The Love Laws (28 page)

But this
unpleasant woman standing before her didn’t need to know that.

“Did you try
any of these on?” Jamie asked tentatively as she sorted through the mountain of
lace and satin. “Some of these fit really small.” Looking at this woman’s
selections Jamie spotted at least two corsets that could be cinched in to
accommodate her child-sized rib cage with ease.

The woman stared
at her for a long, uncomfortable moment, her expression flinty. “Of course I
tried them on.” She said as if talking to a none-too-bright toddler. “And it
was like wearing a tent.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at
Jamie. “Honestly, I can’t comprehend why Kevin told me to come here,” she
muttered as if talking to herself.

Jamie stopped
sorting. Surely this woman was talking about another Kevin.

“Kevin?” Jamie
asked, feigning polite interest. “Your husband?”

The woman`s
thin lips turned up into a cold smile. “Not yet. But it’s really just a matter
of time,” she said with a grating laugh. She flicked her hair back over one bony
shoulder, watching Jamie intently.

Jamie gave a
half-hearted chuckle and felt relief wash over her. No way was Kevin Hall
involved in anything resembling a serious relationship. He’d as much as
admitted to her that his encounters had been limited to one night stands for
years. The name of this woman’s unfortunate boyfriend must be just a
coincidence.

“Congratulations.
Have you known your fiancé long?” Jamie asked unable to help her curiosity. She
didn’t usually engage with customers like this but if a little conversation
would make this woman more receptive to finalizing this interaction then she
would fawn over her for a few minutes.

“Since we were
kids actually.” The dark-haired woman said warming up to her subject matter as
she casually wandered over to a rack of peignoirs. She flipped through the
items with her lips pursed in mild disdain. “I was married to his best friend
but it didn’t work out.” She shrugged her shoulders. “No wonder really. Kevin
and I have always had such mind-blowing chemistry. It was inevitable that we
would be together eventually.” She glanced over at Jamie and gave her a smug
look. “A few weeks ago some ox approached me in our hotel bar and Kevin
actually got into a fight with him. Got his nose broken and everything. It was
terribly romantic. This little shopping spree is my way of making it up to him.
He does love to see me dressed up in skimpy things. The more variety the better
for my Kevin. He’s practically insatiable.”

Too much
information, lady.
Jamie thought to herself, watching in dismay as her least
favorite customer idly held up a pale peach lacy creation to her slight chest
and then dropped it on a nearby settee. Did this suddenly chatty woman want to
continue to shop for items she knew wouldn’t fit her? After hours? This was
turning into a nightmare.

Jamie did a
quick calculation of the total revenue she would lose by alienating this woman.
It was a lot. Two weeks ago she would have been doing cartwheels down the
street at such a massive sale. But today was different. She was making a profit
for a change and there was something about this woman that made her uneasy. She
suddenly didn’t give a damn about the money or this customer’s complicated love
life. It would be totally worth the loss to make her stomp out of the store in
a rage.

“That’s too bad
about your marriage not working out.” Jamie said with thinly veiled sarcasm. “Your
ex is okay with you dating his buddy?”

Instead of
getting angry at Jamie’s impertinent question the dark-haired woman gave
another grating laugh. “Duncan?” She scoffed. “Like I give a damn how he feels
about anything. It doesn’t matter anyway. Kevin hasn’t told him yet.” She said
with a disturbing wink.

This woman’s
ex-husband’s name was Duncan? And his best friend’s name was Kevin? Who’d also
sustained a broken nose recently? Jamie couldn’t help it. Her mouth fell open
in a gape. She quickly recovered her calm expression but inside a cold feeling
came over her. There was no way this was a coincidence. She scanned her memory,
trying to remember Duncan’s ex-wife’s name.

Kerry. Could
this be Kerry? Jamie didn’t know much about Duncan’s dreaded ex but what she
did know wasn’t exactly flattering. All Jamie could remember was that Kerry had
shown up at Duncan’s penthouse when he was first dating Jessica. His scheming
former spouse had pretended her and Duncan were still together despite the fact
that she’d been living in Europe for several years. Jessica had stormed out of
the apartment and it had taken some serious begging on Duncan’s part to convince
Jess that Kerry was playing a game to extort money from him. That little
deception had nearly ended their relationship before it had barely started.

