Chapter Six
From Natalie’s rules for Foster Boyd, v1
Rule #1: Instead of feeding the press with a constant flow of negative news, avoid them. You know when they’re around, so just go someplace else. Preferably, somewhere they can’t follow you. Doormen are a blessing—use them!
By the end of her first day with Foster Boyd as a client, Natalie found herself much in need of some personal time. By the end of her first week, she was in need of a massage, a manicure, and anything else that didn’t involve the Bratty Boyd Brothers, as she’d been calling them in her head. They were worse than children, and for some reason, trying to curtail their public appearances and limiting them to only things that would generate positive press, she’d become inundated with the brothers themselves.
They were in her office. They followed her around their office. They were everywhere. Which meant it was time for a girl night, and she’d turned off her cell phone.
No Boyds allowed, she told herself. Not even in her head space. She wanted to spill all of it to someone—to vent all that she’d learned and all that she needed to accomplish—but was limited on what she could share. That didn’t stop her from video calling Harper, her bestie, for their weekly catch-up visit.
“So, you have a new client?” Harper asked. “Are you starting with musicians again?”
Sighing, Natalie minimized the video call and opened a browser window. “No, starting with business clients this time. Not in the entertainment industry at all.”
Harper looked intrigued, her dark eyes widening under the fringe of straight black bangs she was trying to grow back out. “That’s smart. Probably your one bad client experience will be less talked about there…maybe. What kind of business? Tell me it is leggings. You just can’t get good ones cheap these days. Do you get a discount? I want discount leggings.”
Natalie grinned at her, shaking her head. “Not leggings. Cosmetics.”
“Maybe she’s born with it,” Harper said with a flourish while brushing her sleek black hair over her shoulder dramatically. “Maybe it’s Botox.”
“Haha,” Natalie said dryly. “Maybe they’re fake boobs.”
“Boobs?” Harper snorted. “Honey, fake behinds are all the rage right now, not boobies. Men are into the butt shelf.”
“Butt shelf?” Natalie scrolled through a few videos before settling on one for a do-it-yourself facial mask. That was what she needed—a comforting mask to cleanse her pores and make her feel fresh and new. “Do I want to know what a butt shelf is?”
“Oh, honey.” Harper shook her head, looking saddened. “A butt shelf is a behind big enough that you can rest a dinner plate covered in sushi on it without the food spilling to the floor. If you don’t have the butt shelf, men just aren’t into you.”
Natalie glanced back at her flannel-covered butt but couldn’t see it since she was sitting cross-legged on her bed. “Rats, foiled again. Hey, have you heard of the homemade charcoal face mask? Says it is great for removing blackheads.”
“You do not have blackheads,” Harper answered, ever logical.
“That’s because I work hard at it. This one says you can make it with ingredients found from your house. I think I’m going to try it.”
Harper was silent for a long second, and Natalie glanced at the minimized screen to see her slowly shaking her head. “Don’t do it,” her friend warned.
“Why not?”
“If you saw a beauty tip on the internet, chances are good it will make your skin fall off or turn you purple or something else really horrible. Literally, worst idea ever.” Harper glanced behind her, and Natalie heard what sounded like a door slamming on that end of the call. “Gotta go, lovely. Sounds like my hunk of manly love is home from the gym. He likes to do it while he’s still all sweaty and full of endorphins, and who am I to stop him?” Harper’s smile was slow and catlike.
“Jealous,” Natalie replied.
“Then, girl, go get you some. You’re single and free to mingle. Gotta go, here he comes.” The call ended abruptly. She closed the window before making the browser with the face mask bigger.
Ten minutes later, and she’d broken open activated charcoal capsules into a small bowl and was adding white glue to the mix. The recipe online wasn’t exact, but how hard was it to mix activated charcoal and glue? Satisfied with her concoction, Natalie moved to the mirror.
Using a makeup blending sponge, she carefully applied the goop. When she’d covered all of her face, she tried to rinse the mixture out of the blending sponge and discovered that adding water only made the glue spread—note to self, don’t try to rinse this off. Then again, the directions in the video said it would peel from her skin pretty easily. She ended up throwing the sponge away, but it was just a cheap one anyway, so no big loss there. The video said to avoid hairs, so she had pulled her hair back as best as she could. A few strands near her temple got caught in the mask, but she wasn’t too worried about it. More worrisome was the situation with Foster Boyd.
