A brilliant smile lifted his lips. Straightening up, he met my gaze dead on. “You do now.”
There was something in his eyes. Heat and… victory? “Why? What did you have in mind?”
“You’ll see,” he said mysteriously and went back into his office, closing his door behind him. I stared at it, wondering if he was about to come back out and clear up his invitation. He didn’t.
I looked down at my clothes. It was hard to know whether I was dressed for whatever he had in mind if I didn’t know where we were going. I was wearing the plain black dress again, from the promo work. Paired with silver jewelry and a pair of Tiana’s turquoise heels, it was pretty multi-functional. For normal people, that is, which Jeremiah was not.
A billionaire’s Friday evenings probably didn’t consist of going to the local bar down the street or grabbing a bite to eat from the kind of restaurant I could go to dressed like this. Nerves tittered in my stomach.
This was what you wanted, wasn’t it?
It was. Just a couple of days ago I told Tiana how disappointed I was that Jeremiah hadn’t asked me to spend time with him outside of work again. Too bad I hadn’t dressed, or shopped, for success.
I considered putting in a call to Tiana. We were totally different sizes, but I could pull off some of her stuff. At the very least, she would have a plan. Deciding to do it when I took my lunch, a little later today because of Jance hanging around, I got back to work.
My feel-good playlist worked miracles on my mood. And knowing I was going to be spending the evening with Jeremiah didn’t hurt either, even if I might be doing it severely underdressed.
Later in the day, a knock at my door had me taking out my earbuds. I paused, not sure if the knock was in the background of the song I was listening to or not. Then it came again.
“Come in,” I called out.
The doorknob twisted open to reveal a man carrying a large white box with a black ribbon tied around it. I’d only ever seen boxes like it being wrapped up in stores. The kind of stores I couldn’t afford to purchase anything at. The man glanced down at the clipboard he was carrying.
“I’m looking for a Ms. Donavan?”
“You found her,” I said, confused about why he was bringing a box like that to my office. “Stephanie Donavan?”
It didn’t hurt to check. The man looked down again, then nodded. “I’ll need you to sign right here, please.”
He walked into my office and set the box down on my desk before handing me the clipboard. He pulled a clicky pen from his pocket and offered that to me too. Still confused, I checked my name again when I signed his delivery receipt. It wasn’t a mistake though. My name was printed on the receipt in bold, black letters.
“Thanks.” I handed back his pen and clipboard, then waited for him to leave before placing my hands on the side of the box and pulling it closer.
The ribbon tied around the box was thick and heavy. Fancy with a paisley pattern on it. It was almost too pretty to open, but my curiosity quickly overcame any notions of trying to open the box without undoing the ribbon.
I twined the ends around my fingers and pulled, letting it fall to my desk. My breath caught in my throat as I lifted the lid off the box, finding gray and white tissue paper nestled around royal blue fabric. Standing up, I lifted the fabric and nearly fainted when I realized it was a dress.
Not just any kind of dress, but the kind of dress princesses went to fairytale balls in. In exactly the right size, a fact I tried very hard not to be embarrassed about. I was proud to have curves. I just didn’t really want to think about Jeremiah knowing what my size was.
Because there was no doubt in my mind that that was who this dress was from. An embossed card from the store that fluttered down from the dress when I held it up against me confirmed as much.
I wished there was a full-length mirror in my office, but I managed to get a good enough idea from the mirror mounted above the side table in the corner. The dress was going to look fantastic. Like a million dollars.
It had a fitted top that would accentuate my waist while covering up the lumps and bumps that no woman wanted on display. Just holding it against me made me feel like royalty or one of those women in one of those books on my bookshelf. The women who were pampered by millionaire men who didn’t exist in the real world.
Except this is the real world. I was in awe of the dress, and the realization that my real life now actually involved an insanely handsome man buying me expensive dresses. Proud of my independence, I never wanted to be a kept woman, but the dress made me feel spoiled, thought about. Any woman who said she didn’t like the man she was crushing on thinking about her enough to send her such a stunning gift in the right size and a color matching the flecks in her eyes was lying.
Reaching behind me blindly, unable to tear my eyes from the dress in the reflection of the mirror, I tapped around my desk for my phone. When my fingers finally closed around its hard case, I snapped a picture and sent it to Tiana.
After staring at my reflection for too long, I finally hung the dress carefully over the side of my couch. Walking back to my desk to collect the ribbon and the tissue paper to return it all to the box, I noticed another layer of tissue paper that had been hidden by the dress.
My pulse kicked into gear. No way. There can’t be more.
But there was more. My lower lip broke away from the top one when I pulled the next layer of tissue paper away. Underneath it was a protective insert and two more boxes.
One was definitely a shoe box while the other was much smaller. Jewelry?
Almost scared to see what was in the boxes, my hands trembled when I opened the shoe box first. This time, my lips didn’t only part. My mouth fell open.
Inside the box was a pair of crystal-studded shoes, again in exactly the right size. How is that even possible?
I slipped my heels off immediately and swapped them for these new ones. One by one, I held my feet up and rotated them, admiring the shoes from every angle. They fit snugly but weren’t too tight. Wow.
Last but not least, the smaller white box stared at me from where it was nestled in more tissue paper. There was being spoiled—then there was this. This was incredible. So incredible I was getting a little afraid of touching all this stuff. Surely it couldn’t all be for me.
The card from the store winked at me from my desk, reminding me that it was, in fact, all mine. All from the man next door. Jeez. It was too much.
And I hadn’t even opened the last box yet. When I did, I gasped audibly. Sitting on top of a deep purple velvet cushion was a pair of dangly diamond earrings. They were breathtaking, and way, way too expensive.
They were the kind of earrings I saw celebrities wearing to award shows and in ads for the most exclusive shops in the city. Which begged the question, “Where on earth is he taking me?”