“You should see mine,” one of Laura’s friends agreed, rolling her lash extensions skyward. “You’d think the entire world revolved around poker night.”
“You did see mine, at the ASPCA thing last week,” another pointed out. “And he thinks I should ‘get a little work done’? I can tell you that whatever I ‘have done’ will not be for him. It’ll be for that adorable boy who delivers for our florist, who actually takes care of his body.”
“Blake came home this morning from Oliver’s bachelor party,” Laura admitted in a tiny voice, swallowing the rest of her champagne. “And we have to smile and be nice tonight for that harpy.” Jane automatically poured more into her glass and leaned in. “Oh, sorry,” Laura added, apparently remembering that Jane wasn’t already in her loop. “My mother-in-law’s cousin—it’s kind of sick, you know, how they all live together, like it’s a tiny town in Iowa no one ever leaves—anyway, she’s talking to these weirdo Europeans about some kind of merger. I get it, you know: the family businesses pay for my Manolos. I’m totally on board with helping things go smoothly. But do we really all have to go to every stupid party and event and pretend like we’re the world’s most perfect people in every way? Not one night off since they got here last week, and I’m supposed to take the woman to Bendel’s tomorrow. It will literally be the least fun that I have ever had while shopping.”
Laura twisted a lock of hair that bore no relation whatsoever to her natural color and swallowed half of her refreshed champagne. Jane, however, was afraid to touch her own in case she got too loose-lipped in her excitement. Lynne’s distracted, and the Dorans are having parties every night! She couldn’t have found a better time to get herself invited into the mansion.
“Think of it as charity,” Jane suggested, eyeing a ring that she knew Laura had been proud of acquiring. She searched her memory for every detail she could remember about it. “Everyone should be so lucky as to get to shop with someone who knows where to find authentic Laliques. I’d heard a few pieces went up at the Elaine Ausprey estate auction a few years back, but I thought it was just a rumor.”
Laura giggled happily and sipped her champagne again. I’m in, Jane celebrated silently, and bit her lip to keep from grinning. “You should try shopping with that beast and see if you can stay so positive,” Laura teased, “but I won’t inflict that on you. Here.” She reached across the table and scooped up Jane’s Vertu between her white-tipped fingernails. She plucked her own topaz-encrusted phone and held the two beside each other, tapping diligently with her thumbs. “We’ll think of something else to do; you’ll thank me later.”
I want to thank you now, but I’ll wait, Jane cheered to herself, the grin finally breaking across her new face.
Chapter Eleven
Jane sipped her Manhattan carefully before setting it on the glass table beside her. Less than an hour after settling in to her new home at the Lowell Hotel—not quite ten blocks from the Dorans’ mansion—Jane had decided that it was time to really get into character. Two days into her twenty-eight, Ella finally had a last name: Medeiros. Unfortunately, she also was allegedly Brazilian with an English-French-Swedish accent, and had impulsively tacked on the title of “baroness,” which, she suspected, created even more uncertainty about her origins. So Jane had decided to take a few minutes in the lobby bar to figure out who Ella really was, and had realized almost right away that even this presented problems: Jane drank chardonnay whenever she had the option, but what did Ella drink?
After an uncomfortably long hesitation in front of the patiently impassive bartender, she had remembered Maeve’s sweet-bitter-dark drink from the night of the disastrous cocktail party at MoMA. It had been stronger than Jane had really wanted, but she also remembered the way a borrowed sip of it had steadied her nerves, and she decided that Ella would probably love them. She also loved bright colors (the pastels and even some of the neutrals in Jane’s closet had made her look dull and lifeless), high heels even though she was already tall, dogs more than cats, and the partly unbuttoned shirt of the unfairly tall, dark, and handsome man in the corner armchair. Jane had never really gone for the brooding, dangerous type, but to Ella it was hot as hell.
