Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 3) (17 page)

As soon as she spotted
me, she came barreling out of her office, a sun-drenched corner suite
so neat and organized it gave me the creeps. Nobody but a surgeon
could work in an environment that sterile.

“You’re back,”
she said with a tinge of annoyance. “Finally.”

“Yup. I am.” I went
into my office hoping she’d stop at the door, but she followed me
inside like a hungry cat.

“I expected you to
call this week and give me an update,” she said. “Things have
been really hectic with these openings coming up, my assistant’s
out sick, and my father wants to talk to you about --”

I raised a palm.
“Brooke, slow down. I didn’t call you personally, but I’ve been
in touch with the office every day. That’s why I have employees –
so I don’t have to be here every minute. As for your father, he can
pick up the phone anytime.”

Her eyes shot sparks.
“He’s very busy.”

“That makes two of
us,” I said. “Actually, it should make three. Don’t you have
location scouting to do today?” How many times had we had a
conversation like this? Fifty, at least?

“I sent Stef and
Thomas out to do it.”

“Why didn’t you
go?”

She raised her chin. “I
delegated.”

“Uh huh,” I said.
If it weren’t for the agreement I’d made with Scott, she’d have
just delegated herself out of a job.

I picked up my phone
and dialed into voicemail. Brooke crossed her arms and loomed over my
desk. Tall, underfed, and dressed all in black, she looked nothing
like the born-and-raised Southern girl she was.

“You’re still
coming tonight, aren’t you?” she asked.

“To…?” I held up
a finger.
You have one-hundred
eleven messages.
Shit. This was what I got for going
blissfully domestic for a couple of days.

She put her hands on
her narrow hips. “To my father’s birthday dinner. You forgot?”

Oh, shit. Hell, yes, I
forgot. I didn’t even remember getting an invitation. “What time
do I need to be there?” I asked, putting down the phone.

“We, Drex.”

“Uh, we?”

“You have to have a
date,” she said. “You can’t show up alone.”

“Why not?”

“The seating is
already arranged and we can’t have an empty chair.”

“An empty chair,” I
muttered. “God forbid.”

“Now, I’m bringing
someone as you know.”

She threw her head back
and gave me a triumphant smile. Yeah, I knew the guy, all right.
Dustin Roy, a metrosexual former-model-turned-idle-hipster who had a
wealthy family and a beard so shiny it blinded me whenever I saw him.
This was the dude Brooke hoped would prod me into a jealous rage so
severe I’d demand that she marry me immediately. On the spot. In my
office, before Dustin showed up and dragged her away by her hair.

Brooke’s nails
glinted like dark purple daggers. “If you don’t have a date it
won’t look good,” she said, “and I doubt you’ll find somebody
respectable before tonight. Dustin will be disappointed if I cancel,
but…” Hope sprang anew in her face.

“I have a date,” I
said distractedly, shuffling through a pile of rental contracts. I
glanced up to see her eyes narrowing into slits.

“No, you don’t,”
she said. “I know everybody in this town. If you had a date I’d
have heard about it.”

“She doesn’t live
in Houston.”

“Where does she
live?”

“Nowhere.”

She frowned and gave me
a bright red pout. “Evasive much? People don’t just come from
nowhere.”

“You’d be surprised
what’s possible in this world, Brooke.”

“Is this a joke?”

“If only. Look, I
have a lot to catch up on. Let’s talk about this later.” Yeah,
later. As in never.

“You’re just going
to brush me off?”

I set both palms flat
on my desk and took a deep breath. “No. I’m going to return about
a thousand important phone calls. Then I’m going to work my ass off
for the rest of the day, and so are you. Tonight, we’ll go to your
father’s birthday party and have a great time. Sound fair?”

She glared at me.
“Perfectly.” With a huff, she turned on her outrageously high
heel and stalked out.

“Shut the door –”
I said, but she was already gone.

Spinning my chair
around, I stared out at the Houston skyline. What did they say about
hiring friends or family? And why hadn’t I said a flat
no
when Scott made his investment and his daughter a package deal?

It didn’t matter now.
I’d make the best of it, and make the best of tonight. The only way
I was going to enjoy Scott’s birthday dinner was if Jane was with
me.

