Wincing, I paused, thoughtful for a moment. “Did she really actually steal the deal from Ames? Can you even do that?”
Throwing away the soaked tissues in a big wood barrel, she grabbed her purse and drove it under her slender arm. “You bet your life, she did. Right out from under his nose. He was all set to have a whole line of makeup with his name on it—the whole shebang. And Mitzy came along with her three-point-two million more followers on YT alone and knocked him right off the train. Pink Leaf Cosmetics is a big deal in our industry. Probably the biggest.”
“But how could they do that if a deal was already in the works? Doesn’t he have people who handle things like that?”
“All’s fair in money and makeup, especially when nothing was signed. She started using their palettes, featuring them hard on her channel, really pouring it on thick. Their sales really spiked because her audience is so gargantuan, and they took the bait like sharks to chum.”
Boy, Mitzy was one crafty cookie. “So, essentially a covert coup?”
She rolled her tanned shoulders. “I guess you could call it that. It was definitely her intention. Pink Leaf doesn’t endorse many people. Maybe one or two gurus a year, if that. They don’t need to—so a coup with them is a real coup. Plus, Mitzi was willing to take less money than Ames, less of the final cut. So a successful YT guru and less money invested…” Susie shrugged again. “You do the math.”
Holy bank account, if Mitzy’s deal was a million dollars, what had Ames’s been?
But was that enough to kill for? It wasn’t as though he was poor. “But if Ames is so rich, does it really matter in the end? He appears to be just fine without fancy endorsements.”
“Listen, every makeup guru wants their own line of makeup. It’s a dream come true to see their name on a lipstick, but first and foremost, Ames is Hell on Earth to work with. What you saw at the table is Ames in a nutshell, and that was only a small taste. He has a really bad reputation as a total diva. He never fails to remind everyone he’s the first male to have ever landed a national commercial for a big makeup line at the ripe old age of eighteen—and he earned it. He’s good at what he does. But the real scoop is, Ames isn’t rich.”
“Well, he does a really good imitation of someone who’s used to getting what they want,” I remarked dryly.
Susie winked, her false eyelash grazing her cheek. “You bet he does, and he would be rich if he didn’t spend it all on toys and big events and stupid yacht parties in an effort to impress people and show off how much money he has being just past his teens. He doesn’t know the first thing about saving for his future because he’s really just a kid with some talent who came into a lot of cash. He’s a case of too much, too soon. He’s pushing bankruptcy, and he needed that deal with Pink Leaf to happen. And that,” she said with a grimace, “is the real tea.”
Okay, so maybe that was enough motive to kill someone, but what about Susie? Mitzy did steal her boyfriend, and while she brushed it off, it had to have stung. Surely, finding out she was pregnant could have set her off.
So I decided to see what her reaction would be if I prodded just a little more. “And you? I know you said Luca was a jerk, but were you mad at Mitzy for stealing him away?”
“Can a man really be stolen if he doesn’t want to be? I mean, yes, I was angry they humiliated me. You bet I was. It was all over the YT. I was also mad because Mitzy and I were once friends…or as friendly as you can be with someone like her. Still, what kind of friend does that to you? But if I’m honest, he wasn’t the love of my life or anything, and I had one foot out the door anyway because he was such a lazy mooch. She did me a favor.”
“And the baby? What will you do?”
Her face fell and her defensive stance, fueled by anger, collapsed. Now, she just looked haunted. “I don’t know. I do know I don’t want Luca to ever know this baby is his. He’d be a terrible father, and I already had one of those, thank you very much. I promised myself I wouldn’t let that happen. Heck, I didn’t even want children…but now…”
“So you’re sure you won’t tell him?”
“I suppose you think I should, right?”
I held up my hands as a symbol of surrender. “I think you should do whatever you want to do, Susie. I’m not judging your choices. You know Luca better than I do, and he doesn’t exactly sound like a fine, upstanding gentleman. ”
“He sure isn’t. He couldn’t put someone else first if he was paid to do it. He’s young, and with that comes self-centered and entitled—at least in his case.”
“You keep saying Ames and Luca are young, and I don’t want to offend you, but you’re pretty young, too, Susie. You make it sound like we should break out your walker and schedule you a colonoscopy.”
Now she smiled, a little Cheshire if I wasn’t mistaken. “Not a lot of people know this, but I’m thirty. A bit older than the mess of them out there with the exception of Alma, who’s twenty-nine and still acts like she’s twelve.”
Thirty? Dang. I needed to start using makeup or whatever it is she was doing because she looked terrific.
“I’d have never guessed.”
“And I’d prefer it doesn’t get out either—or any of what I’ve told you, for that matter. I don’t actively hide
