“Go away,” Bruce said.
“Who’s winning?”
“Go away,” he said again.
“Video games, Orlean, really?” I asked.
We had a hard and fast rule about gamers. No gamers! And here she was, playing Halo 5 with my brother.
Orlean tossed the controller on the coffee table. “No, it’s not what you think.”
“Hey, that’s a hundred and twenty bucks, be nice to it,” Bruce protested. To me he said, “Who invited you in?”
“If you don’t want your afternoon delight interrupted, you should lock the door.” I shoved the flowers at him. “I thought this would help the smell in here.”
It didn’t really smell, but I wanted him to squirm.
“Thanks, now, go away.” He took the roses.
“Pretty flowers, right?” I said as I sat down beside Orlean on the couch.
“They are. Did you really buy them for Bruce?”
“Nope. There’s a few hundred more in my parent’s kitchen. From Hugo.”
Orlean jumped up and then sat back down. “Oh my goodness, that’s wonderful.” She glared at Bruce. “So romantic. I’m jealous.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be. There’s nothing to be jealous of. He’s a client. And they were just to say thank you.”
Bruce stood. “I’m going to grab a beer.”
“Don’t you have to work tonight?” Orlean asked.
“Yup,” he said without turning around.
“He hates that we’re friends,” Orlean said. “He’s afraid I’ll tell you all about the incredible sex, and he won’t be able to look at you the same.”
I rolled to my side and curled into the fetal position on the couch. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Orlean slapped me on the shoulder. “You’re too silly.”
She rested her elbow on my hip. “So tell me about Hugo.”
I wasn’t ready to share yet. “Nothing to tell. I dressed him. We spent the night together. In the morning he was gone.”
Orlean flipped around to face me. “You slept with him?” She pushed me. “And you didn’t tell me immediately?”
“I sent you a text this morning, but you never responded.”
“I never got a text from you.”
“I asked if you wanted to go to coffee.”
She frowned. “Doesn’t matter. You’re here now. How was he? Did the hair get in the way?”
“You goofball. He’s all manscaped. And I do mean manscaped down to his privates. Only we didn’t have sex.”
“But you said you slept with him?” Confusion filled her eyes.
“I did sleep with him. Sleep being the key word.” I smiled at the memory.
“But you said his dick was slick. How would you know that if you didn’t have S.E.X.?”
“I didn’t say his dick was slick, I said he’d manscaped. And I know that because I accidentally walked in on him in the shower.” I blushed at the thought.
“And…”
“And what?”
“Is he hung?” Her whole body shivered. “I mean I could see his package in that suit. Looks like he dressed left the night of the gala.”
By dressing left, she meant he pushed his package to the left when wearing briefs and a suit.
“I don’t know. I didn’t look long enough.” Lie, lie, lie.
“But you wanted him, didn’t you? He makes you forget Miles.” She shivered some more, getting excited at the prospect.
“He does make me forget Miles.” And I had to share. “He kissed me in front of Miles.”
She cocked her head. “How is that even possible? I mean, I’d think he wouldn’t do that with Kelsey there.”
Kelsey, his ex? Did Orlean know her?
I sat back up, pushing Orlean over a bit. “I didn’t know if she was there or not, we weren’t in the ballroom. Marla and Miles attended the gala, too. Craziness, I tell you. I met Hugo in the lobby of the hotel, and suddenly I heard Marla’s voice, then I saw Miles with her. I asked Hugo to kiss me, and he did!”
She wrapped her arms around me and said, “This is the best news ever. Suck it, Miles.” Then she pushed away. “So, you didn’t know Hugo’s ex was there? Or sort of ex, I guess.”
I nodded. “Hugo told me later. I was there because he called me to rescue him.”
“Rescue him from what?”
“Kelsey, I guess.”
"I heard they’re getting back together.”
She kept talking, but I didn’t hear a word. How could I not have known this?
“I didn’t hear anything like that. In fact, Hugo was quite upset about seeing her.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. And here I thought you had a chance with him. But this is too much to overcome.”
