With each outfit change, Jessica’s confidence grew, her hips swinging, her eyes glowing with a soft luster as she began to unveil who she really was, certainly to him, but also to herself. By the time she tried on the last outfit, she was reveling in her femininity, enjoying the effect it was having on him.
He couldn’t believe he was disappointed when Meredith opened the change room door, and announced, “Last one.”
Jessica emerged in a dress that was light blue, a confection of gauze and spiderwebs. The dress clung in all the right places, and it made her seem mysterious and alluring.
“I certainly don’t need the cocktail dress. I don’t even know why I tried it on.”
But the expression on her face belied the words she had just spoken. She loved that dress.
“You’re in New York City!” Meredith said. “Surely you’re going to go out for a gorgeous dinner at Le Bernardin and take in a Broadway show.”
Jessica cast him an uncertain look. “I don’t think there’s anything like that on the agenda, is there?”
Jamie could hear the wistfulness in her tone, and just like that, Le Bernardin and a Broadway show was on the agenda. He was being bewitched!
He had to stop it, though. He’d turn her over to an assistant for the rest of the day. Get his head on straight—and the boundaries back in place—before he took her out for dinner and a show.
Jessica cast a glance at herself in the bank of mirrors. “It’s going to be impossible to decide what to take. Not this, obviously.”
“That one, especially. You should take it all,” he said.
“I couldn’t possibly. You think this one? Really?”
“Absolutely that one,” he said.
“I guess find me the price on this one,” Jessica said. “And the white-and-red sundress. I’ll figure out from there if I can afford anything else.”
“Let me figure out what it would cost if you took it all,” Meredith said smoothly, “and if you can’t handle it, we’ll start editing.”
“But—”
Meredith swept up all the clothes and left them.
“I feel like Cinderella,” Jessica said, sinking into the chair beside him. The dress hitched up on a slender leg. He tried not to look. Failing in that, he tried not to be obvious about looking.
“But it’s just about midnight. The glass slipper falls off, and I see what it all costs. I probably can’t even afford one thing from here.”
He looked at his watch so she wouldn’t see the pleasure in his eyes that he was going to play a part in her fairy tale.
Not the prince part, of course. Though something about seeing her in all those clothes could tempt any man to play that role, even one as cynical about fairy tales as him.
Meredith came back. She held out a piece of paper to Jessica.
Jessica took it, looked at it, and blinked. “Oh,” she said. “It’s so much less than I expected. Still, I don’t need two skirts. So, I should probably take out the pencil-line one and keep the navy pants.”
Meredith snatched the paper back from her. “I forgot to add Sarah’s preferred customer discount.”
Jessica took back the paper with the adjusted price. Her mouth fell open with shocked surprise.
“All right,” she cried, beaming, “I’ll take it all!”
As Meredith handled the transaction—giving the one bill to Jessica and putting the real amount on Jamie’s credit card, Jamie realized this was probably the most duplicitous thing he had ever done. But Jessica was absolutely radiant.
“I’ll pay you back, of course. The insurance representative said I’ll have some money by this afternoon.”
How could something feel both so very wrong and so very right at the same time?
When they left the store, Jessica was wearing the brand-new sundress. Jamie couldn’t help but notice that, in a city where no one paid any attention to anyone else, Jessica was receiving subtle—and deeply appreciative glances—from the men of New York.
A man on a construction site whistled at her. Jamie threw him a warning glance, and then noticed Jessica was blushing as though she had been propositioned.
How could he turn her over to an assistant when it was so complicated? Jessica now looked like a sophisticated woman of the world. But she was the furthest thing from that. He couldn’t just cast her out on her own. A still small voice, somewhere in the region of his heart, whispered to him, Admit it, pal, you don’t want to.
CHAPTER SIX
WALKING DOWN FIFTH AVENUE, with Jamie beside her, his arms laden with the parcels he had refused to let her carry, Jessica felt amazing. Like a sleeping princess who had been brought to life.
Not with a kiss, of course, though the thought made her take a quick look at the sensuous turn of his mouth and realize that kissing Jamie Gilbert-Cooper was not as impossible as it had seemed just this morning. Their worlds were intersecting.
The funny thing about the impromptu makeover, her astonishing new look and awesome new wardrobe was that she hadn’t felt out of her element.
As Meredith had expertly applied that makeup—making Jessica’s eyes look huge and dark, her cheekbones look amazing, her mouth look sensuous and faintly sultry—Jessica had not felt like Cinderella, dressing up as someone she was not. She had felt more like duckling to swan.
With each stroke of Meredith’s hand on the makeup brush, and with each outfit she had tried on, something about herself, that had always been there, was being revealed. When she had stood before Jamie in that final outfit, the cocktail dress, Jessica had felt as though she had become who she really was.
At that time she hadn’t known what that dress was worth—still didn’t know the prices of individual items for that matter—but the look on his face had made her decide it was worth its weight in gold.
“So,” Jamie suggested, as they exited Hennessey’s, “let’s