I can totally do this, Jane decided, letting the heat of the whiskey spread outward from the pit of her perfectly flat stomach. Dee, still giddy from her promising job interview the day before, had convinced Jane that she needed to go all in to shore up her disguise. After all, she couldn’t risk the Dorans knowing where she actually lived, but if she wanted to hang with them, she couldn’t very well pretend to be homeless, either. She might need a place to let Laura see; an address to hand out on the calling cards that the printer swore would be delivered by four o’clock at the very latest.
There was the sound of footsteps on the pale marble tile, and Jane turned instinctively to see if it might be the printer, finished ahead of schedule. But it was just a bellhop, studiously working not to struggle under the weight of about thirty shopping bags. Most were from Barney’s, which was conveniently nearby, but Jane also spotted a few from Fresh, Teuscher, and Jo Malone.
I think Ella prefers Annick Goutal, Jane decided as the young man passed behind her chair, but the rest is good. Every sip of her cocktail made it easier to feel decisive, and she took another to celebrate the latest conclusion she had drawn about her temporary persona.
“ ‘Garden’ apparently means something different to you from what it does to me,” an icy-cold voice announced, and Jane swiveled again on her black leather chair to see what the disturbance was. She tracked the voice across the shiny marble floor and past the polished brass of the revolving doors to the deep cheery finish of the reception desk. “I will be happy with your complimentary upgrade once I have been able to inspect the new suite,” the woman standing at the desk continued in a tone that made Jane feel absolutely positive the “upgrade” in question had not been intentionally complimentary. Jane took in the complaining guest’s close-cropped black hair and her sinewy, deeply tanned calves, and guessed that she was the source of the mountain of shopping bags that had just disappeared with the bellhop behind the doors of the service elevator.
The conciliatory-looking desk agent handed the unhappy woman a new key card, mouthing what looked distinctly like profuse apologies. Jane rolled her eyes and fished the cherry out of her drink. Was Ella the type of person who made a scene to get stuff for free? It would distinguish her from Jane, but hopefully there were enough other differences between them that such desperate measures wouldn’t be necessary. She bit into the cherry, letting the soft burn of the liqueur spread to every corner of her mouth.
The woman at the desk spun on one totally-overkill-for-daytime stiletto and headed for the bank of elevators on the far side of the lounge, and Jane’s gasp caused half of the cherry to lodge in her throat. Mystery Witch. Even without the sunglasses, there was no doubt: the woman who had been stalking Jane all over Manhattan was now in her brand-new hotel. Jane tried to inhale, but couldn’t, around the cherry. She coughed instead, which helped, and then glanced around for the closest emergency exit.
But how is she even doing this? her mind complained. Did Lynne hide some kind of tracking device under my skin? The theory was a little too plausible to laugh at, especially now that Mystery Witch was bearing down on her at an alarming rate. Screw this. If she can find me here, I’m just going to have to fight her and be done with it. Jane turned a little in her chair and started pulling in her magic. She didn’t have as much time as she had had for the last week’s prepared spells, but she had the major advantage of fury working for her, and she had a respectable amount of power burning before her eyes before Mystery Witch had drawn even with her. I should question her first, Jane realized in alarm. Also, fighting to the death is so not appropriate in public.
As she hesitated, Mystery Witch swept past her and into an open elevator, leaving a cloud of L’Air du Temps in her wake.
What the—?
Jane looked around, completely baffle
d now. Mystery Witch hadn’t even seemed to see her . . . because I’m not me, she realized finally. Her stalker hadn’t followed her all the way to the Upper East Side; Jane had moved to the Upper East Side and stumbled across her stalker. At her hotel. By chance.
Jane finished her drink in a hurry and signaled the bartender for another one. Following Laura to brunch had been a lot of good planning combined with a lot of good luck, but this was just pure serendipity, and it was hard to wrap her mind around. She was literally right under Mystery Witch’s nose, and the other woman had no idea. With a little ingenuity, Jane could find out who had sent her and what she wanted, and figure out her next moves accordingly.
