Suddenly, I couldn’t bear it any longer. I wanted to scratch my own eyes out for hatred of their plain, distant gray.
“Go,” Jane urged with a light tap on my back. “Spoil yourself a little. Just take Tony with you—otherwise Eric really will be angry when he gets back.”
I nodded. When I’d fled the apartment, I had been rid of Davis, the Calvin-assigned driver, as well as my assistant, Moira, and anyone else who could have potentially told him more about me. I was content to trade one babysitter for another. For now.
“I’ll be back before the party,” I said, then pushed my purse up my shoulder and left.
Three hours later, I was turned around in the chair at my favorite salon to face myself in the mirror.
“Okay, this color looks amazing.” My stylist, Marco, practically gleamed as he fluttered his hands over my freshly shampooed hair, tucking and petting as he examined his work. “The lowlights will look fabulous once we blow it out. Just that hint of bronze underneath, and your natural color comes to life, my love.”
I smiled grimly in the mirror. “But it will be darker now, right?”
“Not so much that it won’t blend with your natural hair. Just a little more gold and caramel. Much warmer than before. I know you wanted to go full brunette, but with your complexion and eyes, babe, you really would have ended up looking like you rose from the dead.”
Still, as I turned my chin back and forth, examining the way the salon lights reflected off the new shades, I could see he was right. When I’d asked for him to dye it black, Marco had shaken his head and said absolutely not. Blonde I’d always be. But I could still look different.
I nodded. “Point taken. Now, chop it off, please.”
Marco sighed, then, standing behind me, grasped two solid locks of hair on either side of my face and pulled them to my chin. “Really?”
“To here.” I held my hand to my chin, indicating I wanted twelve inches or so gone. “At least.”
“Are you sure? Your long hair, it’s so lovely. Like a pri…”
At my suddenly fierce expression, Marco trailed off. I could tell he wanted to say princess, but didn’t. He had caught my wrath for that particular comment more than once over the years.
“To the chin,” I ordered. “Or else I’ll ask Sara to give me a pixie.”
Marco’s mouth dropped in horror as I gestured to one of the other stylists in the salon whose chair was currently empty. “You wouldn’t! Don’t even joke about such a thing.”
He gathered my wet hair into a ponytail at the base of my neck, pulled it straight, and picked up his scissors. It took only a few moments, but eventually, the tension gave as the blades sliced through the last few strands. Snip, snip.
I smiled genuinely now, enjoying the way the jagged edges of my newly shorn hair bounced around my chin. Gone was the princess, icy or not. In front of me was someone else entirely. I was eager to discover who she was.
It’s not for him, I tried to tell myself as I fingered yet another red dress in the Oscar de la Renta boutique at Bergdorf’s. I wasn’t attracted to the boldest color in the spectrum simply because a certain devastatingly handsome Italian was planning to attend this little soirée. Or the look on said Italian’s face whenever he saw me in this color. No, no connection at all.
I pulled a short red velvet minidress off the rack and held it up against my body while I looked at one of the mirrors mounted on the walls.
Do you ever wear red? Matthew’s deliciously lazy voice echoed through the back of my mind.
“No,” I told it sharply. “And certainly not for you.”
“N?”
I jumped and opened my eyes to find a familiar face peering at me from the other side of a slender white mannequin. “Caitlyn?”
“My God. I thought I heard you talking to someone, but it wasn’t until you turned around that I really recognized you. That hair!”
She scampered around the other side of the mannequin, revealing a wrinkled shopping bag in one hand and her Birkin in the other.
Reflexively, I touched the edges of my hair. “Oh, yes. I, um, just got it cut.” I looked around, suddenly wishing I had taken Tony up on his offer to accompany me up the escalators. Eric’s chief of security was waiting for me by the concierge desk, where he could watch both entrances. “I—Caitlyn, what are you doing here?”
She glanced at her bag, then back at me. “I—well, shopping, I mean, okay, yes, I have to return something. But please don’t tell anyone.” Her words were a quick stumble, and her embarrassment was palpable. “It’s nothing, really, just an absolutely hideous sweater Kyle’s mother bought me for my birthday, and I absolutely hate it. Since when do you buy off the rack, by the way?”
“Oh, well…” I shrank, suddenly even more uncomfortable. “Given the circumstances, I thought I should try to save a bit of money.”
I could hear Matthew’s snort in the back of my mind. Yes, I was aware of the irony of saying that any shopping on Fifth Avenue characterized saving money. But considering the couture I usually wore to events like these cost sometimes ten or twenty times as much as I would pay here, Bergdorf’s was downright frugal. And it wasn’t as though Eric would want me mingling with his business associates in dime store garbage.
“Eric must give you a nice allowance.” Caitlyn’s voice was just slightly tinged with sourness.
I scowled. “I don’t know if that’s any of your business.”
She held up her hands in surrender, and it was then I noticed a few other things that were