Other than the one kiss in his office, he’d kept his hands off for the past week—as had Connor, not even kissing her fingers anymore. On one hand, that was a good thing. She couldn’t mix business with pleasure, no matter how damn sexy her clients were. On the other, she worried she was failing to accomplish her purpose. Hadn’t Foster impressed upon her the importance of distracting his brother?
On yet another hand—what am I, an octopus?—she had to admit it hurt her ego a little. She was supposed to be so damn appealing that this man couldn’t resist losing his business because of her unconscious feminine wiles, but instead it seemed they were following her rules and disinterested in her as a woman.
Which was good, she reminded herself. It wasn’t like she wanted to be sexually harassed by a couple of gorgeous billionaires, even if that was why Foster chose to hire her. Torn between the two like some doggy chew toy or something…
Liar.
Okay, whatever, fine. She admitted, at least to herself, that she’d been blown away with the instant connection with Foster. The man was sex on a stick, hotter than the Sahara, more attractive than a viral post on the internet. And when he’d kissed her…
What the hell was up with that, anyway? She headed back to the living room to stream something to watch. She scrolled through the list of recommended options while sorting through her feelings on the Boyd situation.
Rubbing her legs together in frustration, she wondered if she would have been better off spending a few quality moments with her battery-operated buddy than with a face mask. That kiss had been like nothing she’d ever experienced. He took her body over, and that was just with his mouth. When he’d put his hands on her, she’d wanted to crawl up him like a greedy monkey, determined to get just a few seconds more.
It’d been an act of sheer willpower to call their moments together to a halt, but she’d done it. Because she was a professional. Because…
Because she’d never lost control like that so quickly and it kind of freaked her out.
If she could go back in time, would she have stopped him? Would she have recovered fast enough to come up with the logical reason behind his behavior? Or would she have wrapped her legs around those oh-so-strong thighs of his and ridden him like a pony?
The world would never know…
A knock at the door ended her useless scrolling, so she rolled to her feet and peeked through the peephole. Her doorman wouldn’t have let just anyone up—a luxury she wouldn’t be able to afford if her dire straits didn’t clear up after the Boyd business was completed—and was shocked to see Foster outside. Without thinking it through, she opened the door to lean on the frame, trying to look casual.
“I turned off my phone because I didn’t want to be bothered,” she pointed out before he could say anything.
“What is on your face?” he replied.
Oh god, the mask. She touched her face and realized it had dried—tight. It was tight, shit—before trying to pretend composure she didn’t feel. “It’s a mask,” she said lamely.
“It’s…hard?” he said, poking her cheek. The mask made a brittle noise, like crunchy paper, or maybe nori wraps for sushi.
“Uh, yes, can I help you?” she asked. Maybe if she played it cool, he wouldn’t make a big deal about the mask.
“Yeah, I got your message that you wanted some time to yourself, but apparently, you never got mine. I’m being dogged by the press and didn’t know where to hide out. So, I came here.”
“The press?” she asked, confused.
“Yeah, look outside.”
Sure enough, when she looked down, she saw them milling on the sidewalk, apparently unable to get past her doorman. If she was still there at the holidays, that man just earned himself one lovely Christmas bonus.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he began, but his cheeks flushed. “Not much of anything,” he amended.
She looked at Buffy by his side and asked the dog, “Did you see what he did?”
The dog didn’t answer, either.
Foster strode to her couch and sat as if he owned the place and had every right in the world. He’d closed the door before he entered, though, so she moved to it to turn the lock. Evidently, Foster was sticking around. Since she couldn’t do anything about it with a mask on, she simply accepted his presence.
She started to smile to herself—Sexy man in my apartment? Oh, however can we pass the time?—but the mask stopped her when it crinkled a little. Ugh, it was uncomfortable now that she’d realized it dried. She should’ve stuck with a mud mask from the drug store.
“If you’ll excuse me for a minute, I’ll go take this off and be right back. You can think of how to explain what you did to attract their attention while I’m gone,” she said, trying to sound flippant.
But once she got to the full-length mirror in the bathroom, she cringed. Yeah, nothing said sexy like pink and purple flannel pajama pants topped with a gray tank top that had a hole just under her left tit. If the outfit didn’t mark her as unfuckable, the fact that she wore a crusty black mask that pulled her skin taut under her hair… Good god, my hair.
