by Eva Sloan
Lucy looked at the dress and had to admit it was gorgeous. She nodded her agreement.
“And yes.” Elaina winked. “I’m very good at keeping the truth from the family. I’m just surprised Daddy didn’t ask for my help earlier.”
She smiled as Elaina plucked another dress—Armani—and a lovely pair of silver Prada mules from the stream of merchandise. “They really should have.”
She and Elaina cut a swath through four more boutiques, stopping only long enough for a quick lunch at a restaurant that would never just take walk in customers, but the moment they laid eyes on Elaina they were bumped to the top of the list and were seated and had drinks within three minutes.
She felt downright miserly compared with this chick. Even at her best she only hit two stores a day, and though many stores catered to her, they practically fell over themselves trying to please Elaina.
She couldn’t imagine how much money Elaina spent to deserve such devotion. Elaina, the goddess of the shopping expedition.
They had just begun to shop in the fifth boutique when they started talking about Gabriel. Lucy confided that even with his great looks, his personality was sorely lacking. Elaina cackled.
“And I bet he loves you calling him Gabe!”
“Probably not, but he deserves it.”
“He does, doesn’t he?” Elaina laughed, but then sighed. “But with a girlfriend like Delia…” And immediately she looked like she regretted saying the name.
“That’s her name, Delia?”
Rolling her eyes, “Yep, that’s her. Can’t stand her myself, and I just can’t see what he sees in her…but love is blind I guess.”
Lucy leaned in, very interested. “So what’s the what? Why is he hiding her from his folks?”
Elaina tilted her head and gave Lucy a long, hard look. “Let’s just say that Delia would never be accepted into the family.”
Well, Lucy thought. Maybe the family is a bit more bigoted than Gabriel would have me believe. Lucy decided she wouldn’t say this to Elaina.
“Is it a Romeo and Juliet sort of thing? Feuding families and bad blood?”
Elaina smiled ruefully as she repeated, “Bad blood…” She seemed to be rolling the words around on her tongue, trying out the taste off them. Then she smiled. “Something like that, yes.”
But then her head turned toward the large front windows and her smile evaporated. “Remember I said you needed to come up with a better story about you and Gabriel?”
Lucy smiled nervously as she turned to see what Elaina was looking at. Two tall, rather curvaceous women were standing on the sidewalk in front of the boutique, peering in through the window. They were both dressed in elegant clothes; one in pants and a dark blue silk button down blouse, the other in a short, form fitting yellow dress. They stood side by side, both with their purses in the crook of one arm, the other arm bent with the hand on their hip. And they both had their heads tilted slightly, vicious smiles spreading across their faces.
“Well, get ready for your first performance.” Elaina whispered as the two women entered the shop and made a beeline right to where Lucy and Elaina stood.
“What a coincidence!” The one in the pants chimed. “Elaina, we were just talking about how we haven’t even met Gabriel’s new bride-to-be.” The two women looked over at Lucy with twin expressions of excitement and expectancy.
Elaina moved perceptibly closer to Lucy and beamed a killer smile at the two women. “Of course. Well, this is Gabriel’s girl: Lucy Hart.” She placed her hands on Lucy’s shoulders protectively, flashing her dazzling smile at Lucy for a beat. Lucy was suddenly very glad Elaina was so close. “And these are my cousins: Sophie and Olivia Enoch.” They nodded as she said their names—so pants was Sophie, and the dress was Olivia. Elaina squeezed Lucy’s shoulders. “They’re my Uncle Remy’s children to his third wife.”
That mustn’t have gone over well with the two sisters, since their smiles dimmed and more than a hint of anger flared in their eyes. They were really quite similar, not only in looks (both having caramel brown hair and dark blue eyes) but the way they reacted to things.
“A pretty name for a pretty girl,” Olivia said, extending her hand for Lucy to shake. Her grip was firm, for a moment, and then she let go and frowned.