All those voicemails
could wait. I had something more pressing to take care of.

I picked up my phone
and dialed. Jane answered on the second ring.

“You sound like
you’re feeling better,” I said.

“I told you I feel
fine,” she said. “Like, ten times.”

“Going a little stir
crazy?”

She laughed. “I’ve
only been cooped up in a gorgeous penthouse for five straight days
with almost no fresh air or human contact, besides you, of course.
Why would I be going stir crazy?”

“It sounds like
you’re ready to enjoy yourself a little.”

“I’m more than
ready, I’m desperate. I’m about to start making friends with the
plants.”

“Well, you’re in
luck because we’re going to a black-tie dinner tonight.”

“We are?” I could
hear the surprise and excitement in her voice.

“Damn right. So take off that old
Guns N’ Roses t-shirt and get in the shower. My assistant will be
there in an hour to take you shopping.”

Drex’s assistant,
Ruby, was a curvy, big-haired blonde in her mid-twenties with a
sugary Texas drawl. When I answered the door she gave me a dazzling
smile and a long, rib-crushing hug.

“Ready to spend
someone else’s money?” she asked. “I know I am.”

I smiled back. This was
definitely my kind of girl.

Downstairs in front of
the building, a black Town Car and driver waited to whisk us away. It
was bliss to raise my face to the sun and feel healthy and strong for
the first time in days.

As soon as we got into
the limo, Ruby pulled out two long-stemmed glasses and handed one to
me. “What’s this for?” I asked.

“What do you think?
Mr. Cougan said you weren’t feeling well a few days ago and you
need to have fun. And champagne right after lunch is my idea of fun.”

“Mine, too.” At
least, I thought it was. This could very well be my first time
drinking before happy hour.

“He told me you’ve
been having some problems with your memory, too,” she said. “Must
have been quite a flu.”

Good old Drex. He knew
how to say just enough without giving everything away. “It was, but
I’m better now and ready to shop.”

“Great. I’ve got
our day all planned out,” Ruby said as she popped an icy bottle of
bubbly rosé. “We’ll start at Stile, which is my favorite store
ever, anywhere. If we don’t score there, we’ll go to Lotus on 9th
and then to the mall. And I’ve got lots of other ideas if all else
fails. But all else won’t fail. When I go shopping, it never does.”

“It sounds like you
know your way around a clothing store,” I said, holding out my
glass.

She poured with the
confidence of a sommelier. “Um, that’s putting it mildly.”

The car pulled smoothly
into traffic. I sipped my frosty champagne and enjoyed the contrast
of my faded jeans and Boho-style top with the limo’s elegant
interior. I didn’t know if I’d ever had a fashion sense, so I was
glad Drex had sent Ruby to beat some into me.

Somehow, he’d known
exactly what I needed today. Of course I’d had fun shopping with
him in Chimayo, but this was a different kind of fun, the sort of
luxurious girl’s day out I hadn’t had in…who knew how long? It
felt like forever, and it probably had been.

Stile was a tiny and
very expensive boutique tucked away on a downtown street lined with
designer stores and high-end restaurants. Ruby walked in with
authority, as if she’d personally stocked every shelf and expected
to find what she was looking for.

“In another life I
was a stylist,” she said, whipping through little black dresses and
slinky cocktail gowns. “Mr. Cougan puts me in charge of everything
fashion-related. Whenever we need uniforms or have a publicity event,
he comes to me. I’m glad he does, or who knows what the floor staff
would be wearing. My taste is classy but with a sexy edge.”

“I can do classy and
sexy,” I said.

“That’s what Mr.
Cougan said, too.”

Two sales assistants
hovered around her, whisking items off to a dressing room and rushing
to the back for different sizes. “What are you, a size zero?”
Ruby asked, tilting her head. “And I bet you eat all day long.”

“I do like to eat,”
I said. “A lot.”

She gave me a pretty
mock scowl. “So does Mr. Cougan. No wonder he fell for you.”

I swallowed hard. “How
do you know he fell for me?”

I could tell by her
smile that she never missed a trick. “I’ve worked for him for two
years, and I know him. I heard it in his voice when he called me. I
believe the word is smitten.”

“Smitten?” I was
not
allowed to blush
right now. I could get all flustered later, in private.

