Chapter 4

Demi

“Two black coffees, coming up,” the barista at my local coffee place called out.

Mandy and I both lived around the corner from the small, family-owned coffee shop. We both preferred this place over the larger chains nearby. It smelled like freshly ground coffee and the cinnamon in the owner’s homemade apple pie. I breathed it in and floated away on a cloud of caffeine happiness.

“Best tradition ever,” Mandy said, accepting our coffees from the barista and holding one out to me.

“Agreed.” I blew into the takeout cup and took a long sip of the rich, dark brew inside.

Mandy and I met there early every Saturday before our shifts at the diner started. It gave us a chance to catch up, spoil ourselves with the best coffee around, and try to get ourselves motivated for the day.

“Your shift starts at one, right?” Mandy asked.

“Yup. And yours?”

“Same,” she said. “That means we have time.” A mischievous glint lit her eyes.

“Time for what?” I was almost afraid to hear her answer.

“Shopping!”

I had to consciously stop myself from rolling my eyes. “Neither one of us can afford to buy anything right now. At least, I can’t.”

“Oh, blah!” Mandy said, waving me off. “Come on, where is the fun in that? I scored an invite to a new club opening in SoHo tonight. I can’t show up wearing just any old thing. I need something that pops.”

“You have an entire room full of clothes,” I reminded her, not even needing to exaggerate. It was the tiny second bedroom in her apartment, but it was a room nonetheless.

“Details, details.” She smiled cheekily. “A girl’s got to spoil herself from time to time.”

“You spoil yourself way more than that. You’re going to be broke soon if you keep spending so much.”

“But not if I catch a rich hubby with my new party dress,” she told me, her eyes bright and excited.

“You mean the one you haven’t bought yet?” I asked.

“Yes, that one. How am I supposed to catch my husband if I don’t own the dress he met me in?”

I laughed at her crazy reasoning and followed her to the door. “Gee, I don’t know. Perhaps because he’ll be interested in more than the clothes you’re wearing?”

She smirked. “Yeah, he will. He’ll be interested in what’s underneath them, too.”

“You have such high aspirations for this future husband of yours,” I said. “Rich and shallow. That’s really what you want in your fantasy man?”

“The key word being rich. Now come on. If we’re going to find me something to wear tonight, we’d better get going.” Mandy grabbed my hand and practically dragged me out of the coffee shop.

“Bye, Paulo, see you next week,” I called to our regular barista over my shoulder as Mandy pulled me onto the crowded sidewalk.

With the clear blue skies and the sun shining brightly, it was a beautiful day in the city. Everyone seemed to be taking advantage of the gorgeous weather, judging from the mass of bodies crowding the sidewalk as we headed in the direction of Mandy’s favorite stores.

“Ooh, look at that,” Mandy crowed, stopping dead in her tracks and pointing at a cherry-red shirt, masquerading as a dress. “And that one for you.”

The second dress she pointed out was gorgeous, but I didn’t even have to look at the price tag to know that it was way out of my price range.

It was a deep blue dress, hemmed with black lace. It looked like it would fit me just tightly enough to show off the right amount of cleavage to be alluring, without looking skanky.

“It’s gorgeous,” I agreed. “But no. Neither one of us can afford this place. I can barely afford thrift shop prices right now, much less a designer label like this.”

The luxury store probably would not even allow us in, considering that we were already decked out in our yellow shirts and navy-blue skirts that were our uniforms at the diner.

“Let’s just try them on,” she said, her poison green eyes pleading with me. “Pretty please? It’ll make me work harder later.”

I laughed again, despite myself, at her warped reasoning and nodded. “Fine, but only if you promise not to complain during our shift. Not even once.”

She held up four fingers. “Scouts’ honor.”

“You were never a Girl Scout, were you?” I asked, giggling.

“Nope.” She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes slightly. “How did you know?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s the Vulcan salute you’re holding up,” I told her. We both cracked up, drawing the attention of more than a few people on the sidewalk.

