“No! I don’t. I just didn’t know there was such a thing as a Spirit Guide.”
“Yes. I have a Spirit Guide, and she told me you needed help. Do you know how messed up you were when we started? Your one, two, four and five chakras were completely blocked.” “Are they still blocked?”
“Nope. I fixed that. Frankly, I’m a miracle worker.” She put away some massage oils that were sitting on the counter beside the sink. Her long, blond hair, tied back in a ponytail, swung from side to side. “You resisted at first. You’ve been a challenge, Turko, but I think you’re finally seeing clearly.”
“Just what exactly am I seeing clearly?”
He saw the change in her eyes, from calm healer to mischievous meddler. “How’s your sex life?”
“What does that have to do with this?” By the expression on her face, Aleks knew she demanded an answer, and he sighed in resignation. “You never were one to hold back.”
“So...”
“My sex life is fine.”
“Fine? Aleks Turko doesn’t have just a fine sex life.”
“Lately, it’s just fine.” Aleks felt a little off his game. Uninterested. His quantity of women
had taken a significant hit. All because of the weird thoughts that kept shifting his focus. “I’ve been feeling...”
“What?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
“Come on, you can tell me,” Amie coaxed.
“I feel very aware of certain things. Things I’ve never thought before.” Like wanting to have sex with Carrie. Like wanting to have a life with Carrie. “I feel like I’ve been reprogrammed.” Saying the words out loud felt good, as if acknowledging his thoughts made him seem less crazy, but it also made Aleks realize a very important fact. “These things I’m thinking, those would be your doing. You put them there.”
“You make it sound like I’m some alien probing your brain.” Amie jumped up on the table beside him. “Look Aleks, Reiki can be a powerful thing, and if you’re open to it, it can help you figure out exactly who you are and what you want.”
Aleks laid back on the table and rubbed his hands up and down his face. “That’s what I was afraid you were going to say.”
Chapter 4
Carrie pranced down the basement stairs. As she made her way to the spare room she used as a sewing area, she silently thanked the lingerie gods that Aleks was out of the house. She passed by the lone bedroom and shuddered. Even though the space was occupied by Aleks, it would forever be tainted with the image of her brother and Martina going at it.
She entered the neutral-colored space. Her sewing machine sat atop an oak desk on the left. Plastic containers lined the other wall with needles and thread and patterns. A makeshift fabric rack housing bolts of satin spandex and lace sat against the far wall. It was tiny, but it was her sanctuary.
Working at Satin & Lace since she was a teenager had given Carrie the inside scoop into the industry and the customers. She had come to appreciate her options when it came to designing her own line and had decided to stray from the norm, offering a wider range of sizes and alternative designs to accommodate all types of women.
It made her cringe watching the defeated look on a woman’s face as she scrutinized herself in the changing room mirror. She knew exactly what they were thinking–these stockings cut into my thighs, this elastic gives me too much muffin top. Carrie knew the feeling. Never being a size zero in her life, she struggled with her own self image. Until the moment she put on her first piece of lingerie. She thought it funny how an item made of so little fabric could make her so comfortable in her own skin. Carrie was a normal, healthy twenty-something woman who liked her curves and embraced the meat that stuck to her bones. With the opportunity to carve out her own legacy in the lingerie business, she vowed to never see that defeated face again.
Carrie configured her own type of stocking–a stocking that had extra wide lace at the top and sat a little higher on the thigh. Those two simple changes made a dramatic difference in how the extra padding on the leg was distributed. The decision to custom design pieces also worked to a woman’s advantage because having lingerie perfectly altered to fit their body seriously decreased the possibility of unwanted bulges and bumps.
Carrie wanted to specialize in designing and fitting brides for their wedding night lingerie. Which made the National Bridal Show the best showcase for her talent. The selection of bridal lingerie was so generic, and stores would pass anything off in the color white as wedding suitable. But every bride was unique. They got to choose every detail for the wedding from flowers to music–why not include lingerie? Carrie had already fitted and designed for over twenty brides in the Toronto area. She hoped in the future that she would have one bride scheduled for every week of the year.
She still couldn’t believe that Satin & Lace was all hers. That she was the owner. Not that the circumstances were the best. Violet, her boss and the original owner, had promoted Carrie to manager when her husband got sick. For two years he’d battled cancer and Violet left the store in Carrie’s hands. Late last year, after her husband’s passing, Violet sold the store to Carrie for an excellent price. She couldn’t turn it down. Built-in customer base, prime location, and a chance for her to design and showcase her own work.
Carrie was on her hands and knees searching through a container when the light above dimmed. A shadow cast over the room, and the delicious scent of tomato sauce and even more delicious man filled the small space. Aleks.
“Hey, Care. I’m glad you’re home.”
She turned her body around and saw him standing in the doorway. He wore a ripped gray t- shirt with a faded logo. He had a pizza, a movie and a six-pack–of beer, not his abs.
“I have all your favorites. I thought we could have a night in.”
The bottom of his t-shirt was caught between the six-pack and his body, revealing the dark line of hair that trailed