I look down at the dress in my hands, which is covered in a bag reading Gucci. Closing the front door, I take it to my couch and lay it down, unzipping the bag. At first, I’m shocked. I’ve seen this dress online—it’s part of what I do, hunt for outfits and what is popular. This dress is one of the popular ones, and it was one of the first to come up in my search. This dress is also over four thousand dollars.
Holding it up in front of me, I admire the beautiful garment. It has slim shoulder straps. One side is gold and falls just to the knee, while the other side is black and sits higher on the upper thigh. It has rumpled fabric where the gold and black meet in the midsection.
Placing the dress back down, I shake my head and step away from it. He would have rented it. High-end clothing stores do that now, let you hire expensive dresses for a night so you can show off, then return them the next day. Our boss has been looking at doing something similar.
Grabbing my purse, I look back one more time at the dress.
Who is this man?
And what am I expected to do tonight that requires me to wear a dress that costs so much?
I’m late. Dammit! I can’t help it because work ran over. Our computer system crashed, which left us manually entering orders and hoping and praying we have the stock to cover it.
Arriving at my house at quarter to six, there’s a limousine sitting out the front. Grabbing my bag out of the car, I run past it and up the few stairs until I reach my front door.
“Theadora.” He inflects the last part of my name, making me feel like a naughty schoolgirl. “My assistant would have told you I hate tardiness. Yet, here you are, not even dressed.” I turn at the sound of his voice and see him standing at the limousine door, holding it open with one arm. He’s dressed in a black suit, and instead of a white undershirt, it’s black. It makes his amber eyes appear even darker.
“I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes,” I tell him.
He looks to his watch and frowns.
I don’t waste any more time as I run inside and start tearing off my clothes and going straight to that dress. It’s already laid out on my couch, so once I am naked, I slide it on over my body. A dress like this, that’s body-hugging and fits perfectly, does not require me to wear a bra, which might show straps, or even underwear, which will show lines. No, this dress requires nothing but a pair of heels. I borrowed a pair from work that are gold, matching the color of half of the dress. Untying my hair, I let it fall and twist half of it into a loose bun, pulling strands around my face to give it a waterfall effect before I switch to a black bag and walk toward the door. When I open it exactly fifteen minutes later, right at six o’clock, he looks up at me in surprise, as if he wasn’t expecting me to be ready.
“Will you give me your name now? Or what shall I call you at this event?”
“You aren’t at this event to impress me. I want you to make my guys spend.” He holds open the limousine door, waving a hand impatiently for me to get in. When he slides in, he glowers, and I wonder what on earth has him so angry at me now. I am on time, just like he asked me to be.
“So, you’re like my pimp? You dress me and tell me what guys I should talk to?” I ask while screwing up my face.
As the limousine takes off, his hands come to his lap, and I watch as he screws them up in balls clenched so hard that they are turning red then white.
“It’s best you stay quiet,” he says, looking out the window.
What the hell ever! I huff and reach for my cell and lipstick. It’s the only thing I didn’t have time to apply. Turning on my camera so I can see, I apply it, turning my pale pink lips more of a blush color. Wiping the edges, I put both my cell and lipstick away, and when I do, I feel his gaze hard on me.
He asked me not to speak, so not speaking is what I will be doing.
My cell dings, and I smile at my co-worker’s message. It’s a picture of her eyes wide and a big fat smile on her face, with a caption that reads, ‘Computers are working again.’
Typing back a smiley face, I send her a selfie along with a thumbs up. Hitting send, I turn to see amber eyes trained on me. Remembering he doesn’t want me to speak, I raise an eyebrow at him.