by Sara Arden
The dress. He’d think about the dress instead. “Let’s go pick out a dress, yeah?”
She seemed relieved. “Okay.”
“If I’d remembered about this thing, we could’ve had one made.”
“Funny, that.” She shook her head.
“How so?”
“I used to get made fun of because my mother made some of my clothes when I was little. That was poor white trash.” She laughed. “Now, having something tailor-made just for me is what the people with money do.”
“How about tonight, we don’t worry about the past? Let’s think about the future.”
“Sometimes I think the past is our only common ground.”
“Then we need to change that.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“I’m under no illusions this will be easy, Gina. But maybe tonight we can approach this like we just met.”
“And what, ignore all the baggage that we have together?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Who dumps all their baggage on a first date, anyway?”
“Is that what this is? A date?”
He couldn’t read her expression. “We’re going to be married. I think it’s okay if we date.”
“You know what I mean.”
He never should’ve phrased it that way. Reed motioned, at a loss for what to say.
“Maybe we don’t have to put a label on it. I’m sorry I’m such a spaz,” she said.
“You’re not.”
“You were trying to make this easier and I just...” She sighed. “Let’s go shopping.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
THIS WAS LIKE some kind of Cinderella fantasy, Gina thought.
Reed was standing there, his black card at the ready, and anything that the salesgirl had to show her was hers for the taking.
The very idea made her itchy. As if it was all a joke and any minute someone would pop out and tell her she was on some hidden-camera prank show. She felt very out of place. She never imagined that she’d be playing dress-up at some fancy shop in the city where a stocking probably cost more than what she made in a week.
The salesgirl was nice; she did nothing to make Gina feel unwelcome or like she didn’t belong. All of that was in Gina’s own head. She’d never had a problem with who she was or where she came from when she was growing up.
Even when she got picked on for her handmade clothes and secondhand shoes.
But somehow, this made her feel like she was lacking. Maybe because that was what her fears were—underneath all of her bravado, she was afraid that she wasn’t good enough and that she couldn’t do this. Couldn’t be a wife and a mother because she didn’t know how.
The glass slipper wouldn’t fit because it was never hers to begin with.
“What sort of event are you attending?” the girl asked with a smile.
Gina looked to Reed to answer for her because she had no idea. She could quote philosophy, speak about current events and politics, even discuss the newest advances in medical research, but she had no idea which fork to use or what to wear to an event like what he was talking about.
“Evening gown. Charity dinner.”
“Of course, Mr. Hollingsworth. I should’ve known.” She smiled and guided them toward a fitting area.
Have fun, Reed mouthed.
Fun? How could she possibly have fun? Half the dresses she spotted had price tags that were ridiculous.
“Red, I think.”
“What?”
“Your dress? I think red would complement your coloring.”
“You’re the expert.” Gina shrugged. She couldn’t imagine herself in a red dress. It seemed too decadent. Too...everything. Which was silly. It was just a color. It wasn’t like one dress was going to change her life.
“Yes, I am.” She nodded. “I’ve opened a store charge for you upon Mr. Hollingsworth’s request. I’m Amy, by the way. I do work on commission, so if you decide you need a new wardrobe, I hope you come see me again.”
“New wardrobe?” She supposed that she’d be expected to do this sort of thing more than once. She’d need to look the part. “That’s terrifying. I wear jeans, T-shirts and work pants. That’s about it.”
Amy laughed. “We’ll fix you right up.”
Part of this felt as if he was trying to make her over into something she wasn’t, but she knew that wasn’t how Reed thought. Or it wasn’t how he used to think. And since when had she become so stuck in her ways that she wasn’t willing to try something new? That she’d refuse to fit in on principle? That was not who she was.
This was just a dress.
Just outer wrappings.
When Amy presented her with the dress to try on, she immediately noticed how soft and diaphanous the fabric was against her skin.
“Doesn’t that feel marvelous? The most important part of dressing up is feeling wonderful. So many women stuff themselves into clothes that aren’t comfortable and say beauty is suffering. I think that’s garbage. A woman never looks more beautiful than when she’s comfortable and confident in herself.”
She went into the dressing room and stared at the dress for a few long moments before she committed to putting it on. It was just a dress.
Only it wasn’t.
When it slid down over her body, it was like sliding into a dream. The red chiffon had a high halter neckline, wrapping around her throat like a choker, and bloused slightly at the waist. It was sleeveless and managed to both disguise and accentuate her ample cleavage at the same time.
Gina turned to the side and then saw the back was open all the way down to where her spine began to curve down toward her bottom. It was risqué, but not. Elegant, but comfortable. The dress itself was a lot like Gina in so many ways. It was at odds with itself, but it was still beautiful. That idea, thinking of herself in those terms, made her feel like maybe everything really would be okay.
And maybe a dress really could change her life and perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing.
