And maybe Celeste had something to teach her.* * ****
“And then she took me to an even better store and the sales guy there was wonderful,” Seraphina said as she practically bounced up the steps.
All in all, it was not the way Harry had expected her day to go. When he’d been forced to let her go meet his aunt alone, he’d worried it would all go to hell. It had run through his head that this might be what Angie had warned him about, that Celeste would use the time alone to scare off Sera, but she’d been all smiles when she’d driven up five minutes ago.
He hadn’t even told her the good news yet, but she was bubbly and happy and bright. It hadn’t taken long before he’d started judging his day by how big Seraphina’s smile was at the end of it.
“She was nice to you?” He’d been thinking a lot about what Angie had said. He wasn’t used to this world. He lived in a world where people said what they thought. Sure, a lot of it was dumb, but you could trust that most of the people he knew didn’t have plans and machinations going on behind all their words.
“Absolutely not,” Sera said with a grin. “After the first saleslady kicked me out and Celeste then canceled all her orders and threatened everyone like a boss, she complained about my leggings, my hair, thinks I need a sturdier brassiere, made fun of me because I didn’t know that meant bra, and then she wouldn’t let me walk back into the first store with all my shopping bags and yell ‘Big mistake,’ like in Pretty Woman, because I shouldn’t idolize prostitution. I kind of like her.”
He was confused again. “She was mean to you? Wait, why did the first saleslady kick you out?”
“Because some jerk-faced business guy hit on me and then said I was panhandling because I wouldn’t go to a hotel with him.”
“Excuse me?’
She waved him off. “It happens all the time, but now I know how to handle it. I threaten him with confidence. See, that’s what Celeste told me I was doing wrong. She said I was saying all the right things, but I need more confidence. Also, she told me I have to follow through on threats or people will know I’m a whining doormat with no hope of being anything more. So if I ever see that man again, I have to actually kick him in the balls. But it’s cool because Celeste bought me these shoes with spikes on them.”
“Who the hell asked you to go to a hotel room with him?”
She put her hands on his chest and tipped her head up. “It’s not a big deal. It might have been, but your aunt handled it. It’s okay. It’s nothing I haven’t had to deal with before. It’s kind of the way a certain class of men treats women like me.”
“Women like you?”
“Younger, considered pretty, obviously not wealthy.”
It wasn’t merely Papillon that had the problem. He knew he was often treated differently because he was a guy. Some of the best woodworkers he knew were women, but getting jobs in construction could be difficult because it was still a man’s world. “It’s not right.”
“I know, but I still have to deal with it. A lot of people tell me to go along with it and ease my way out of the situation so I don’t cause trouble.”
A little of the story she’d told was starting to seep in. “But my aunt didn’t tell you that, did she?”
Sera shook her head. “We had lunch in the café at the store and she told me about the rules her mother-in-law put on her. She said she’d been thinking about it a lot and didn’t like the idea of Angie having to follow the same ones. Or her granddaughter someday.” Sera moved away, pacing across the porch. “She was different than what I thought she’d be. I guess I never considered that it would be hard to be Celeste Beaumont.”
“She’s lost a lot.”
“I wasn’t talking about that. No one gets out of life without loss. I was talking about the daily stuff. I have to put up with people thinking I’m less than I am, but she did, too. I think her mother-in-law was pretty hard on her.”
“She didn’t grow up wealthy. She grew up like my mom,” he explained. “She grew up in a house where they lived paycheck to paycheck, and sometimes that paycheck wasn’t quite enough. I think living in this world has been rough on her.”
Sera was quiet for a moment. “It was rough on Wes, but I know how much he loved his mom.”
“I’m sure Wes loved his whole family,” he replied quietly. She almost never talked about Wes. The one time he’d asked about her relationship with him, she’d found a way to turn the conversation.