She’d had all week to dread this moment.
“I’d loan you one of mine, but …” Kuvi shrugged, glancing significantly at Alice’s figure and then hers. Alice was long-limbed, slender and
tall for a woman, while Kuvi was short with lush, feminine curves.
“What size shoe are you?” Kuvi asked, studying Alice’s bare feet narrowly.
“An eight.”
“Perfect. You know that dress isn’t bad at all, and that orange is great for your coloring,” she said, studying Alice closely. “Take off the tube top, though,” she said, referring to the stretchy white top she wore under the dress. “We’re trying to send that dress up the fancy scale, not down.”
“But—”
“Trust me,” Kuvi said, the manic gleam of a challenge entering her hazel eyes. Alice was reminded, as she had been several times that week, that she didn’t ever want to be on Kuvi Sarin’s opposing team. Kuvi opened her top drawer briskly.
“The women in my family are known for their skin,” Kuvi said distractedly as she rooted around for something. “But your skin might beat us all. It’s so smooth, and it’s turning even a prettier color as you get tan. You must have an Indian in your white-girl family tree. Maybe we’re far distant relatives,” Kuvi joked as she extracted a large plastic bag filled with costume jewelry.
“You don’t want to be remotely related to my family, trust me.”
Kuvi grinned. “Okay. Off with the tube top.”
The halter dress was a little lower cut than Alice preferred, thus the reason she usually wore a tube top under it. The cut was decent by most standards, but Alice was a little conservative when it came to that sort of thing. Once again, her past experience from Little Paradise intervened on present-day life. If a girl went around wearing anything remotely suggestive in Little Paradise, it was an open invitation to trouble. Taking off the tube top wasn’t as bad as she feared, though. The neckline revealed just the hint of the valley between the swells of her breasts and exposed her upper back.
“You’re built,” Kuvi said frankly when Alice walked out of the bathroom after removing the tube top from beneath the dress and refastening the halter. “You should have heard what Thad said when he first saw you in a bathing suit.”
Alice nearly demanded “What?” but then stopped herself at the last minute. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to know what Thad had said.
Which was weird. Why wouldn’t she want to hear about a gorgeous, smart, sweet guy like Thad Schaefer saying something lecherous about her? He hadn’t tried anything with Alice since that day he’d held her in the woods, but it wasn’t because he wasn’t interested. Alice would have to be an idiot not to notice the heat in his eyes every time they were together.
“What do you usually do, bind those things?” Kuvi asked baldly, staring unabashedly at Alice’s breasts.
“I wear sports bras a lot,” Alice said, willing the air-conditioning to cool her hot face. “I’d prefer to keep them out of the limelight,” she said, waving in the general vicinity of her chest.
Kuvi smirked. “I hear you. Men already don’t take us seriously enough, especially in the business world. Don’t worry. The dress doesn’t make your boobs look huge or anything. It just suggests.”
Kuvi proceeded to confidently costume her in a pair of dangly gold earrings, which showed off nicely next to her near-black hair and tan. “No necklace necessary given your gorgeous neck, chest, shoulders, and back,” Kuvi said in a stern, matter-of-fact assessment before shoving several gold bangles and one purple bangle on her wrist.
She pulled a pair of golden sandals with ankle straps out of her closet and held them up excitedly. The shoes were unapologetically sexy, their purpose solely decorative versus practical—like jewelry for the feet. They looked like something a harem girl might wear. Alice finally balked.
“I can’t wear those, Kuvi.”
Kuvi peered at the shoes critically. “Yeah, you’re right. You have too much substance for these froufrou things,” she agreed, tossing the sandals heedlessly back in the closet.
“I’ll just wear these?” Alice asked hopefully, holding up a pair of inexpensive, neutral-colored flats she owned. Kuvi nodded encouragingly. She really was nice. “Are you sure you don’t mind about me borrowing the jewelry?” Alice asked doubtfully, fingering an earring a moment later.
“Mind? It’s fun,” Kuvi insisted. “You look gorgeous.”
Alice didn’t agree, either about the fun or how she looked, but she didn’t want to ruin Kuvi’s apparent good time. She appreciated her roommate’s efforts, but the glamorization of Alice Reed could only go so far without descending into the ridiculous.
SHE and Kuvi walked out into a clear warm summer evening. A good chunk of their total party of twenty-eight people had already arrived at the assigned spot in front of the main lodge when they strolled up to meet them. Being a social butterfly, Kuvi immediately fell into animated conversation with Thad, Dave, and a pretty, quiet young woman from Stanford University named Lacey Sherwood. Lacey and Alice were both runners. Lacey had competed in track in college, but Alice just jogged for exercise. They’d run together a few early mornings this week, though, and found they were compatible, both for the exercise and the company.
“You guys both look great,” Thad told Kuvi and her when they approached. His gaze was warm on her—Alice—though. He looked pretty amazing himself, wearing a light blue button-down, charcoal-gray suit, and narrow black tie. She really was out of her league, Alice thought. He’d packed that suit to come to a summer camp?
It’s not just any summer camp, stupid. It’s a retreat and training ground for the best executives in the world, and that’s precisely what Thad looks like.
Lacey was almost as quiet as Alice as they all chatted, not because she was a loner like Alice, but because she was shy. Alice caught Thad staring at her bare shoulders, arms, and breasts a few times, which was sort of unsettling, but was also nice. She felt glaringly out of place for the event. Having a gorgeous guy openly admire her certainly helped ease her discomfort. For a few minutes, Alice actually started to feel like maybe her nervousness all week about this event had been for nothing.
Until Brooke and Tory walked up, anyway. Naturally, Brooke had pulled Tory’s name during the roommate selection. Luck always favored women like them.