“Let me see,” Amy demanded.
Gina opened the door and stepped out onto the mini platform in front of the tri-fold mirrors.
“I was right. Stunning.” Amy held up a pair of simple red kitten heels. “Try these.”
Gina lifted the floor-length skirt and Amy knelt down to slide the shoes onto her feet.
“That one,” a deep voice said from the doorway.
She looked up to see Reed, but it wasn’t a version of Reed that she knew. Not this one. His eyes were dark and hungry—not just hungry, but ravenous. At first, she thought maybe she felt like a mouse and he was a giant predator. But she knew in this dress, she was no mouse.
Gina liked the way his regard felt, almost as if she could physically feel his hands on her. The sensation was better than any daydream she’d had about him because it was real.
She couldn’t resist smiling. “You like it?”
“I like it very much.” He didn’t bother trying to hide his assessment of her or mask it for anything but what it was, raw desire.
Or maybe that’s just what she wanted it to be?
“You haven’t seen the back yet.” Amy directed her to spin.
She turned, looking back at him over her shoulder. “Is it appropriate?”
“Very.”
“There is a lovely set of matching undergarments, designed especially for the cut of the dress.”
Gina’s face flushed when she saw the scraps of lace, because she wasn’t imagining what she’d look like in them. She imagined what it would be like with Reed taking her out of them.
“We’ll take those, too.” His regard was still heavy on her skin, touching her in places it had no business touching.
“Oh, will we?” she teased. Gina couldn’t believ
e how flirty and breathy she sounded; it was as if it wasn’t even her voice.
“Unless you’d rather go without?”
Was he actually suggesting she go commando under that dress? “I...no. We’ll take those, as well.” She hoped she didn’t sound as flustered as she felt.
Gina felt as if she was all over the map. Sex kitten one minute and blushing virgin the next. Although the blushing virgin part was the truth.
“Very good.” Amy grinned. “I have a few other things for you to try on. Just in case you need them before you do this shopping thing up right.”
When they were alone, he said, “You know the biggest question here is whether you like the dress.”
“I love it.” She did. She’d never been one to play dress-up, not like Crystal. Gina was more the mud-pies-and-catching-frogs sort of child.
“Good.”
The tension in the room was suddenly thick, gravid with expectation—but of what, she didn’t know.
“So are you going to pick me up in a pumpkin carriage?” She tried to break the tension.
“I could, if that’s what you wanted.”
It didn’t dissipate. If anything it became more intense. His voice was still low, so much deeper than the boy she remembered. It reminded her that Reed Hollingsworth wasn’t a boy. He wasn’t a “safe” daydream. He was a man. He was real. And their actions had very real consequences.
“No. That would be silly. And extravagant.”
“How about a limo?”
She tittered, high-pitched and nervous. “That would still be extravagant.”
He was suddenly close enough to touch and his hand reached out to do just that. Maybe he was going to push her hair out of her face, maybe he was going to touch her just for the sake of touching her, but he dropped his hand. And her skin was bereft at the loss. She wanted his hands on her more than she could say. Even if it was just his fingertips grazing the surface of her cheek.
“What’s the point in having this money if I don’t spend a little of it?” Except it seemed as though he was asking her more than that, there were more layers to the question. She just couldn’t see what else was there, what he wanted her to say.
“You’re already spending a little of it.”
“You know how you said you don’t know how to be?”
She’d said that the night they were out on the porch drinking sweet tea. Gina nodded.
“I still feel like that sometimes.”
Then the moment was gone as suddenly as it had come, dissipated like a cloud.
“I’ll leave you to your privacy.”
Gina was torn between relief at his exit and wishing he’d come back. She couldn’t wait for these feelings to pass. She was sure they would, after they got used to each other. After they were friends again.
When Amy returned, she handed her several more things to try on. “You two are such a lovely couple.”
A denial was on the tip of her tongue, but they were a couple, weren’t they?
After she’d made her selections, Amy said, “Thank you so much, Mrs. Hollingsworth.”
She wasn’t Mrs. Hollingsworth. But she was going to be. Gina Hollingsworth. How many times had she written that in the back of her notebooks?
Fear knotted in her gut all over again.
Maybe if she just kept thinking about the dress. The dress that fit her so well. The dress that she never would’ve dreamed would be her perfect fit was.
She could only hope this new part of her life would be like that.
But even if it wasn’t—at the very worst, she got to go to medical school. Amanda Jane got to have a father. No matter how scared she was, this was the right thing. If only she could keep from freaking out and screwing it up.
She’d been so worried about Reed, and she still was. Trust took time to build, but it wasn’t him she needed to focus on. It was herself.
Just like today. Not trusting him to handle his own daughter for a day by himself. He’d shown himself to be nothing but patient and kind with Amanda Jane.