Her fresh drink arrived, and Jane reached for it eagerly. The rim of the glass was at her lips before she noticed that it had come to her in the hands of Tall, Dark, and Handsome from the corner. Ella really is one lucky girl, Jane decided, smiling coyly at the stranger. From this close she could smell the rich, musky leather of his bomber jacket, and she inhaled deeply, letting its pheromones saturate her brain.
“When I saw you here, I thought, This beautiful woman must be having a very bad day, or else a very good one,” Tall, Dark, and Handsome told her softly. His voice was low and soothing, with just a trace of an accent that made Jane hope he would speak more. “So I felt I must come to you and ask you which it was.”
Jane nodded to the chair across from hers, and the man slid into it with the controlled grace of a panther. “It’s been a bit of both,” she told him honestly, running a finger around the rim of her glass.
“Improving, I hope,” he offered with raised eyebrows that suggested thoroughly insincere humility, and Jane smiled a little. Something about him reminded her of the men she had flirted with in France, before she had met Malcolm. I wish I could place the accent, she mused.
Every movement and gesture of his said “Old World,” and Jane automatically copied her friend Elodie’s cool confidence along with her borrowed accent. “I suppose that depends on how good the company is,” she told him, leaning back slightly in her chair as she sipped her Manhattan. This one didn’t burn her throat on the way down, and she guessed that she was already tipsier than she had realized through her adrenaline haze. Good thing I don’t have to fight, after all, she decided, although flirting with this particular man might be nearly as risky.
Her stranger’s name turned out to be André, and after the briefest of hesitations, he added that he was visiting from Romania.
André was in town on “business,” but declined to add more. Jane, who suspected that he was deliberately trying to make her curious, refused to take the bait, instead chatting with him about the chic Upper East Side lifestyle that she decided Ella led. It was easy to fake both the experiences and the attitude after the time she had spent living with her impeccably upper-crust in-laws, and she even managed to spare some of her attention for evaluating her companion. The set of his jaw told her he was frustrated that she wasn’t swooning over his secretiveness, but she couldn’t help but be impressed by how still and neutral the rest of his body was. It reminded her of a cat, waiting and watching, and she felt flattered to be the object of such unwavering attention. Sure, most of it was due to her new body and face, but she reminded herself that her personality, her wit, and the way she carried herself were still her own. And André, no matter what had drawn him to her in the first place, clearly enjoyed all of those things as well. Besides, it’s not like I was so painfully homely before, she admitted to herself. Lynne Doran may have come up with a hundred inventive little ways to call her fat, but curvy, blond Jane had never lacked for male attention. It’s just weird getting it for being someone else. My looks were mine.
“Baroness Medeiros,” a timid voice whispered in Jane’s ear, and she startled a little. Fortunately, she had already swallowed enough of her drink to keep it from spilling over the sloping sides of the glass.
She set it down carefully on the table between her and André, and although he stayed as still as ever, she was fairly sure that his eyes slid to the neckline of her raw silk tank when she leaned. And me without my cleavage, she griped silently, but André seemed to approve thoroughly of Ella’s smaller, more delicate breasts. Smiling a little to herself, she turned to the anxious-looking concierge hovering by her shoulder, who was quite plainly trying not to wring his hands. “Yes?”
“Something has arrived for you,” he managed to force out, holding out a single piece of creamy, heavy card stock in one lightly trembling hand. That’s definitely not my calling cards. As soon as Jane touched it, she recognized it unmistakably as Doran stationery. She had received dozens of notes like this in the mansion: phone messages, appointment reminders, and invitations/summonses from Lynne herself. Jane’s fingers began to tremble a little, too, as she took the card, but the handwriting inside was upright and loopy and totally unlike Lynne’s. She steadied her breath and made herself read.
Dear Ella,
Ran by Cenzo’s Papiro for my daughter’s birthday invites, and he was in the middle of engraving some absolutely gorge cards. I recognized your name, and would love to be the first to welcome you to the neighborhood! Please meet me for dinner tonight. My number’s in your phone!
