by Casey Hagen
Piper bit her lip and flinched. Heat flooded her face. “What’s Marla’s last name?” She crossed her fingers and prayed.
“Williams.”
Fuck.
Maybe when Trevor threw together that binder, he should have given Piper a different first name.
“What’s going on, Piper?”
“She’s here. At least I think it’s her. How many women of the same name are running around New York?”
“You mean there, there?”
“Yes, like shook her damn hand here.”
“Does she know who you are?”
“No, Trevor didn’t introduce me as Piper Bradley. Just Piper.”
“What the hell are you going to do now?”
She blew out a breath, dropped to the bed, and stared out the slider to the lake. “I don’t know. Even if I can keep it under wraps, she’s going to find out that I’m not who Trevor said I was when we meet with her. He didn’t say how long it would take before the new pick for partner was announced. I might be able to hold her off for a week, but not much more.”
“Or you could just not take her on at all.”
“And turn away the kids left high and dry by Blush? I can’t do that. Even if it hadn’t been Blush that let them down, thereby giving me a huge marketing advantage, the kids suffer in this one, and the whole point of what I do, of what I’ve built is to prevent that.”
“I know, I know. Piper, I hope you’ve been practicing your dance moves, because dancing through this situation is going to be more precarious than anything you’ve ever done before.”
“I just need to be my best for one more day. She thinks I’m a teacher and she didn’t ask any questions so I think I’m good there. It’s not too far of a leap from dancewear designer, right? I mean, I do work with kids, it’s just I design fashion for them. It’s a six degrees of separation kind of thing. That’s all.”
Rafe let out an abrupt laugh. “Oh, yeah, totally. How long will it take you to convince yourself of your own bullshit?”
“Hey, I have to believe it and sell it for less than a full day. When this is done, remind me to never do something so outrageously stupid ever again.”
They said their goodbyes and Piper took a minute to calm herself.
Okay, so Davidson’s wife was “the Marla”, but Piper could deal with that. She’d focus on Trevor, on his career, she’d avoid any deep conversation about herself, and she’d get the hell out.
She joined the small group back in the living room where they were talking about where they went to college.
Christina had a degree in English Literature, but worked in a bank. Deanne had a degree in fashion and design and worked part time as an event planner while she looked for something more permanent.
Piper could give her something more permanent, if she had the talent. Well, and if Deanne didn’t hate her when it eventually came out that Piper was a fake.
Marla glanced to Piper. “So, what about you, Piper?”
“I have my Masters in education from NYU.”
Rachel snorted into her drink and everyone turned to look at her. “Are you okay, Rachel?”
“Yes, perfectly. After all, I know what degree I got in school. Piper though, seems to be confused.”
“Excuse me?” Piper said. She resisted the urge to stand and confront her so she didn’t embarrass Trevor.
Rachel narrowed her eyes and gave her a sly smile. “How does someone with a Masters in education become a dancewear fashion designer? I’m just curious.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Piper said as her stomach dropped to her toes.
Rachel shook her head and tsked. “Such a short memory you have.”
“What’s all this nonsense about?” Davidson said with an air of authority.
Piper hadn’t yet seen that from him. She imagined this was the Davidson they got at the agency.
Trevor gave Piper a hard look.
“It seems Piper here isn’t really who she says he is. Turns out she’s Piper Bradley, the founder of Exclusively Piper. So Marla, you were looking to get in touch with the woman and here she is in the flesh. You should take advantage.”
Piper flinched. Trevor had warned her not to handle business there. If he had had his way, she wouldn’t have made any calls from the house, and apparently, for good reason.
She watched him go from running a jerky hand through his hair in frustration to holding his head in his hands in defeat, and it was all her fault.
“What the hell is she talking about?” Davidson bellowed.
“She’s not really a school teacher,” Trevor said, locking his eyes on Piper. He stood up and faced them all.
Piper’s mind raced for a solution to this, but came up with nothing. It was best for Trevor to just come clean while he had the opportunity. She considered interrupting and telling everyone that she kept that part of her life secret for privacy reasons, but at some point, this all had to stop. It had become too tangled.
“Why did you lie?” Marla asked.
“I think their whole relationship is a lie,” Rachel said with a shrug.
“Why would you say that?” Davidson asked.
“Because Trevor hasn’t been in a serious relationship for as long as I’ve known him, but all of a sudden he has a girlfriend of one year? Plus, look at the game. For Piper to get the answer wrong to the first date question is odd. A woman never forgets something so significant.”
“What are you suggesting?” Marla asked her.
“I think Trevor borrowed a date for this weekend. Well, Trevor, did you?” Rachel asked with a raised brow.
***
Trevor stood up then and joined Piper. He didn’t take her hand. He didn’t touch her. He couldn’t. Everything he had worked so hard for just went up in smoke.
“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 leverage 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, 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 liquor 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 SCartwright.”
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 Tuesday morning.
He’d probably lose his best friend the minute Rye 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. It had served as 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 from 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. Mar
la 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 her midsection 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 as she examined 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 those girls.
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.
