Imperfect Love: Operation: Girl Next Door (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by Casey Hagen

  “You’re right, but before I address that, I’d be interested in hearing how you know,” Trevor said, leveling his stare at Rachel.

  She glanced away with a nervous smile. “Oh, well—”

  “What’s the matter, Rachel? You don’t want to have to admit to our boss that you eavesdropped? I mean, that’s the only way you could know. Piper made a call and you listened in. Did you hide in our closet, under the bed, in the bathroom, perhaps?”

  “Don’t make this about me. You tried to con your way into the partnership. This is about you and your willingness to do anything to get ahead, including lie and manufacture a whole fake relationship to con your way into the partnership chair.”

  “You know what? You’re right.” He turned to Davidson and Marla. “I’m sorry. I was doing anything I needed to do to get a job I’ve already earned. If I’m disqualified for going about it dishonestly, you’ll want to disqualify that snake in the grass, as well,” Trevor said, pointing a finger at Rachel.

  “Come on, Piper. We’re leaving.” He didn’t give her a chance to follow him, instead he grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him out of the room.

  They got to their bedroom and loaded their stuff in silence. He just wanted out. The future he’d worked so hard for, sold his soul for, had just been launched on a rocket and shot to another planet with Rachel’s little stunt.

  And who had given her the fuel to launch that rocket?

  Piper.

  He watched her folding her clothes… God, how much things had changed since last night. Hell, this morning.

  He had things to say to her, but he damn well would get out of this house first. He had a job to hold on to, if possible, and hashing the whole deal out in front of his boss was all but a guarantee he’d be out a job.

  And here he thought they had found something. Something he was desperately trying to figure out how to hold on to. He’d finally started to acknowledge, at least to himself, why he’d gone from cheap woman to cheap woman…because none of them were her. They’d never be her.

  What a joke.

  He grabbed both of their bags.

  “Trevor, I’m—”

  “Not now.”

  “Please, just take a minute. Maybe you can take a few minutes to talk to Davidson now.”

  “And have an audience for my firing. No.” He headed for the car and figured if she wanted a ride back to the city, she’d keep up. He fought the urge to lay on the gas pedal and kick up gravel as they pulled away from the house. No one came out to try to stop them. Not a single word had been uttered to convince them to stay.

  Guess that said it all.

  Once on the road, he glanced at her profile. Her hand had clenched onto the door handle as she sat up straight and tense.

  “You just had to make that damn call, didn’t you? You had to make it about you…thanks a lot, Piper.”

  She turned in her seat and pointed a finger at him. “Listen, you boob. That call was about you. I had to find out if the Marla we just met happened to be the same one who has been trying to get in with me for months now so I could be careful.”

  He took the turn at the light harder than necessary. “Well, thank you for that. Look how well being careful turned out,” he ground out.

  She threw her hair over her shoulder and adjusted her seatbelt. “Hey, you’re the hotshot that wanted to earn this promotion with a lie. Don’t blame me for your lack of morals.”

  He hit the steering wheel with his palm. “Oh, we’re going to turn this into a moral talk now. You act like you’re above moral failure, but you were right there alongside me going along with the lie.”

  “Yes, because I owed you a favor. I was returning it.”

  “That’s all it was, huh? A favor?”

  “I wouldn’t have been here otherwise.”

  “So, the sex last night, was that just a bonus?” He knew the minute the words fell out of his mouth that he had fucked up. Last night had been something else entirely, something slipping away from them every second they stayed locked in this argument. He’d just reduced it to services rendered and in doing so, he’d sent a barb into her chest so sharp, he’d be lucky to find any way to recover.

  He glanced at her and then back at the road. Her wounded, honey eyes met his. They’d gone red and glassy at his words.

  “Dammit, Piper. I didn’t mean—”

  “Don’t, Trevor. Whether or not you meant it, you just made me feel like a whore. Don’t make it worse,” she said, her voice getting thicker with unshed tears toward the end.

  They didn’t speak for the rest of the drive. His shoulders ached from the tension both in the car and the way he kept his hands locked on the wheel. He hurt from the roots of his damn hair to the tips of his toes.

  When he rolled up in front of her building, she didn’t wait for the car to roll to a full stop before she had the door open and headed for the trunk.

  He met her there and popped it open. Before he could reach in and take anything, she shot her arms through the plastic handle of the shopping bags and grabbed her suitcase, hauling them all out in one hard yank.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “So, I guess it’s back to the dresses and stilettos, huh?” Trevor said. He didn’t know what to say. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he had been making love to her, they’d been so connected, and now they might as well be strangers.

  “Is there a problem with that? I mean, it’s not like you won’t head right on back to your bimbos and binges, right?” Her mouth pinched with displeasure.

  He straightened his shoulders. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You have a hell of a lot of nerve criticizing my dress when you traded in your integrity for boobs and booze.”

  He slammed his trunk shut and leaned against his car. If she wanted to have this out here, fine. “I do what I have to do to get the job done.”

  “What a load of shit. You do what you do because you’re hiding.”