—Laura Helding
Jane fought the temptation to turn the card over, backward, upside-down. But it wasn’t in code and there were no hidden messages: she had just made it one step closer to her goal. I wonder if “dinner” is at the mansion, she thought, but quickly reminded herself that she’d already had more than her share of good luck so far, and twenty-six and a half days to go with her disguise.
“ ‘Baroness Medeiros’?” André purred, and Jane flushed.
But my new skin shows it less, she reminded herself sternly, and folded Laura’s note into her purse. She fumbled clumsily with the buckles, which she didn’t remember being nearly so complicated, and realized that she might be heading past “tipsy” by now. She pushed the edges of the purse closed and turned her attention back to André. “It’s just ‘Ella’ among friends,” she told him lightly, remembering just in time that real royalty shouldn’t be self-deprecating. “Speaking of which,” she went on, “I’m afraid I have some business to attend to this afternoon, and I really need to get going.” Such as a cold shower, a hot cup of coffee or three, and picking out the perfect dinner outfit, she added silently, but if André was going to be coy about his business, then she could be coy, too.
The planes of his olive-skinned face registered what looked like genuine disappointment, and Jane felt a deeply pervasive desire to stay. But she had more pressing things to focus on than romance—or lust—and so, she reluctantly stood and brushed the lace layers of her skirt smooth. “I hope I will see you again while we are here,” André told her, his black eyes following her movements intently. “It would be a crime to ignore all pleasure in favor of . . . business.”
Jane smiled; he had a point. She really couldn’t spend every moment stalking the Dorans, anyway. “I couldn’t agree more,” she told him sincerely before turning on one heel and sauntering toward the elevators, allowing her long legs to pull her hips into a gentle sway that she knew he would be watching. As the doors closed behind her, she felt a smile tugging at her lips. Being Ella has definite perks.
Chapter Twelve
“So then he acts like he doesn’t even remember me telling him about the opera—not just that it was that Friday, but at all. But if he really didn’t, then why did he think we weren’t going to that vapid Nathan girl’s insufferably dull soirée in the first place? But that’s just the way he thinks: his plans are important, and if he didn’t make them then he must not have any. No, no; if we’re not going to his precious Nathans’, then he must be free on Friday, so he can get smashed with those frat-boy friends of his and wake the whole house up on his way back in. And very nearly damage some antique sideboard thing that’s been in the family for about a gazillion years.”
“And that’s how he fractured his shin?” Jane asked ho
pefully. It wasn’t that Laura didn’t have valid complaints about her husband’s behavior. She just had a lot of them, and Jane was beginning to realize that she’d only ever heard the tip of the iceberg during her stint as Laura’s soon-to-be second-cousin-in-law. They had barely started the main course and Jane could already feel her eyes glazing over. She had come to dinner prepared to Be a Good Friend to Laura, but hadn’t realized that nodding and making sympathetic noises was virtually all that would be asked of her.
That and eating well, Jane admitted to herself, twisting a couple of strands of squid-inked linguini around her fork. The restaurant Laura had chosen featured five-star cuisine, twenty-seven varieties of vodka, and the priciest commodity in Manhattan: elbow room. The high, vaulted ceiling emphasized the sheer extravagance of the space around them, which was dotted with tables with yellow tablecloths set just far enough apart to seem truly private. Although she was aware of the low buzz of conversation around them, there was really nothing nearby enough to compete with the long string of Blake-bashing coming from her dinner companion.
“So he says,” Laura snorted inelegantly, taking a sizable sip of her cabernet.
Jane, who had no idea what her new friend’s skepticism was even implying (was the shin not fractured? fractured in some other way?), fought the temptation to do the same. She had, after all, started unusually early with her Manhattans, and she needed to stay relatively sharp now. “Men.” She sighed ambiguously, rolling her eyes and hoping that the gesture would be enough to prove she had been listening. A woman in a low-necked blue dress about a hundred yards away looked faintly familiar, and Jane amused herself by trying to imagine her striking features framed by tabloid headlines. Game-show hostess? Reality-show personality? Weather girl?
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