“I wish. He’s going to introduce me around so I can use the new pitch.” The next dress was red, strapless, divine.
“It’s a huge improvement on barstool bingo.”
The third dress was a yellow, one-shoulder affair. “I am coming up in the world. And that stunt paid our rent.” But that dress, she’d stand out like a sunrise, and that was a little too bold for her first big A-list outing.
“I know. I’m amazed at what you’ve done.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got this.” It felt good to be able to say that. It might even be true. The final dress was Tiffany aqua. It had a fitted bodice that was beaded and a softly falling, pleated skirt. This was the dress, if it fit. “We’re going to be all right. I wish you could’ve heard Cal. He seems to think money is going to fall in my lap.”
“I still don’t understand why he’s helping.”
Neither did Fin. “He wants in my pants.”
“He took your pants to a hotel and left them on you.”
Which did weaken the in-her-pants theory, but she was sticking with it. The way he looked at her, all want to get to know you and I know what you taste like. She had to bite back a groan.
“There are silver heels and drop earrings, and if you pile your hair up, that will look amazing on you.”
Fin pulled her tee over her head and turned her back to Lenny to shuck her shorts, ditch her bra, and pull the aqua dress gently over her head. “What won’t be amazing is if I flub my pitch. I don’t know how many other chances there will be to rub shoulders with the right people.” It fit, but it was so low cut you could probably see what she’d had for breakfast.
She turned to Lenny. “Too much me?”
“Looks amazing. Try the shoes.”
Lenny’s shoes would probably pinch. She turned them over; the red sole was unscuffed. “These have never been worn.” And the thing digging into her underarm was the sales tag of the dress.
Lenny refilled her glass. “I thought I was going to lose some weight. I’ve worn the shoes once, but indoors. Keep the whole outfit if you like it.”
She loved it. She couldn’t keep it. The price of the dress alone was gag inspiring. She forced her feet into the shoes. A half-size bigger would’ve been better. “You’ll wear them again.”
Lenny groaned. “There aren’t any social invitations for anyone with the surname Bradshaw coming any time soon.” She sighed. “Or maybe ever again.”
“But you’ll be Lenore Bradshaw, successful charity maven, and everyone will want to know you.” Fin opened her arms; the dress swished around her knees; the earrings bobbed against her neck; the shoes pinched. “And I’ll be Finley Cartwright, someone who drinks champers at social events and makes rich men give her money without her dignity being compromised.”
“Not even if Cal makes a pass at you?”
“If Cal makes a pass at me, all bets are off. But he won’t. As in explicitly said he won’t. We’re to be strictly professional, and I need to respect that because he’s the money train.”
Cal would wear a tux. He’d look amazing in a tux, and he’d do that thing where a man hovered his hand at the small of your back, not touching, shepherding, guarding, ready to stop you from embarrassing yourself if you couldn’t walk in your shoes. She might not be able to get the Manolos off, and respect was a bitch.
“And that sucks because you’re into him.”
“Sucks sour lemons because have I told you how he’s grumpy but complex and suave and smart and his voice is programmed to make me weak and his eyes are so blue it’s like you can see his soul?”
“This is only the fourth or fifth time.”
Rare to meet a man she liked enough to want to be intimate with after Win, and she had to go meet one who wanted to support her ambition more than he wanted to plow her. “Really sucks.”
Fin had to push Lenny out because she needed to scrape and primp and preen and fix her hair and cut the tag out of the dress and remember that she had no perfume and be pissed about the fact there was no time to drop into Sephora to snitch a sample. But damn, she looked good. Scrubbed up right fine for someone who was last at the Met as wait staff.
Cal’s driver called on arrival and was at the curb out front when Fin got downstairs. It was hard not to feel self-conscious getting in the black town car and then not to feel disappointed that she was alone. Cal never said he’d be in the car, but he never said he wouldn’t be, either, and she’d already learned that it was good for her mental health to listen carefully to what he said.
At the Met, there was a red carpet. This is what happened when you entered by the front door, not the service entrance. She walked that carpet as if it was delivering her to the One Hundredth Academy Awards instead of what’s-her-name’s art retrospect
ive, but there was no one to see her strut her stuff and no Cal hovering in the foyer, either.
She showed the invitation card and made her way to the American Wing, taking the first glass of champagne offered and trying not to geek out. This was her Cinderella moment. It was time to go find her prince before her feet started swelling in her half-size-too-small, borrowed shoes, but she froze up, couldn’t leave the safety of the periphery of the room where the staff came and went.