I glared at her. “What do you mean by that?”
Orlean patted my knee. “Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but Kelsey’s Princess Kate, whereas you’re more like Taylor Swift.”
“What’s wrong with Taylor Swift? And what’s that supposed to mean?” I turned my whole body as I looked at my friend.
Bruce chimed in, “She means, that chick’s refined and classy, like royalty. You’re new money, like Taylor, only without the actual money.”
I wanted to tell both of them to fuck off, but instead I stood and said, “I’ve got to go.”
“Are you okay?” Orlean asked.
I didn’t even look back to respond.
“I wish you would’ve had sex with him. If you did, maybe he and Kelsey wouldn’t be getting back together. He’d be yours, darlin’.”
“Wouldn’t that make me more like Miley, then?” I snapped.
“What the hell do you mean by that?” Orlean now stood. “I’m just telling you, Hugo and Kelsey are from the same universe. You may as well be from Jupiter and speak an alien language.”
“Oh, yeah, we’d never be together. Two different worlds. I just don’t have the class to compete.” Sarcasm bled into my words.
The sarcasm lost on Orlean, she said, “But hopefully, you’ll gain another client. I mean Kelsey’s a stunner. Stella should recommend you to her.”
It took everything in me not to bitch-slap Orlean.
As I walked out of the cottage, Bruce flipped me the bird with the hand that held his Blue Moon beer.
“Love you too, bro,” I returned.
And then my heart cracked. A tiny fracture. I knew Hugo and I would never be more than stylist and client. I should never have kissed him. Just like Julia Roberts said in Pretty Woman,“No kissing, it’s too personal.”
I closed my eyes and saw him playing air guitar in the shower, and it healed the fracture a smidgen. I liked looking at him. I wondered if Kelsey would allow me to continue to work for him if she knew I’d been his rescuer the night of the gala.
What did it matter? I had a career to mend. And Hugo had a product launch. Had Kelsey ever helped or been a part of his work?
By the end of the day, I had meetings with four more prospective clients, and by the time I fell asleep, I hadn’t gotten a response from Hugo on my text. Maybe the flowers had been sincere. No way could he be jealous of Derek and me if he and Kelsey had decided to reconcile.
I awoke Tuesday morning with swollen eyes and a hangover. A thought hangover.
I shuffled into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee and noticed the roses were gone. All of them. Not even a vase in the living room. What the hell? Those were my flowers.
My mom stood in the kitchen pouring herself a fresh cup of java.
“Where are all of my flowers?” I whined.
“The cleaning lady comes today. She can’t clean around all of that. Besides, do you really need all of them? A bit gaudy, don’t you think?”
“Mom?” Something had changed in her since I returned home. “What’s the matter with you?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she snapped.
“You’ve been so bitchy since I’ve been back home.” There, I
said it.
She collapsed against the kitchen counter and put her coffee cup down. “Does it show?”
“Does what show? That you’ve been bitchy?”
She crossed her arms against her chest. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ve made it clear I won’t be leaching off you and Dad, but at least I thought you’d like having me around.”
“Yes, honey, I do. It’s just stress. I don’t mean to take it out on you.”
“Want to talk?” I grabbed a mug from the cabinet and poured my own coffee.
She walked to the now spotless and flowerless table and sat down.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked.
“Work. Where else would he be?” she said sarcastically.
“Mom, there you go again.” I sat across from her.
“If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell him.” She leaned in, daring me.
“Fine.” Which is non-committal.
“My sales have slumped big time. I might have to go back to work.” She moved her cup around on the table.
“Why wouldn’t you tell Dad?” I asked.
“I don’t want to hear, ‘I told you so’ from him.” She looked out the sliding glass door to the backyard.
“You know he wouldn’t say that.”
She shook her head. “Oh, yes, he would. He told me this Etsy thing would wane, and my voodoo dolls would be a flash in the pan.” I thought I saw a tear.
