My next move is simple. I have to find out everything there is to know about Kate Dawson—and everything she knows about me—before I eliminate her.
CHAPTER 7
KATE
“I’m tellingyou right now, he doesn’t even remember my name. It was like a brief flash of recognition crossed his eyes, and then he just kept on walking into his big-shot office.” I’m speaking loudly, so Mel can hear me over the hair dryer in her hand.
My friend is styling her client’s hair. I’m sitting in the white leather salon chair at the station next to her.
“You have got to be joking. You slept togetherthreenights ago, not three months! He’s faking it.” She shakes her head in disbelief.
The client, a woman in her mid-fifties, is listening to my tragic tale with wide eyes, and she perks up with her Southern twang. “I betcha he don’t remember. Rex used to fall asleep right in the middle of our lovemaking. Used to irritate me to hell. I bet I could cross him in the street today, and he wouldn’t bat an eye. Men don’t even see us as human beings.”
I stare at her, wide-eyed.
Mel pats her shoulder. “Yes, Barbara, Rex was a pigheaded jackass. You’re better off without him.” She looks back up at me. “Did you talk to him at all?”
I shake my head. “Not really. He told the chief of staff to give me the usual PA duties and sent me on my way...aftermentioning the dress code in the handbook. At some point, she told me to see if he wanted more coffee, but he was on the phone, yelling at someone in Chinese or something, so I didn’t even knock.”
My dress rides up as I slump down in the chair. I thought Stephen cheating on me was devastating, but this is somehow even more humiliating. I wish I had a shell like Speckles’s to hide inside.
“Well, you could always find a new job. Maybe there’s something else out there. You did get hired right away,” Mel offers.
I groan dramatically. “I already looked. Nothing comes close to paying as well as BE. I have another payment to make on Dad’s care facility next week, and if I’m going to get into a new place anytime soon, I have to save up for the first and last month’s rent.”
She finishes Barbara’s hair, handing her a mirror to see the back.
“Well, I say, you stick it out. Ooh, you could try tomakehim remember.” She raises her eyebrows suggestively.
“How would I do that when I’m getting his dry cleaning and rescheduling his maid service?”
Barbara approves the haircut, standing up with a grunt from the chair that struggled to support her weight for the past hour. “Honey, best if you move on. Forget aboutallmen in general. They’re as worthless as unsweet tea.”
Mel rolls her eyes behind her back.
“Okay, they’ll get you checked out up front, and you can schedule your next appointment. I hope Teddy gets to feeling better. See you, Barb!” Mel hugs her before she wobbles out.
My best friend flips back around to pin me with a look. “Okay, tomorrow, you need to wear the pink dress you had on that night with a blazer over it.”
“That dress barely covers my ass! I cannot wear it to work.” I can’t believe she would even suggest such a thing.
She rolls her eyes again. “Obviously, you can put stockings on underneath it.”
My well-meaning friend has no idea what the corporate climate is like with stuffy shirts and women’s pantsuits. She’s currently in leather leggings and a black corset because she works at a salon, where the only dress code iswear all black.
Georginne dropped the handbook off at my desk earlier today, but I’ve only glanced through it.
Even if I was willing to risk getting fired for it, I have my doubts about this plan. Would the dress I wore when we met actually jog his memory?
“If he remembered me based on a dress and not my actual face, I would be pissed.”
“Honey, he was probably trashed, and that’s the only reason why he didn’t know it was you.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “He drove like he was pretty sober.”
“Were you sober?” she questions, quirking a brow.
“I was . . . not completely un-sober,” I lie, my voice growing defensive.
