“Tell me how you really feel,” Donna muttered. “It’s not all bad.”
“Easy for you to say. You never have to interact with him.”
“And that’s the way I like it.” Donna began poking around in more bags and found a cropped leather jacket that I would hardly deem office appropriate. She shrugged into it and checked herself out in the mirror. “You want some advice, Gabi?”
“No.”
“You should stop being such a Negative Nancy. Look on the bright side. You just got a whole new wardrobe for free.”
I grumbled under my breath about how clothes didn’t make me any more enthusiastic to work here. However, the professional attire might get my parents off my back and make them believe that I was on a higher path to success now. Silver lining, right?
Sort of?
Donna pulled a skirt out of one of the bags and threw it at me. “Try this on next.”
I held it up, spied the slit up the back of it, and burst out laughing. “Are you kidding me? What was he thinking?”
“If you wore dark nylons underneath, I think it would look killer on you and not too revealing. Go on, try it. You might surprise yourself.”
Donna might have been pushy, but I really liked her. We’d grown closer over the past few months and had started spending time together outside of the office. Sometimes we’d go to movies together, and she liked to wander through used bookstores with me. She’d never buy anything because she used her e-reader religiously, but she liked to run her fingers over the spines of books, flip them open, finger through the pages, and enjoy the atmosphere of being around books and other readers.
I stripped out of the sheer blouse and dress and folded them neatly to tuck back into the bags before stepping into the skirt. I should have taken the shoes off first because one of my heels got caught in the waistband of the skirt. When I started tipping sideways, Donna lunged for me, caught my elbow, and steadied me.
She zipped up the side of the skirt. “Don’t break an ankle.”
“Thank you.”
She stepped back and whistled. “You look good, Gabi. Like hella good.”
As I turned to the mirror in nothing but my bra, skirt, and Jimmy Choo’s, the door to the bathroom swung open. And there, framed in the doorway, somehow looking handsome in the fluorescent lights, stood my boss.
Jake cocked his head to the side. “What the hell are you doing in here? I’ve been calling you.”
I yelped and covered my chest with my arms. “Get out!”
His gaze slid to Donna. “Are you on your break?”
Her mouth worked but no sound came out. She panicked under his intense stare, darted to her left, and vanished into one of the bathroom stalls. It slammed closed behind her with such force that the entire row of stalls rattled. I flinched. She turned the lock.
Jake sighed and looked back at me. “You’re done playing dress-up. Put some clothes on and meet me at the elevator. And Gabriella?” he added as he turned to leave.
“Yes?” I squeaked.
“Don’t do this kind of thing on my dime.” He vanished out the door.
Donna’s voice was timid from the other side of the stall door. “Is he gone?”
I slumped against the bathroom counters, heart racing, cheeks burning with embarrassment. “Yes. You can come out now, you coward.”