“Maybe you need to do some marketing. You know, social media marketing.” Trying to be helpful.
She finally looked at me. “I Twitter, and Facebook, and I pin. It’s over.”
“Have you thought about going wholesale? Like selling to stores?”
“I can’t make them that fast,” she said. “They’re time-consuming.”
“What if you made them in an assembly line way? I’ve seen it done at fashion houses in the garment district.” I stood. “Come on, walk me through the process, and we can try to figure out how we can make them quicker and more efficient.”
She didn’t stand. “Then they wouldn’t be personal anymore.”
I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her. “Mom, you can make them all similar and add personalization later. Or sell accessories that people can purchase along with them. Retail isn’t the place, Mom, production is. Wholesale, baby, wholesale.”
Her face brightened. “Really? But how would I get the word out?”
I took her hand and pulled her from the chair. “Maybe you’ve met my girlfriend, Orlean?”
“The one who’s screwing your brother?” She flinched.
“Mom, you know about that?” I tensed at her words.
“I have for months, but I didn’t want to be the one to tell you. Only, it’s not right that you don’t know.” She stopped resisting me and stood.
“I already know. And Orlean is a sales rep. Maybe she can represent you.”
Mom tailed along behind me as we went to her office/my bedroom. And yes, I had my coffee in my hand. I couldn’t deal with this without caffeine. I thought about asking her to make a doll of Kelsey. One that I could send to Europe.
Chapter Six
After a long day of bickering and arguing, my mom and I moved her assembly to the garage. After the first doll made it successfully through the assembly line, I sent a photo to Orlean, asking if she could sell them in her showroom.
My phone rang immediately and Orlean said “I’ve been trying to talk your mom into letting me represent her for two years now. Yes. Get me samples of everything.”
I walked my mom through what she needed. And I only knew what she needed because Orlean had given me a list. Dad came home and made dinner after a long day at work, so we could iron out the details.
During dinner, my phone rang.
“Hey, Hugo, how’s the stress level?” I said.
I could still hear the stress in his voice. “You have no idea.”
I think maybe I did have a good idea after spending the afternoon with my mom. Product launching sucks.
“What can I do for you?”
“I can’t do this anymore. I’ve done everything I can do, and the rest is up to my crew. If I can’t walk away now and trust they’ll fly without me, why do I have them, right?” Not exactly an answer.
What the hell did I know about his business? “Whatever you say.”
“I need to get my mind off this launch, so I thought maybe you could pack an overnight bag, and we could fly to Vegas.” Just so matter of fact, like he was my only client. I had no plans to be an on-call friend.
This had to stop. He couldn’t just keep calling or showing up at my door last minute, expecting me to drop everything. Lifestyles of the rich and spoiled. I’m sure everyone he knew was at his beck and call. Not me, no way, I had a life, and a career to build, and Hugo didn’t get to pop in whenever he liked and disrupt my plans because he had new plans. So I said, “Sure, what time will you pick me up?”
I couldn’t believe the words that I’d said. He had a girlfriend, probably a soon-to-be fiancée again. I should have asked if she’d be okay with it.
“Can you drive to my home? I have the helicopter there waiting.”
Maybe Kelsey was coming with us. I couldn’t make myself ask.
“Give me an hour?” I said.
“I’ll be waiting.”
“What’s up?” Mom said.
“Hugo wants to fly to Vegas to go shopping. He said he needs to get his mind off work.”
Dad said, “After all of those flowers, you’d better get a move on. I think that boy has a crush.”
I stood up from the dinner table. “It’s not like that. He has a fiancée.”
Mom and Dad stared after me with their mouths open. I think I saw food fall out of my dad’s mouth.
I heard my mom say, “Now she thinks she’s Princess Diana. Little does she realize, she’s only the hired help.”
Dad said, “She could be Princess Diana, with some work, and etiquette classes. Maybe a Miss Manners book.”
“Yes. Yes, she could,” my mom’s voiced sounded like she really meant it.