  “What the hell am I hiding from? I’m right here, right in the center of life. I’m not sitting in a corner somewhere with cheap booze in a brown bag whacking off to a Hustler magazine.”

  “No, but you’ve traded in the man you used to be for this partying persona and it’s pathetic. I don’t think you’re in the center of life at all. I think you’re pretending to be, all the while the real you is still on the field at Ohio State.”

  Who knew Piper had a few barbs of her own she carried around for moments like this.

  “This has nothing to do with football.”

  “This has everything to do with football. It’s been ten years, Trevor. It’s time to be a big boy and let it go. Instead, you go through life half-cocked, not caring…hiding who you are from the real world. It’s cowardice.”

  “That’s funny coming from you, the queen of hiding. Where did that girl I knew a long time ago get off to? She came out of hiding for the weekend, but she’s about to go put on her armor again.”

  “I’m not hiding.”

  “Really, then what would you call it? The girl that stood in front of the mirror with me, she didn’t know how beautiful she is. I imagine because the shits of the world knocked her down. But you’ll bury her now, right? Under layers of makeup, hairspray, and revealing outfits.”

  “I dress for the industry I’m in.”

  “You dress for approval. I remember what you went through in school, the bullying, the mean girls, the years of endless torture with words. So now you demand that approval, right? You make sure every hair is in place, your outfit is the latest and greatest style, your smile is firmly planted on your face. But guess what, Piper? There’s no one here to convince of your worth…no one other than yourself.”

  “You’re a real shit, Trevor.” She hurried to her door.

  “Truth hurts, doesn’t it?” he yelled just as she slipped inside the door.

  He climbed in his car and slammed his fist on the dashboard.

  He likely didn’t have a job come Tuesd
ay morning.

  He’d probably lose his best friend the minute Ryden heard about their weekend.

  He’d definitely lost Piper.

  Not that he had her in the first place.

  He drove to his penthouse and walked through it as if seeing it for the first time. His place had been a place to crash in between partying. He’d hired a decorator to design the space from top to bottom, wanting no more involvement than the time it took to hand over the digits on his American Express card.

  He poured a whisky and stared out at the city. The slow burn of the liquor pooled in his belly. The next glass convinced him it was all for the best. He’d rather know how mismatched they were before investing a lot of time and effort. The third glass numbed the pain that mercilessly reminded him just how much of a liar he had become…especially to himself.

  Chapter 11

  Piper stood before her bathroom mirror examining her ravaged face. She’d told herself he wasn’t worth it, that none of this was worth the way she had carried on the night before. She had a job to do, and if Trevor wanted to sink back into his old ways, that was his business, because she was out of it.

  She wanted to exorcise that crush she had. She had sure as hell exorcised it.

  In the process, she’d managed to step out of the crush and in to being full blown in love with the boob.

  She jumped in the shower, turned the water to extra hot, and tried to scrub away any vestiges of her weekend. With her skin pink and almost raw, she slathered on lotion and went to her closet. She grabbed her red V-neck mini dress and Prada heels and laid them out on her bed. Pulling her hair down from the towel, she wrapped it on top of her head and stuck the pen on her nightstand in the knot to hold it.

  Today she would take the plunge. She’d start the expansion of Exclusively Piper. She hadn’t told Rafe that she’d arrived home early, but that was fine. Might as well surprise him and use the extra time to jump right in. She’d also figure out how to handle the Marla situation.

  Ducking out the way they did had been the same as running away in shame. While Trevor might be okay with leaving that image behind, Piper was not. She’d give Marla a call and make an offer. Marla would either forgive Piper for her lie, or not. Either way, Piper wanted to help, and she would extend the offer, for the children.

  She held the dress in front of her and studied herself in the full-length mirror. She’d modified it from a wrap dress she had bought and lined the stomach area with an extra panel that flattened the belly and supported the area throughout the day. She’d been inspired by the tabloid pictures of celebrity women after they had gone out to lunch and dinner, and then were subjected to speculation as to how far along they were.

  The real world could be a shitty, shitty place when it came to making women feel like less than their best. This dress had been designed so Piper could go-to lunch and not worry about what parts of her squeezed out after. At least for the most part. That and holding her frame just the right way helped.

  She gazed at herself and the way her legs, strong and shapely, flexed with her twisting from side to side to examine the look. With her favorite red lace balconette bra, she’d rock the cleavage and the round swells of the top of her breasts to boot.

  No one would dare question her attractiveness when she hit them with all her assets.

  Her gaze snapped up to meet her own eyes in the mirror. Wasn’t this just what Trevor had said she used her clothes for? She stood there, with the killer wardrobe in front of her, but that messy, knotted bun on her head was very much reminiscent of the girl she had been. Her reflection resembled the tug of war between past and present she hadn’t even been aware she battled.

  In high school, the girls tortured her over her underdeveloped body. She had been tall, with no boobs to speak of, and only a delicate flair to her hips. Her body had been perfect for dance. For four years, she’d found acceptance in her pointed shoes and buried the pain inflicted by the girls in high school.

  Out of nowhere, a year and a half into college, her body changed. She put on the Freshman Fifteen everyone talked about and those fifteen went to two areas: her chest and hips. Then she put on another five after that.