“Gabriel is a lucky man,” Sophie said, her smile and eyes dismissive as they took Lucy in. “She’s so…” Lucy could’ve sworn she’d sniffed the air. “Tender.”
“Well,” Elaina interjected, “I’m afraid I have a pressing appointment and Lucy here is going to be late for a date with her fiancé. So you will excuse us.” She then looked around and wrinkled her nose at the merchandise hanging on racks throughout the boutique.
“This place really didn’t have anything to offer us anyway. Just some left over’s from last season, and a slew of prostitute wear.” She beamed her stunning smile at the sisters and shrugged. “So we’ll leave you two to it.”
As Sophie and Olivia’s expressions fell and turned rather pissy, Elaina steered Lucy around the two and out the front door of the shop. Twenty very speedy strides later Elaina burst into peals of laughter, giving Lucy a big hug as they moved down the street.
“Now that was fun!”
Chapter 8
ALONE in his office at Enoch Industries, Gabriel answered an e-mail to a Malaysian computer component supplier: they would need double their previous order for this quarter. When he proof read the message, then hit send, he checked his inbox, found nothing new, so he closed his lap-top. Looking around his desk, all he saw was a crystal pen holder, his phone, and the brilliant shine of his black enamel desk.
This had always been the best part of his day. Even in high school and college, once he’d gotten every last bit of work done, he felt an immense sense of peace. Nothing orbiting on the periphery of his thoughts—that was how he liked everything, which explained the Spartan furnishings he’d chosen for his office. Gabriel didn’t like distractions of any kind. Single minded was what he knew people thought of him, but he knew that to keep track of such a large company as Enoch Industries you needed a clear mind. Otherwise things could get ugly fast.
But it would be nice to have a photograph of her on his desk.
The thought left him momentarily breathless. Honestly, he knew that could never happen. Even if he tried to…Delia was renown, as was her family, quite notoriously so. It would start a war, and though he would gladly give up anything to be with her…war would be unthinkable.
He was about to hit the intercom button and tell his assistant, Laurel, that she could go home. He was about to wrap things up before heading off to the gym and then home. But just as he was about to touch the button Laurel’s cheery little voice sang through the intercom and announced that his uncle Dante wanted a word.
“Send him in,” Gabriel said as he got up out of his chair and moved in front of his desk to greet the older man.
Dante was swift and almost beat him to the front of the desk.
“So, how did things go?” Gabriel invited Dante to sit with a wave of his hand, and then took a seat on the edge of his desk. “I presume you worked out the details.”
“Well, someone had to.” Dante’s voice wasn’t unkind, but he did seem a little put out.
“Uncle, I’ve been swamped here all week. And I knew I could trust you to negotiate the most efficient deal.” Gabriel felt uneasy at the look his uncle had on his face. “What kind of deal did you work out, uncle?”
“Let’s just say,” Dante spread his hands out, a gesture Gabriel knew meant Dante was confounded. “From the way the girl negotiates for herself, she should be well worth the trouble.”
Trouble? “You mean she didn’t let Luvici do the talking?”
“Not once money came into the conversation. She obviously thought Francis was under appreciating her worth.” He smiled wryly as he shook his elegant head. “It really was good to see such…gumption in someone of her generation.”
“If you can equate gold
digging with gumption,” Gabriel scoffed, “then sure, she’s a catch.”
“I’m just saying, if she’s that persuasive and convincing, then she should be in her element when it comes to fooling your parents…and your Uncle Remy.” Dante scowled as he checked his watch. “He’d love nothing more than to discredit you…and you father. He is second in line.”
“Not with Micah and me in the picture. More like fourth in line.”
“Fine. But he still would cherish the opportunity to disgrace you, especially so publically. Delia is a very dangerous liability—”
“Delia is the woman I’m in love with!” Gabriel cut across his uncle. “That hardly makes her a disgrace!”
But Gabriel’s glower diminished at the weary look in his uncle’s eyes.
