better way to enjoy it than with the new wardrobe her friend’s helped assemble for her.

Save one exception.

“These match your dress for tonight perfectly.”
 
Lucy held up a pair of flashy earrings that sparkled blue one moment, then green with the slightest change of light.

“They’re not clip-ons,” Adrienne stated the obvious.
 
She’d never had her ears pierced.

“No woman should go through life without being pierced,” Rosie insisted.

Adrienne’s hands protectively clutched her earlobes.

“I don’t know,” she said hesitantly.
 
She expected to feel pain before the day was over, but this wasn’t what she had in mind.
 
“My ears are just fine without holes in them.”

“Just think of all the accessorizing you’ll be able to do,” Lucy reminded.

“What if they got infected and swell up tonight?” she asked hopeful of swaying them.

“I’ve an idea,” Sheila grinned.
 
“You could have your navel pierced instead.
 
Then no one would notice if you got infected.”

“There’s that girl in legal who pierced her…” Lucy added.

Adrienne’s hands fell.

“Earrings sound wonderful, but seriously, let’s go find clip-ons.”

After they arrived at the Appleton Spa, it didn’t take Adrienne long to relax.
 
She felt like a new woman after the massage and seaweed wrap.
 
It had been too long since she’d pampered herself.

Adrienne exited the shower room thinking of how wonderful today had been, only to stop short at the sight of her three smiling friends waiting in the lobby.
 
Rubbing their hands together.
 
Seems they’d made some other arrangements for her, too.
 
A facial.
 
A manicure.
 
And a hair appointment.

 
“Come on.
 
I know you’re ready for this.
 
I’ve seen it in your eyes for weeks, and tonight’s the magic night.”
 
Sheila homed in on the longings lurking beneath the surface.

Sheila was right.
 
She did want to go all out.
 
Tonight she was going to stretch her wings and fly.

Or go down flapping furiously.

Tonight Chase would know everything and she wanted him to see her as a woman--an available, attractive woman.
 
Adrienne put herself into the hands of her friends.

Later, she stared at the image in the mirror with shoulder length hair shaped to frame her face in gentle disarray.
 
New soft highlights glimmered with her every movement.
 
She hadn’t gone back to her natural blond, but the highlights would help blend as her hair grew out.
 
Her eyebrows were arched high, freshly plucked and waxed to feminine perfection.
 
Her face had been clay-packed and creamed to silky smoothness.

“Now for the make-up.”
 
The cosmetologist set a tray of bottles and tubes on her workstation.

“Tonight, you’re going for glamorous,” Rosie insisted.