It was a mess. Her usually untamed mane of waves was pulled into a glob on top of her head that looked a lot like a bird’s nest and nothing like the sexy messy look so many models accomplished online. The only way she could look less attractive would have been if she had…
Oh, yeah, look there. A little spaghetti sauce stain on the right breast. Complete unfuckability achieved.
She had to get the mask off before she tried to fix anything else.
The video she found online said to pull from the bottom upward, so she made a circuit around her chin, trying to loosen the glue. She realized something really quickly.
While her face might look smooth, there were tiny hairs all over it. So tiny, they weren’t visible, even.
But when stuck in dried white glue, they suddenly seemed to be attached to every nerve in her face. Her eyes teared, and she’d only managed to clear the very bottom couple centimeters of her cheeks and her chin.
“Ow,” she moaned.
“You okay in there?” Foster called.
She had a sexy bazillionaire on her couch, and she was in the bathroom, dying because of a face mask gone wrong.
“I’m great!” she lied.
When she tried to peel past her lips, she let out a pained sob. Dear sweet baby Jesus, there were hairs around her mouth, too. And they were even more sensitive.
Foster knocked at the door, and she cringed away from it, using a piece of toilet paper to mop at her tearing eyes and suddenly runny nose. Doing so only spread the moisture, making the glue around there become stickier and messier. Oh, regrets. She’d gotten it in her eyebrows, too. That was going to hurt. Maybe if she just moved up her cheek to the temple?
Another sob broke free when she got it off as far as the hairs on the side of her head that she’d accidentally caught in the mask.
“I’m coming in,” said Foster.
“No!” she managed, putting her foot out to try to stop the door from opening. But it was a feeble attempt, and he opened the door anyway.
Okay, she was crying. And covered in glue. And it wouldn’t come off. And she had a hole under her boob and food on her shirt. More tears erupted, and she tried to catch them before they got glued.
“Is it stuck?” he asked gesturing to her face. Buffy peered around his leg and whined softly.
“Go lay down,” Foster commanded the dog. “Is this a normal part of your beauty regime?”
“No,” she moaned pitifully. “It was an experiment.”
“What is it made of?” he asked, crinkling the bottom edge where it stuck out from her cheek. Where she’d managed to remove the mask, her skin was soft…but dotted with black residue left behind by the mask. She was a mess.
“Glue,” she answered. “And activated charcoal. Also, a little peppermint oil, to make it tingle?”
“You put glue on your face?” He looked amused.
“Shut up!” she yelped, trying to pull at the mask again but stopping because, dammit, it hurt.
“Can you just wash it off?” he asked.
“No,” she mumbled, trying again and unable to peel it off because of the pain. “I would get more glue in my hair or on my eyelashes, and I do not want to pull out my eyelashes.”
The last came out more of a sobbing whine, but, hell, it was over. If he’d been attracted to her before, he couldn’t possibly remain so after seeing her like that.
“Let me help,” he offered, reaching out to take the bottom part of one cheek in his hand.
She captured his wrist. “I’ll hate you. For life,” she promised. “If you pull this thing off, I’ll hate you so hard, your grandchildren will feel my wrath.”
He nodded, but didn’t let go. “One,” he said. She sucked in a breath, and he yanked.
The whole thing came off in one great pull, and for a second, she saw stars. Then red. Everything bled to red and the pain was unbelievable. She smacked him right in the face before she thought better of it. “Fuck, shit, goddamn it, mother trucking bastard whore! You didn’t wait until three!”
“You would have expected that.” His eyebrow went up, and he asked softly, “Better?”
She sniffled. “Yes.” It was off, at least, and she considered her reflection in the mirror. She still had her eyebrows. And her eyelashes. So, that was good. She was pretty sure she lost a nose hair in the experience—she didn’t even realize she had nose hairs until that damn thing came off.
He was dampening a wash cloth and then he began to rub at the flecks of black left behind by the charcoal mask. Once he’d cleaned the remains off, he dropped the cloth over her upturned face and asked again, “Better now?”
She sniffled. “Lots, thank you.” The cloth felt wonderful.
“Natalie?” he said, softly. She peeked at him from under the cloth to see him smiling. “Do not put glue on your face.”