“Don’t delude yourself.” Dante said as he stood to leave. He clasped his nephew around the shoulders, his hands warm but firm. “Whether this bit of subterfuge succeeds or not, she will never be accepted by the family. And for as long as you keep this relationship going, then you will be vulnerable.”
Before he left the room he turned back to Gabriel. “By the way, you should procure a picture of Miss Hart and display it on your desk. It will look more than a little strange not to.”
Gabriel grimaced, feeling like he was choking on his own heart as he fought not to howl with the pain. “Of course, uncle,” he said. “Good idea.”
Dante left the room. He hadn’t brought anything into the room, but Gabriel suddenly felt his office was cluttered with thoughts he was indeed lending a blind eye to. He just couldn’t see a world without Delia in it. And if he had to lie to his parents, and so many more, and if he had to pretend to be involved with an opportunist grifter like Lucy Hart, he would gladly do so. Anything not to lose Delia…
~*~
Life at Four Corners High School became much more interesting. With Lucy’s far superior and sexier wardrobe, and the return of her well coifed and manicured beauty, what also returned to Lucy was the attention of her fellow man…and, unfortunately, her fellow women.
Guys followed her around between classes, swarmed around her at her locker like flies. Some would do all sorts of wild things to get her attention. Mock grappling matches, cursing—belittling each other’s characters, athletic prowess, and man-hoods. This she kind of enjoyed. She’d missed having constant male attention.
In contrast, she disliked the attention she now received from the female populace at Four Corners High. Where, back at her old school, she’d been the queen bee of every aspect of her High School society. Cheer Squad Captain, Student Body President (which she’d won by a landslide—apparently a landslide of fearful, sycophantic and rather hateful subjects) she was dating the captain of the football and wrestling squad (same guy,) and she’d been crowned Home Coming Queen only a few days before her father had been arrested for tax evasion and immigrant slave trafficking. All the popular girl’s had groveled at her Jimmy Choo’s—though she now knew they’d both feared and hated her—and all other girls had fled at the sight of her—more fear and hatred.
But at Four Corners, her sudden appearance upgrade had caused an aftershock of overtly hateful girls, in all social brackets. The Goth chicks made nasty hissing sounds, and threw little wads of paper at Lucy’s head. The art chicks and the brain-trust girls joined forces and filled the girl’s restrooms with derogatory artwork (resplendent with nasty remarks scrolled underneath) and some rather clever math equations slandering Lucy with statistics of her obvious whoredome, and logistics on how buoyant her “Fake Tits” were.
The cheerleaders were more subtle. They leered and sneered, made mean little quips whenever Lucy passed by, and even tried slamming her against a bank of lockers once. They’d tried, but Lucy was well versed (to her now reluctant horror) in cheerleader war strategies.
There had been two of them—the rest of the squad was watching from a safe distance. Their first mistake was they stalked behind Lucy for far too long. By the time they decided to make their move, Lucy had made them and had her counter attack all ready. A fake toward the lockers and a quick side step, then a well practiced “accidental bump” maneuver she’d mastered her freshman year, and the two pompom shakers crash landed into their own trap with two incredibly loud crashes. One got a sprained ankle, the other a bloody nose. And Lucy flitted to safety without a scratch, and without anyone but the now seething cheer squad any the wiser.
Seething or not, the little incident made the pompom mafia keep their distance, and even though the rest of the feminine clicks in school still trash talked her, they didn’t bother her either.
Lucy had gone from non-existent to infamous in just a matter of days. And she’d been especially taken aback by the reason. She’d overheard, while obscured in a stall in the girl’s restroom, that “That new Lucy girl is such a bitch! I mean, where the hell did she even come from?”
Lucy sat there confused for a moment as the two verbally degraded her. Lucy wasn’t new. She’d been going to Four Corners for almost seven months. And then it hit her.
No one had even noticed me before, she cringed. And I mean no one.
When the trash talking cheerleaders left Lucy emerged from the stall and gave herself a long look in the mirror. Her old self was back in place as if she’d never left, making Lucy wonder where the Lucy she’d been for the last six months had gone. Were they the same person, or should she be mourning her lose?