“Okay, okay,” I said, putting on my best impression of being stern. “Let’s go try them on, then, but absolutely no buying them.”

Mandy just laughed, leading me into the air-conditioned store. My feet were met with plush carpeting. It was the kind of shop where the sales assistants wore outfits more beautiful than anything I owned, and I felt like I had to clasp my hands behind my back to keep from touching anything. So that was exactly what I did.

The shop assistant, contrary to what I’d believed before we came inside, didn’t throw us out on our asses but she did glance disapprovingly at what we were wearing. “What can I help you with today?”

“We’d like to try on the dresses in the display,” Mandy said, ignoring the look we were getting from the woman.

She pursed her lips into a thin line. “Those are starting from a thousand dollars each.”

My eyes grew to the size of saucers. Holy crap! Who could, or would for that matter, spend that much money on a dress?

“Even so, we’d like to try them on please.” Mandy never backed down when she wanted something. Right now, she wanted to try on that dress.

Five minutes later, she was zipping me into the navy creation. It fit me so well, it was like it had been molded from my body. Mandy squealed when she stepped back, admiring my reflection in the mirror.

“Oh, my God, that’s perfect for you! You have to get it.”

As much as it pained me to do it, I shook my head. “There’s no way I can afford it.”

Even though it did make me look like a million bucks when my makeup and hair weren’t even done. The deep navy color set off my skin tone perfectly and made it look golden and smooth.

The dress made my eyes pop and seem bigger, brighter. As I had suspected, my cleavage looked awesome. Just the tops of my breasts were visible, while the dress clung tightly enough to suggest what it was hiding. The soft black lace of the hem brushed against my thighs like a caress.

It was perfect, but it would never be mine, unfortunately.

Mandy and I stepped out of our adjoined dressing rooms. The red dress she was wearing did for her what the blue one did for me. She was positively glowing.

“Come on,” she said. “One strut up to the mirror. One selfie. Then we take them off.”

“You know taking a selfie of us in these doesn’t make them ours, right?” I asked her, chewing my bottom lip.

“Yup, but my Instagram followers don’t need to know that. Besides, it’ll still be fun.”

I sighed but smiled softly. Mandy’s unbridled enthusiasm and determination to just have fun were two of the things I loved most about her.

“Okay then. Let’s go.”

Besides, she was right. It did sound like fun. My phone started buzzing in my purse on the dressing room floor, but I ignored it and followed Mandy to the main floor. There was no one who could be calling me about anything important.

Laughing, Mandy and I strutted our stuff, garnering appreciative looks from the men in the store. And from some of the women. My cheeks flushed. Mandy didn’t have a self-conscious bone in her body, but I was suddenly itching to get back to the dressing room when I felt their eyes on me.

“Uh, we should probably get going,” I told Mandy, glancing at my watch as she completed her turn in front of the large, gilded mirror at the far end of the luxurious shop.

Mandy sighed but nodded, heading back to me. “I know we said no buying, but I can’t let this dress go.”

“We absolutely can’t afford these,” I insisted, dragging her back to the dressing rooms.

“Plastic is patient, you know,” Mandy quipped, giving me a devilish grin.

“No. You’re not putting it on your credit card. Let’s get changed and get out of here before you make a decision that’s going to mean you have to sell a kidney soon.”

“Well, I do have two of them,” she told me, a contemplative look on her face as she twirled a flaming red strand of hair between her fingers.

“For a reason,” I said firmly. “Now, go get changed.”

Mandy laughed, then threw her hands up in surrender. “Fine, but I know where it lives now.”

As she disappeared into the adjacent dressing room, my phone started buzzing again. I fished it from my bag, closing the door behind me. My mom’s face smiled up at me from the display. I declined the call immediately, noticing I already had four missed calls from her. Before I’d even fully dressed back in my uniform, the phone buzzed again.

Mom, the display read.

What the hell did she want from me? I hadn’t spoken to my parents in years. Finally, the third time it started ringing, I answered, not bothering to hide the exasperation in my voice. “What is it that you need from me, Mother?”

