* * *
She didn’t have to come back for her haircut. Pablo took care of her right then and there.
The moment he’d started talking about her inner beauty and her confidence, she knew she’d made the right decision to go there. She gave him carte blanche and told him to go for it.
She ran her hand over her new hair as the car took her home. It was sleek, but bouncy, shaped and then blow-dried into a short bob. Pablo had explained to her that they’d grow her hair out a little, but this style was what they’d keep for a while because it framed her eyes so wonderfully.
She looked at herself in the reflection of the car window, touching her face. She had cheekbones for the first time in decades.
The car dropped her off at home. It wasn’t very late, but because of winter it was dark. She turned on the lights but it didn’t warm the house up at all. She looked around with a frown.
She loved this house. She and her husband had bought it when they’d first gotten married. They had a baby here and lots of good times. He’d died here, and she’d nursed Rachel through her divorce here.Lifehad happened here.
But as she looked around, she realized life hadn’t been happening here in a long time—definitely not after Rachel and Jamie had made their own home. The only thing that would happen was that she would eventually die here.
She snorted. She was going to die sometime, but it didn’t have to be alone in a big, dark house with plumbing that was touchy.
And she certainly wasn’t going to sit in here tonight with her new hair and dress. She rebuttoned her coat, picked up her purse, and headed to Clancy’s. She’d have a happy hour drink after work, like working women sometimes did.
On her walk to the bar, she thought about Danny again. Today had not gone as well as she would have liked. She supposed she shouldn’t think that she would have the answer to every problem right off, and she knew she was putting unnecessary pressure on herself.
It was just that she cared about him. He’d put his trust in her, and she didn’t want to let him down.
This was not how a woman who’d launched Operation: EMPOWER would act.
She straightened her spine as she marched down the block. So she wouldn’t let him down. She had this. And like Jamie said, if she needed help, she had them to call on.
And—heck—maybe it was time to be direct with Otto and just ask him out. She was ready, she told herself as she sighted the glowing sign over Clancy’s. There was no reason to wait any longer. She certainly wasn’t getting any younger.
And she looked good today. Besides her new hair (thank you, Pablo) she’d worn one of her new dresses—a ruby wraparound dress that showed a lot of cleavage. When she’d tried it on in the store, she’d had a moment of doubt because it was so different than what she normally wore, which meant it was elegant and stylish as opposed to dowdy.
But Didier had assured her that she could carry it off, and—truthfully—she felt powerful in it. She felt like a woman.
It’d been a really long time since she’d felt like a woman.
Armed and ready, she marched up to Clancy’s entrance and pushed open the door.
Her gaze immediately went down to the end of the bar, where Otto always sat, drawing in his notebook.
She stopped in her tracks. He wasn’t there.
He wasalwayshere. She threw her hands in the air. “Well, if that don’t beat all.”
“You okay, Lottie?” Chris asked from behind the bar, his brow raised, looking at her like she was missing some marbles.
“You insinuating that I’m crazy?”
“Crazy? Never. Trouble? Definitely,” he said with a wink as she approached the bar.
She harrumphed as she set her bag on the counter, but secretly she liked being called trouble. It made her feel edgy.
He put away the glass he’d been polishing and picked up a wineglass. “Red?”
“You know how to make a chocolate martini?” she asked, pulling out a stool on Otto’s usual end of the bar.
Chris raised his brow. “Since when do you drink chocolate martinis?”
“It’s a new world, sweetheart.” She undid her coat and hung it on the back of the stool next to her.