But it was hard, and seemingly naive at best, and irresponsible at worst not to take his past into consideration.
Gina exhaled and decided that for tonight, she wasn’t going to worry about these things. She was going to give that voice in her head the night off. It could use a break, and so could she.
“Can you pick me up tonight at my grandmother’s?” she said once they were in the car.
“As you like. Where are you parked?”
“In the south garage. C-17. By the elevator.”
“Well, that was precise.” He laughed.
“I don’t like to lose my car. Especially in the city.”
He pulled up behind the KiaPet, as she called it, and when he brought the car to a stop, she leaned over before she could think better of it and brushed a quick kiss on the hard plane of his cheek.
“Thank you for the dress.”
She hopped in her own car before he could say anything and drove home to Glory, determined not to think about him or kissing his cheek the whole way home. Instead, she rolled down the windows and turned the music up.
* * *
COMING DOWN THE STAIRS from her old room, she found Amanda Jane and Grams waiting for her.
Maudine looked ridiculously pleased with herself, but there was something else in her expression, too.
“What are you looking at?”
“Just you, my pretty grandbaby.” Maudine smiled at her.
“Don’t go counting your chickens, Grams. I know you must’ve said something to Helga. I know you were that ‘concerned party.’”
“We already had this discussion. And so what if I was?” Maudine suddenly found something on her dress that was intensely interesting.
“I don’t want you getting your hopes up and thinking this is more than it is.”
“Me? Child, you’re the one going to marry him.”
“There’s nothing set in stone.”
“You signed a prenup.”
“And neither of us put a date on the wedding.”
Maudine narrowed her eyes. “I’m feeling another song coming on.”
“That you’re not going to chirp in the judge’s ear. We’ll get to things in our time in our own way.”
“I don’t like your way.”
“I don’t like yours.” Gina fought the urge to stick out her tongue at the older woman.
“I was just telling Helga that youth is definitely wasted on the young.”
“You had yours to waste. Now let me waste mine.”
“But I don’t want you to waste it, dear. That’s the point.”
“Maybe I need to waste it.”
“Have you been talking to Helga?”
“Not since I saw her in court.” Gina winked at her, which was better than sticking out her tongue because in her way, Gina was much like Maudine. Always up to something and she always seemed to enjoy it way more than she should.
“You look elegant.” Maudine gave her a genuine smile. “This dress is perfect for you.”
“It’s so red.”
“Yes, it is. And every eye will be on you. Especially Reed’s.”
“It’s just a dinner.”
“Where you’ll be introduced to people as his fiancée.”
“Stop it, Grams. I already feel like I’m going to throw up.”
“What’s a fian-cy?” Amanda Jane asked.
“You didn’t tell her?”
“Not exactly.”
“Tell me what?” Amanda Jane ran her fingers down the skirt of the dress with a giggle. “It’s so soft.”
“Would it be okay with you if I married your daddy?”
“Oh, I knew that part.”
“You did? How did you know that?” Gina asked.
“I told Daddy it was okay, but only if you want to. I don’t think you should get married just because of me. You should be best friends and want to do all the things together and have slumber parties.”
Gina really liked Amanda Jane’s idea of marriage. It sounded kind of perfect.
“You leave that part to us and you do your part.” Gina ruffled her hair.
“What is my part?”
“Being good for your grammie while I’m gone.”
“Of course. I know that. I have to have a job besides that.”
“I don’t know. That’s a pretty hard job for someone as full of trouble and fairies as you are.”
Amanda Jane nodded solemnly. “I know. It’s hard work. But I’ll do it.”
Maudine grinned.
“Two peas in a pod, that’s what you two are.” The bell rang and Gina’s guts twisted. “Do I look okay?”
“Okay enough that I think you should have a slumber party.” Maudine smiled.
“You’re terrible, Grams.” Gina shook her head.
“I know.” She grinned and answered the door.
Reed was wearing a tuxedo and if she’d thought the polo was devastating? The man wore a tux as though he’d been born for it. As though his sole reason for existing was to walk around wearing that and giving hapless virgins heart attacks.
“You look lovely,” he said, his appraisal softer than it had been in the store.
Maybe softer wasn’t the right word. Having his eyes on her still stirred things that they had no business stirring, but it wasn’t that scalding lust. No, it was more terrifying because it seemed as if maybe there was something more.
Or worse, maybe the something more was only on her part. Reed looked every inch a fairy-tale prince and he was here to pick her up in his carriage, to take her to the ball and...
“You look pretty, Daddy,” Amanda Jane said.
He didn’t hesitate to pick the girl up, unmindful of wrinkling his tux or worried about a little girl’s sticky hands. It didn’t matter to him.
She found that ridiculously attractive.
“Daddy is handsome, not pretty.”
“No, pretty. He’s very shiny. That’s pretty,” Amanda Jane insisted.