Could this be
the same woman? It seemed likely but Jamie sincerely hoped there was some kind
of reasonable explanation. If Kevin was involved with this female snake then he
was in worse shape than any of them knew. Unfortunately, everything pointed
towards Kevin Hall being this woman’s lover. And that meant that he was not
only a man-whore, he was a lying man-whore who was secretly screwing his best
friend’s unpleasant ex-wife. So he was King of the Man-Whores and Jamie had
foolishly believed he was just a decent guy with commitment issues. Was she
really that naïve not to have seen through him?

She thought
back to the time she’d spent with Kevin. It didn’t seem possible that he was
capable of such deception. He seemed so fun and harmless. But then she thought
of what he did for a living. If he was so adept at hiding his emotions that he
could interview serial killers then  acting like a harmless playboy would be
child’s play, wouldn’t it?

Jamie was just
about to ask for clarification from the dark-haired woman when she heard a
muted crash and looked towards the front of the store. Theresa had been
changing the mannequins a moment ago but only the female mannequin was now visible
from Jamie’s elevated platform behind the cash register. She could no longer
see Theresa and it would appear that Raoul was down!

“Sorry.”
Theresa called, wrestling the naked dummy back to his standing position. “He
got away from me.”

“Do you need a
hand?” Jamie called to Theresa, glad for the distraction. She was suddenly very
tired and did not want to deal with this situation anymore.

“Nope. Got it
under control. He’s a slippery one.” Theresa said, sounding more than a little
embarrassed.

Jamie turned
back to her customer, eager to wrap things up. “Sorry about that,” she said
without a hint of sincerity. “It’s been a long day and we’re both exhausted.
Now did you want to take any of these items today? Or would you prefer to wait
until the new stock arrives? I can take your name and number if you’d like and
give you a call when it’s in. Should take about three weeks.” Jamie held her
breath, hoping this woman would reveal that her name was anything except Kerry.

“Three weeks?
That’s just unacceptable.” Maybe-Kerry said, approaching the cash register. She
gave the items on the counter a shove in Jamie’s direction, all revealing
conversation forgotten and replaced with self-important rage at being
disappointed. “Surely you can put a rush on it.”

If the woman
standing before her was anyone else in the world Jamie would gladly do the
alterations herself and have the items returned to the customer in a few days.
But then what? This awful woman would most likely wear the designs she’d
created. For Kevin. The man Jamie had ravished in the back seat of his Mustang
only two weeks ago. It was ridiculous but the last thing she wanted was to
imagine this black-haired witch enticing him with her own products.  

Just the
thought filled her with blinding jealousy. Yes, she’d rejected Kevin and had
absolutely no right to want to tear this woman’s hair out but that was exactly
what she wanted to do. As for him. If Kevin was in the store right now she
would happily throw his stupid sunglasses on the floor and stomp on them with
her five inch heels. What was he thinking sending his girlfriend here? Was this
some kind of cruel taunt because she’d rudely abandoned him that day in White
Rock? Or was he actually trying to help her by throwing her a big sale? Either
way, she didn’t want this woman’s money and she certainly didn’t want her here,
in her store.

Jamie shrugged.
“Sorry. But no can do. If you’re in a hurry, you can always take them to your
own seamstress,” she said sweetly.

Maybe-Kerry’s
deeply-tanned cheeks flushed with anger. “Let me get this straight. You expect me
to wait three weeks. Or I can take these ugly hefty bags as is and get them
fixed myself?” She widened her heavily made-up eyes with disbelief and crossed
her arms, waiting for Jamie to crumble under the force of her will.

Jamie’s smile
just widened. She shook her head in mock sorrow and made a few ‘tsk’ sounds for
good measure. “I’m afraid those are your options.” She put a finger to her lips
for a moment as if pondering the problem. “Or you could actually eat for a
couple of days. Then I’m sure you could fit into these
ugly hefty bags
without any alterations at all.”