Meet the once invisible, now bright and shiny and hated me.
How did I ever get through high school like this?
~*~
Getting to quit McDonalds and not having her family know was a blessing. It afforded her the necessary spare time to drive to San Bernardino every day, do some essential shopping, then have dinner with Gabriel in his very large, very cold office.
Not that the room was cold, literally. It was just the décor. And since Gabriel was always late, held up with business meetings and phone calls and e-mails and text messages, Lucy had quickly become intimate with his office.
A sleek black desk was neatly stacked with file folders and a laptop. No pictures—except for the one of Lucy that he’d snapped with her standing by the window of his office, and had printed and slapped into a generic black plastic frame his secretary, Laurel, had found in stock in the supply cabinet. Lucy liked the photo. The window had bathed her in a most flattering light, and the confusion that he wanted a picture of her had conjured in her had lent a kind of innocence to her expression that Lucy had never seen in a picture of herself before. She just couldn’t stop looking at it. She wondered if Gabriel ever looked at it. It was on his desk…but Gabriel was always on the move. A hands-on kind of CEO, Gabriel was always checking on things in the company personally.
So Lucy, having passed bored while waiting for Gabriel in his office, took it upon herself to change the cheap black plastic frame with a sleek, chic pure silver frame that she charged to her Enoch Industries charge card.
Unfortunately, the rest of the office was just as cold and impersonal. Expensive, though glacially boring black leather chairs finished the minimalistic extent of furnishings. Well, there was a matching black leather couch, and compared to the stiff confines of the chairs, it was a comfy alternative.
That was where she spent most of her time waiting on Gabriel to show up. She did her home work, down loaded I-tunes to her I-phone, and stared at the few framed photographs on Gabriel’s walls.
At first Lucy had discounted them for business contacts, like trophies. She’d seen those kinds of pictures hanging in the offices of every Lawyer her father had worked with…including her father’s office. Only one photo sat on his desk, and that was one of the whole family, posed in their living room, groomed to the nines, photographed by a professional and airbrushed to perfection. She’d known Seth had had a zit on that day, yet it was missing when the photo showed up on her Daddy’s desk.
But boredom leads to curiosity, and before she knew it Lucy was examining the collection of wall
memorabilia. To her relief and amusement, they weren’t just the typical family and business acquaintance photos. The people in the shots were dressed casually—including Gabriel in the few he was actually in—and they all looked ridiculously happy. Not posed, but like you took a candid snap shot at a really fun party where everybody knows everyone, and they all like each other.
She’d heard of such parties, but had long ago chalked them up to legend and Hollywood fantasy. But the people who were in Gabriel’s pictures were different. Whether his family or his friends (she was surprised he had any,) these people were having the best time, and they all seemed to really adore Gabriel.
Looking harder at the shots with Gabriel in them, she was startled at how little that person seemed to resemble the all-business all-the-time business suit clad man she’d gotten to really loath in the last few days.
She was standing on the couch, balancing herself with both hands against the wall, peering wide eyed and entranced at a particularly strange shot of a shirtless Gabriel—she couldn’t get over how beautiful and unbelievably well built he was…and the deep dark tan he had didn’t hurt either—leaning against the railing of a sail boat. On one side of him was a gorgeous young woman in a bikini top and cut off denim shorts. Lucy recognized her as her shopping partner for the last week, Elaina. On the other side of Gabriel was another stunning specimen of young male erotic fantasy. At least four inches taller, lighter complexioned, yet sporting his own wonderfully tanned, shirtless torso, the other guy had longer, shaggier hair that obscured some of his face, and a smile that just radiated playfulness. He had his arm draped over Gabriel’s shoulders.
Lucy had discounted her original assumption that Gabriel was gay when Elaina had let slip about his girlfriend Delia. But just seeing the two very happy, smoking hot guys in such a pose, she couldn’t help speculating again.