Instead, Faith was fixating on her boyfriend.
Immediately, her heart fell.
He wasn’t her boyfriend. He was a man she had a temporary arrangement with, and she was becoming obsessed. She was becoming preoccupied.
Even so, she wasn’t sure she cared. Because she had never been preoccupied in her life. She had always been focused, on task. Maybe it was her turn to go off the trail for a little while.
Maybe it was okay.
You don’t have to be perfect.
Her mother’s words rang in her ears, even as Faith sat there at her desk. She wasn’t sure what perfect even looked like for her anymore and the realization left her feeling rocked.
Poppy was going to appear in a moment to film the television spot they were sending in, and Faith knew she needed to pull herself together.
She wasn’t sure if she could.
The door cracked open and Poppy came in, a smile on her perfectly made-up face, her figure—and her growing baby bump—highlighted by the adorable retro wiggle dress she was wearing.
Poppy was always immaculate. The only time she had ever seemed frazzled in any regard was when she had been dealing with issues in her relationship with Isaiah. So maybe—maybe—Poppy would be the ally Faith needed.
Or at the very least, maybe she would be the person Faith could confide in. For all that they had married older men with their own issues, Hayley and Mia did not seem like they would be sympathetic to Faith’s situation.
It was all very “do as I say and do”not “do the kind of man that I do.”
“Are you ready?” Poppy asked.
Her skeptical expression said that she thought Faith was not ready. Though, Faith wasn’t sure why Poppy felt that way.
“I was going to say yes,” Faith said slowly. “But you clearly don’t think so.”
Poppy frowned. “You look very pale.”
“Iampale,” Faith said drily.
“Well,” Poppy said, patting her own glowing, decidedlynotpale complexion, “compared to some, yes. But that isn’t what I meant. You need some blush. And lipstick with a color. I don’t support this millennial pink nonsense that makes your lips blend into the rest of your skin.”
“I’mnotwearing lipstick.”
“Well, there’s your problem.”
Poppy opened the drawer where Faith normally kept her makeup, and that was when Faith realized her mistake. The makeup wasn’t there. Because she had taken the bag over to Levi’s.
Poppy narrowed her eyes. “Where is your makeup?”
Faith tapped her fingers on her desk. “Somewhere?”
“Honestly, Faith, I wouldn’t have been suspicious, except that was a dumbass answer.”
“It’s at Levi Tucker’s,” Faith said, deciding right in that moment that bold and brazen was what she would go for.
Everything was muddled inside her in part because she hadn’t been sure if she wanted to go all in here. Cash her chips in on this one, big terrible thing that might be the mistake to end all mistakes.
But she did. She wanted to.
She wanted to go all in on Levi.
That horrible ex-wife of his had done that. She had cashed in all her chips on a moment when she could take his money and have the life she wanted with absolutely no care about what it did to him.