Maybe-Kerry
stared at her in disbelief. She looked like she was ready to explode. Obviously
no one had dared to confront her in a very long time.

Usually Jamie
took pride in the fact that she could charm even the most disagreeable
customer. She genuinely enjoyed interacting with people and took it as a
personal challenge when someone came into her store determined to be
dissatisfied or even hostile. They were just part of the customer service
industry and she never took their rudeness personally. As a result, she had
never been disrespectful to a customer before. So, she should have been
appalled at her own unprofessional behavior. Instead she felt elated and more
than a little amused. She had to fight not to giggle as Maybe-Kerry nearly
shook with rage.

The irate
woman’s dark eyes narrowed as she put one hand on one of her non-existent hips
and pointed her cell phone at her with the other. “How dare you?” She hissed
through tightly clenched teeth. “I know who you are. I read your lame articles
in the newspaper and I’m quite sure your readers will be interested to know how
you treat your customers. We’ll see how long this tacky place stays open then.”
With a triumphant glare and a swirl of dark hair Maybe-Kerry stomped toward the
exit without waiting for Jamie’s response.

Jamie slumped
down over the counter and beat her forehead against the top a few times. What
had she just done? Jealousy and childish pique may have just caused her to
sabotage herself and the store. This was exactly what happened when she let
emotions rule: Disaster.

She had no
doubt that Maybe-Kerry would be making some very derogatory comments on the
Vancouver
Star
website. Most people would ignore her rant but at least a few potential
customers would be discouraged from shopping at Hidden Treasures by the
negative feedback. Jamie wished she’d considered this before she’d gone ahead
and insulted a customer. She may have just lost way more than a single sale.
Her store couldn’t afford any bad publicity at this point and yet she had just
generated a shit-storm of it.

The worst part
of all this was that as angry as she was with herself, her disappointment in
Kevin overshadowed everything. Yes, he was definitely troubled right now but
was that any excuse for him his behavior? He’d lied, used and discarded her,
and she hadn’t even seen it coming. She’d actually felt guilty over the way
she’d treated him. What a laugh. He probably didn’t give a damn. She had never
felt so humiliated. To think she`d actually entertained the idea of pursuing a
relationship with that reptile. Obviously her original assessment was correct.
He was an unfeeling man-whore and she’d nearly fell for his game.

The soft
thunk
of her head hitting the glass counter one last time wasn’t loud
enough to drown out the sound of Theresa unlocking the door for Maybe-Kerry and
wishing her a pleasant evening. Maybe-Kerry’s cursed response rang through the
store, closely followed by Theresa’s own exhale of relief as the door slammed
behind their last and most unpleasant customer of the day. A day that had
originally held so much promise was now deeply buried in the crapper.

*****

“Whoa.
Did you hear that? What a potty-mouth.” Theresa said, shaking her head as she
approached the cash register where Jamie was still slumped over the counter.

“It
was hard to miss.” Jamie mumbled through her curtain of hair. Sighing she
raised herself up on her elbows and gave Theresa what she hoped was a convincing
smile. The last thing she wanted was her friend and co-worker knowing how upset
she was by the altercation with that woman. As always she felt the need to keep
her confident persona in place. She couldn’t let anyone see how close she was
to crumpling into a pathetic pile of tears. People expected her to keep it
together and she couldn’t bear to disappoint anyone.

Raising
her chin and squaring her shoulders Jamie chuckled and pretended to look
puzzled. “The ‘C’ word’ just doesn’t come up during your average lingerie
purchase for some reason.” She gestured at the pile of clothing stacked up on
the counter. “Guess she won’t be back to pick all this stuff up.”

Theresa
grinned and started sorting through the abandoned lingerie. “Doubtful. But I
wouldn’t feel too bad. She should be shopping in the slutty children’s
department anyway.”

Jamie
gave a shudder. “Sadly. There probably is such a thing.” She held out one hand
and waved her fingertips towards the front of the store. “Now, what was with
you and Raoul? Clay will be crazy jealous if you were making moves on him, you
know.”