I almost turned around and gave both of them a hug, then I remembered, Orlean compared me to Taylor Swift, saying Kelsey was the princess. I had no desire to be a princess, a pop star, or a billionaire’s wife. I had a desire to get laid, though. Maybe I’d find love in all the wrong places in Vegas.
And just like that, I packed a bag and drove to Hugo’s home. Coming up the drive with the sun setting made his house look like a painting. And the image was appropriate, because this dream would end soon enough, and aren’t paintings just like a dreamscape?
Bobby stood outside the front door and took my bag. “They’re on the helipad.”
He walked me about fifty yards from the house, and there stood Hugo and Timmy, waiting.
“I feel like I’m being airlifted,” I yelled to Bobby.
“You are,” he said. “Only hospitals are there to save you. Vegas may kill you.”
I thought about that as Hugo helped me into the white Eurocopter. He also helped me to my seat, which happened to be smooth white leather. I sat down and buckled in, acting like I did this daily. Hugo handed me a headset with a tiny microphone, then put one on his head.
In my ear, I heard him say, “Easier to talk to each other this way.”
I said, “Hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to sleep. It’s been an exhausting day.”
I didn’t really want to sleep, but I didn’t want to talk to him where Timmy could hear. He’d barely acknowledged me as we boarded the Eurocopter and didn’t speak to me when he entered the pilot’s seat. He spoke only to Hugo.
He gave him the ETA, then said, “I’m not happy about this last-minute junket.”
Hugo said, “That’s great, because you aren’t a part of the junket, just the transportation,” and closed his eyes.
I glanced at him, then spent the rest of the trip alternately looking out the window and closing my eyes to try to sle
ep.
The helicopter landed at McCarron’s private field, and a limo whisked us to the Aria.
When Hugo and I entered the hotel, a concierge escorted us to the room. No check-in. No waiting in line.
“I’m so sorry, sir, this was the best we could do on such short notice,” the short thin man said.
“I thank you for making this happen.” Hugo’s gracious manner warmed my mood.
He treated everyone as an equal, including Timmy, who he treated more as his friend than his employee. And yes, that could be because they were friends first. So that’s what he and I were: two friends visiting Vegas and going clothes shopping.
The elevator shot to the top floor of the hotel, and we exited to the Penthouse Suite.
The concierge assured us our bags would be up shortly. Hugo handed him a couple of hundred dollar bills.
We stepped into a room with floor-to-ceiling windows and stunning views of the city.
“This is your room. I have the one next door,” Hugo said.
It hadn’t even occurred to me that we’d have separate rooms. I mean we’d slept in the same bed already. Not like he’d been tempted before.
“Are you sure? I mean we can share this room.” I didn’t really want to be alone.
Then it occurred to me that Kelsey may be joining him. A threesome didn’t sound all that appealing with the reigning Texas princess.
“I don’t want to overstep. And besides, I prefer to play the air guitar solo.” He turned back to the door.
“I’d be happy to play the drums for you,” I said. And I didn’t even want to take it back. I wanted him to know I enjoyed seeing him naked.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He walked back to me and handed me a roll of hundred dollar bills. “Tip generously.”
I looked at the money and felt like a hooker. Without the orgasm or the opportunity to fake one. My gut twisted.
“See you in the morning. We need to shop all day. I don’t want to think about the real world for the next thirty-six hours.” He closed the door behind him.
I saw the concierge waiting outside the hotel room, ready to show Hugo his room. I wondered if Bobby had planned all of this while we were in the air. I’d only seen Hugo on his phone once, and only for a few minutes.
I walked into the living room, and marveled at the leather furniture and the lights of the city. Then I moved to the dining room, which had a long rectangular glass table and four upholstered leather chairs around it. I took my shoes off and felt the plush white carpet between my toes. White carpet, white walls, and black accents all made the modern art pop off the walls.
Style (Dressing a Billionaire Book 2): A Romantic Comedy Page 6