Ruby flashed her
perfect teeth. “Hey, if the word fits…”

I stood up straight as
she held a dress to my shoulders. She raised her eyebrows and
squinted before returning it to the rack. “How do you like working
for Mr. Cougan?” I asked, savoring the sexy feel of his last name
on my tongue.

“He’s a great
boss,” she said, pursing her lips at a sheer sleeveless top. “He’s
demanding and impatient and he works too hard, but he makes up for it
by being very cool.”

“And very easy on the
eyes,” I said.

She laughed, a
high-pitched Southern giggle that made me laugh, too. “We all think
it but we don’t dare say it out loud. Brooke would flip if she
heard us talk that way.”

“Brooke,” I said,
trying to sound casual. “His ex-girlfriend?”

“Yeah,” Ruby said.

“What’s she like?”

She glanced away.
“She’s okay.”

“Okay?” Come on,
Ruby. Give me more.

“Well, if you really
want to know –” Ruby stopped herself. “I shouldn’t. Mr.
Cougan has a zero tolerance policy for gossip. Not that we were going
to gossip, because we’re
so
not like that.”

“Damn right, we’re
not,” I said, trying not to smile.

“But you don’t work
for him and we’re not at the office, so…”

“Not to mention we’ve
been drinking champagne.”

“Right,” she said,
her big brown eyes widening. “My judgment’s impaired, so anything
I say cannot be used against me in a performance evaluation.”

“Especially if no one
knows about it,” I said.

She cocked her head.
“You look like you can keep a secret.”

“Are you kidding?”
I pretended to seal my lips with my fingers. “I’d sooner die than
spill the beans.”

“In that case, I’ll
tell you everything.”

But as soon as she
started, I wished I’d never asked.

Brooke was rich,
beautiful, and well-born, and she was Drex’s first real girlfriend.
She was also Houston’s biggest socialite. I almost didn’t care if
she passed her work on to subordinates all the time, or if Drex
hadn’t dated her in two years. She’d had him the way I hadn’t,
and never would.

They’d shared an
apartment together. She got to see him every day, and her father’s
investment guaranteed that she wasn’t leaving the company anytime
soon.

Not to mention that she
could remember before last Thursday. I was downright queasy with
envy.

“She has a boyfriend
now,” Ruby said, “this gorgeous guy who used to be a model. But
everybody knows she still loves Mr. Cougan. You can see it in her
face.”

If Ruby could see it in
Brooke’s, she could see it in mine. Which meant that Drex could,
too. He probably thought I didn’t want to go to the police because
I was too infatuated and didn’t want to leave him. And wasn’t it
the truth?

If it weren’t for
Drex, I’d have gone to the police a week ago. I’d have bucked up
and told them everything, and if I was arrested for stopping a man
from raping me, so be it.

But Drex gave me the
perfect excuse to put it off, as long as I was living the life of my
dreams. While my real life waited for me to wake the hell up and
rejoin reality.

Soon
,
I promised myself as Ruby led me toward the dressing room. Just a few
more days of total, irresponsible happiness.

For almost an hour, I
slithered in and out of silk, satin, and lace.

I tried on backless
tops and sequined skirts and lush chiffon dresses that cascaded to
the floor in a waterfall of pastels. Ruby shook her teased head and
quirked her lips, setting things aside on the “maybe” rack until
I stepped out in the second to last dress. It was long, slinky, and
sleeveless, and covered with hundreds of tiny black sequins. I had to
admit, it fit like it was custom-made.

She gasped and put her
hand to her chest. “That’s the one,” she breathed.

“You think so?” I
asked, turning around slowly.

“Wow. Absolutely.
I’ll be damned – we didn’t even have to go to the mall.”

Shoes were next, and
Ruby was just as picky about her heels. “It’s like playing
dress-up when I was little, except you’re not my six year-old
neighbor and you can carry anything off,” she said.

We debated between a
pair of strappy blue suede stilettos and black leather slingbacks
with pointy toes. After I’d walked back and forth in front of Ruby
and half the salesgirls three times in each pair of shoes, we settled
on the stilettos. They added an unexpected pop of color, and I had to
agree with Ruby – they were the sexiest heels in the store.