  Suddenly that comradery slipped away. Dancers whispered about her, laughed at her when they thought she couldn’t hear them, and distanced themselves from her. It was high school all over again, but this time, the rejection came from her own tribe.

  Then the inevitable…her dance instructor pulled her aside and told her she needed to do something about her weight or she wouldn’t make the cut. The words had hurt, but desperate not to lose her safe place, she had dieted. She’d taken diet pills, skipped meals, and fueled her body on energy drinks, and nervousness.

  She lost fifteen pounds, but not from her hips and chest.

  The curves were there to stay.

  The worst part of the whole sordid ordeal was that it took standing before this mirror, torn between past and present, before Piper finally realized that she’d spent all that time wanting to be accepted when she hadn’t even accepted herself.

  Trevor had been right. She used her body as a challenge. She hated to acknowledge that, not only because it didn’t cast her in the best light, but because it didn’t matter. Trevor carried hefty demons with him, and was in no way capable of seeing what they might have had together.

  She could control herself, her own actions, she could adjust her course and find a way to hold on to who she had been and who she needed to be, but she had to stop dressing for everyone else’s happiness, but her own.

  What do I want to wear?

  Rain had moved into the area, cascading the city in a cool mist. The temperature hovered at about sixty-five with a cool breeze making it feel like sixty.

  She wanted a big, comfy sweater, leggings, and flats. That’s what she really wanted.

  She dug in the back of her closet where she kept her comfortable clothes, or what everyone else would call comfortable clothes. To her they were around the house clothes. She never dressed like this in public.

  She stretched on the black leggings and pulled the long, crimson sweater over her head, letting it fall over her curves to where it landed mid-thigh.

  She slid on a pair of black leather flats and checked herself out in the mirror. She still had the hour glass shape. The outfit, although comfortable, didn’t hide her assets, it just didn’t highlight them like neon lights in the window of a porn store.

  She turned left, then right. She needed to do something with her hair. The messy bun thing had been great in high school, but she had to draw the line somewhere.

  She spent another twenty minutes blow drying her hair and letting it fall in its natural wave pattern. She smoothed a bit of serum over it to keep the frizz at bay. With the laid back look, she skipped the heavy make-up, too. She used mascara and lip gloss only and called it good. Curious to see what Rafe thought, she grabbed her briefcase and headed to the office.

  The nature of her business allowed her a bit of leeway for what time she went in. Her office was nothing more than a small industrial apartment that had enough room for her and Rafe to have desks, art tables, and reams of fabric. To expand, she’d need out of this lease and into another location.

  By the time she left home, the worst of the traffic had moved through the city. She hailed a cab and ten minutes later, made her way into the club.

  Rafe’s head snapped up from where he sat hunched over designs when she opened the door. “Hey, I thought I wouldn’t see you until tomorrow?” He circled around the desk and narrowed his eyes. “What happened to your usual clothes?”

  “I got a makeover,” she said, eyeing him.

  He rubbed his chin with his hand as he circled her. “Hmmm, I would say if I didn’t know better, he ravaged you and now you’re in love. I’ve never seen this side of you, the natural beauty.” He stopped before her and searched her eyes. “And by the sadness in your eyes, he broke your heart.”

  She should have stayed home. She
knew Rafe would see through her. A hot tear slid down her cheek followed by two or three more. She didn’t think she had any more left.

  She’d been wrong.

  “He’s a whore of a man and I’m just another notch on his bedpost.” Her breath caught on the last word and her lower lip trembled.

  “He’s a bastard,” Rafe said, enveloping her in a hug. No easy feat when he stood five inches shorter than her.

  She buried her face in his shoulder, fighting back a sob. “No, he’s just... I don’t know. Maybe he is, or maybe he’s damaged beyond repair.”

  He smoothed her hair from her face and took her cheeks in his hands. “And it’s not your job. If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen. It always does. So what else happened?” He took her hand and led her over to her chair.

  “They found out about the lie.”

  He handed her a cup of coffee and leaned against his art table. “Eeeeh, how did they take it?”

  “Who knows? All they managed to do is ask what was going on a couple of times before Trevor hightailed us out of there with no explanation.”

  “Ouch. So now what?”

  She took a sip of coffee, appreciating the way the warmth soothed her tear-ravaged throat. “Now, I get to work. We have a company to expand. And I have to call Marla.”

  “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “This isn’t about me. It’s not about Trevor and that partnership. There are kids hanging in the balance and I can’t let them down.” She caught the dance dress she had left out from the corner of her eye and rounded her desk to approach it.

  She circled it, the sounds of the city outside of the window fading to nothingness. She angled her head and narrowed her eyes. She eyed the line of the skirt and smiled. She had it!

  She grabbed the scissors and passed her coffee to Rafe without a word. Smoothing her hand over the front of the skirt, she shifted to where the middle of the left thigh would be and slit the outer skirt all the way up the waist. She did the same to the other side and flipped them up to the middle layer and slit that up the middle. She cut the base layer on each side to match the leg line again.