“You have to come home, honey.” My mom’s voice sounded shaky, like she’d been crying. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

As callous as it might have sounded, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with her dramatics. “I can’t. I’m on my way to work.”

There was a knock on my dressing room door, and Mandy’s voice filtered through it. “You almost done in there?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right there,” I called back, holding my hand over the receiver. I dropped it as soon as Mandy said okay. “I have to go, Mom. I’m sorry, but this isn’t a good time.”

It never was when it came to my parents, but those were the breaks.

“Demi, wait.” My mom heaved a sigh that shook on her exhale. “I didn’t want to tell you this over the phone but your father is sick. He has stage-four cancer.”

I was stunned to silence, a cold sweat breaking out all over my body.

“Demi? Did you hear me?”

“Yeah. I did. When did you find out?” I asked, not knowing why it was important, but it felt like it was.

“A couple of months ago,” she confessed.

“And you’re only telling me now?”

“Well, you see...” She took a deep breath. “He hasn’t been able to work for a while. The medical bills are piling up. The business is declining without him there, and we’re going to be forced to sell it soon. I don’t know what to do anymore. We’re almost bankrupt. We need your help, baby.”

“My help?”

After what they did to Gabbi? That was rich.

“You know that I hate to ask you, Demi,” my mother sobbed at the other end of the line.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I bet you do. Let me process for a few days, okay? I’ll get back to you.”

“I know that it’s a lot to take in. Just come home soon, okay?”

“I’ll see. Talk to you soon.” I ended the call.

I stared at the shiny surface of my screen for several minutes after it went dark, trying to absorb the full impact of what my mother had just told me. Then I heard Mandy calling out for me again.

“You okay in there?”

Sucking in a shaky breath, I plastered a smile on my face and opened the door. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

Mandy chattered almost all the way to the diner, but I barely heard a word she was saying. I’d been furious with my parents for years after the way they treated Gabbi, abandoning my nanny in her time of need. They just let her die. It was ironic that my father was in the same position now as she’d once been.

The part of me that was still angry warred with my compassionate side. I wanted to ignore my mother’s plea for help and write it off as karma. They were just getting what they deserved for what they’d done to Gabbi. But I knew I couldn’t be as callous as they were.

No matter what sins they’d committed in the past, they were still my parents. I might not like them, but deep down, I still loved them, whether they deserved it or not.

Still, I didn’t know what my mother expected me to do. I didn’t have money to help them out, even if I wanted to. I was barely scraping by on my wages and tips from the diner. It was enough to live on but that was it. I couldn’t afford luxuries, wild nights out on the town, or beautiful blue dresses that made me look amazing. So, I sure as hell couldn’t pay for cancer treatments, which I assumed were astronomically expensive if they’d bankrupted my parents.

I had no idea what I was supposed to do in this situation.

I walked the streets in a daze, surprised when we reached the diner without my noticing how many blocks we’d walked. Which was nothing compared to the surprise I received when I crossed the threshold to see Barrett Hart sitting in the same booth he’d been in the day before, palming a cup of coffee and studying the chipped paint on the walls.

Butterflies stirred in my stomach as I remembered the electricity between us. As soon as he looked up to meet my gaze, the corners on his mouth turned up into a sexy smile. I didn’t know what it was, but it was like something about him called to something in me.

I was kind of flattered that he was back, since to him, girls must be a dime a dozen. But here he was, despite the way I’d turned him down. My feet were carrying me toward him of their own accord, and it dawned on me what I’d turned down yesterday.

He’d offered me a job. I rejected the offer without a second thought. Yesterday, I wasn’t interested in a new job, but it was amazing how fundamentally my life could change in just twenty-four hours. Today, a new job with a better salary could be the answer I didn’t know I’d needed.

I took a deep breath as I crossed the linoleum floor, heading directly for him. His eyes followed my every move with an almost possessive gleam in them. I could only hope that it meant his job offer was still on the table.

There was only one way to find out. I drew to a stop at his booth and looked him right in the eye. “I want to take you up on your offer, if it’s still open.”