“So, where are we going today?” Jasper didn’t bother with a greeting as I keyed in the code for the gate, opened it, and then slipped through. I didn’t want my father knowing when I was leaving, or getting a chance to put ideas in Jasper’s head. I needed him on my side, especially with what I had planned for the day.
“You remember the street we were on yesterday?” I replied, a little out of breath from my scuttle down the drive.
“Uh-huh.” He opened the door for me, and I slipped inside, laying my head back against the leather and letting out a small sigh. Freedom. This felt good.
“I need to go back there to pick up a few pieces I got fitted yesterday,” I explained. “Shouldn’t take long.”
“Fair enough.” He pulled away from the mansion and back towards the city, and I watched with some satisfaction as my father’s house retreated off into the distance. I couldn’t remember the last time—before yesterday, obviously—when I’d been allowed to leave this place without one of his goons keeping an eye on me. Jasper wasn’t exactly my BFF, but he was at least my goon. As far as I knew, my father didn’t know anything about him, and they hadn’t worked together before—meaning that as long as I could keep him on my side, we would be all clear.
I looked vacantly out the window for most of the journey—I’d left my cell at home that day, for fear that my father might track it and figure out what my plans were. I’d spent so long making sure that he wouldn’t find out where I was going, and the last thing I wanted was to blow that after all my careful planning. I just had to hope that Jasper’s lust for cash would keep his mouth shut long enough for me to do what I had to do.
“Sleep well?” I asked brightly. I might as well extend some courtesy to this guy, especially after I’d snapped at him yesterday afternoon. It was just down to nerves for today, but he wasn’t to know that—and I could tell by the way he regarded me that he thought I was a spoiled, thoughtless brat.
“Uh, sure,” he replied, obviously a little surprised. He met my gaze in the mirror. “You?”
“Not bad.” I shrugged, but it was a lie. I had spent the night tossing and turning, going over the ways my father would figure out what was going on. I mean, he had eyes everywhere—it felt like on every street corner of this city there was someone who’d happily report back to my dad for a few bucks and the promise of getting on his good side.
“Good, good,” he muttered absently, and we spent the rest of the car ride in silence. I shifted awkwardly in my seat, hoping that our little exchange had been enough to convince him that I wasn’t what he thought I was. I was probably overthinking all of this; he was just here for the money, nothing more, nothing less.
It didn’t take us long to arrive up at the center of town, despite the early-morning commuter’s traffic. I peered into each car we passed, and wondered what it was like to get to go to work whenever they wanted to; yeah, they had to answer to somebody, but unlike me, that person wasn’t waiting for them at the end of every day, demanding to know where they’d been and what they were up to.
There’d been a time when my father had let me out of the house, when I was much younger and he had done a better job at hiding who I was, but it had always ended with him peppering me with questions and demanding to know what was going on with the people I spent time with. Eventually, that became just too exhausting for me, and I gave up going out altogether. I was sure that it was my choice, until I attempted to head out one summer evening when I was twenty-one and my father coolly, calmly told me that I wouldn’t be going anywhere without his guards on me.
We arrived back near the street we’d been on the day before, and I felt a flutter of excitement in my chest. Yeah, I knew it was a cliché, but I loved clothes—my appearance was one of the only things Dad had never tried to control about me, and I took every opportunity to express myself through my hair and my make-up and my clothes. I knew he longed for a demure but womanly daughter, so I took a great deal of pleasure in bleaching out my hair and dressing in the most gorgeously tacky clothes I could find. They made me feel powerful, in control, the way nothing else did.
Jasper came around my side of the car, opened the door for me, and offered me his hand to help me out of the vehicle. I took it, a little surprised, and looked up at him as I got to my feet. The sun was fully risen now, the light still a little watery, and it seemed as though his angular features were outlined in ink against the city backdrop. I found our gazes meeting as I stood up, and I paused for a moment, unable to take my eyes off him. And then, I shook myself, and tossed my hair over one shoulder as dramatically as I could manage.
“Shall we?” I gestured in the direction of the shop, and he nodded. I could have sworn I saw a little smile curling at his lips, though I did my best to ignore it.
Without speaking, he began to make his way down towards the clothing stores, glancing over his shoulder to check on me once in a while. I checked myself out in a shop window as we walked, and straightened out my outfit—I was wearing high-waisted, striped shorts with gold, naval-designed buttons on the front, and a silky white crop top that exposed the tiniest strip of my midriff. I fluffed my hair and hurried to catch up with Jasper, wishing for a moment that I had dressed up a little more professionally for meeting with the snooty designer clothing salespeople. They had a habit on looking down on people like me right up until the moment I pulled my wallet out, and I was hoping that this time it might not come to that. That said, I was keeping hopes pretty low for the time being.
We arrived outside one of the shops-a Lena Redford boutique—and Jasper went to wait outside.
“Come in with me!” I suggested. “I’ll need a second opinion. Besides, you’ll look creepy lurking outside like that.”
A grin flickered on to his face, and he shrugged. “If you want,” he agreed, and held the door open for me as I went inside. I had to admit, it was kind of nice to have a guy treat me like such a lady; I was more used to them tiptoeing around me for fear of pissing off my father.
The shop had only just opened, and the saleswoman looked up from her desk as soon as she heard me come in. She was the same one who’d been on the day before, and it took her a second to recognize me, but as soon as she did, a warm smile burst across her face.
“Ah, Miss D’Orazio,” she greeted me, coming out from behind the desk and extending her hand to me. “Good to see you again. And this must be your husband?”
I snorted without thinking, and looked over at Jasper; his face was straight, and I quickly stifled my giggles.
“Um, yes, my husband.” I decided to play along for the time being. “You asked me to come in for the resizing this morning?”
“Of course, of course.” The woman began to wring her hands nervously, as if she had to break some news she didn’t want to break to me. “It’s just, ah, one thing…”
“What is it?” I felt my stomach twist up into a knot at the tone of her voice. It was one that I’d heard so many times before, mainly from my father, when he had to tell me that things weren’t going to go my way for the hundredth time. I pictured the dress I had seen yesterday—canary yellow with a delicate design across the bodice and thin straps that tied into a bow over my shoulders. I had loved it from the moment I’d laid eyes on it—and I didn’t think I could handle it if something had happened to my gorgeous dress.
“We actually had a client come in yesterday,” she continued, her eyes darting between Jasper and me. “Who fit the dress first time. She was adamant she had to have it, and we tried to get in contact with you this morning, but—”
“I didn’t have my phone,” I muttered to myself, my head falling back with annoyance. Who was it? Who was it who had come here in and fit into that gorgeous dress so perfectly? I had wide hips and a thin waist and a decent-sized ass, so designer stuff rarely fit me off the rack—I never minded paying for a fitting, but for them to just go ahead and flog it to someone else? No, that wouldn’t do at all.
“We’ll have a new cut of the dress in next week,” she went on, her tone smooth and professional. “If you’d like to come in—”
“No, forget it,” I snapped, angrier than I had intended to be. I didn’t want to be that whiny little brat, but I hated when things went out of my control. I hated being made to feel like an idiot. Hated it, hated it, hated it.
“I want to go.” I turned to Jasper. “Can we go now, please?”
“Madam, we want to offer our sincerest—”
“Really, just leave it.” I glared at the woman with annoyance. “I don’t know why I bothered coming into this place. All your clothes are made for little girls, not women. You probably sold that dress to a toddler.”
I saw her face twitch with anger, and I knew I had gone too far. I knew that if she wanted to go off on me, she’d have every right to—it would probably go viral, a rich bitch being put in her place by an overworked salesperson. I would deserve it. But I couldn’t hold back—maybe it was just the panic I’d been feeling over the last twenty-four hours, but I wanted to go off on this woman, I wanted her to know how pissed I was and how little I appreciated her attitude. Our gazes met for a moment, and I could have sworn that she was about to lunge at me and tear my hair out of my skull. I almost wanted her to.
But, instead, she plastered the most insincere smile on her face and nodded to the door.
“Might I suggest you see yourself out, then, before I call security,” she remarked coldly, and I turned on my heel and stormed out into the street.
As soon as the morning air hit me, I realized with horror that tears were pricking my eyes. I furiously dashed them away, ashamed that I was getting upset over something so trivial. I was pathetic—it was just a dress, after all. Even though I knew deep in my heart that it was more than the dress, far more than that.
“Are you okay?” Jasper observed me for a moment, standing a few feet away. I nodded.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” I replied hurriedly. “I think I just need something to eat. Can we get breakfast?”
“Sure.” He nodded, and I saw him roll his eyes as soon as he turned away from me. Of course—to add insult to injury, my little tantrum in there would have done nothing to dissuade this man that I was nothing more than a child who stamped her feet and cried when she didn’t get what she wanted. As the day opened up, the street began to fill with people, and I was glad for the anonymity as the tears burned in my eyes.
We went to a coffee place, and I grabbed a mocha and a pastry while Jasper sat opposite me and stared out the window, pointedly not catching my eyes. I picked at the croissant, but I wasn’t hungry. What had just happened had really thrown me.
I knew it was about control—control, after all, was the one thing that I felt as though I never truly had for myself. My father had always been the one pulling the strings on my life behind the scenes, and as I grew up, the urge to take some control over my own existence grew stronger, more nagging. Every time I saw a bodyguard observing me, or had one of the maids come up and clean my room for me, it shoved its way into my brain again, the reminder that I should be doing all these things myself. I should be able to look after myself as an adult, but every time I tried to convince the help of that, they would stare at me with that nervous expression on their face that told me my father’s rule by far outdid my own. I had everything I wanted, but at the same time, nothing that I truly desired. It was an awful paradox, one that tormented my brain daily.
I crammed the rest of the pastry grumpily into my mouth, and downed the rest of my mocha. I was beginning to feel a little more human now that I had some caffeine in my system, and the events of earlier in the morning were starting to fade away a little bit. I could still remember that woman’s twist of anger, but I found it slightly funny now—she’d surely dealt with worse over the years, but she knew that she couldn’t afford to alienate someone like me. In reality, she’d probably have popped out her perfect pearl earrings, put them on the counter, and gone to town on me if she could. The thought tickled me, and I tapped my acrylics against the cardboard of the coffee cup. Anyway, I was right—the Lena Redford pieces were made for little girls. They didn’t come in anything above a size zero, and I was far from fitting into something that tiny.
I took a deep breath, and glanced at the clock on the wall—it was nearly time, already. I looked over at Jasper, and prayed that he would go along with what I was about to suggest.