A shiver went down my spine.Why couldn’t he just call me what everybody else did?“What did you just call me?”
“Maggie. You said you didn’t like to be called Magnolia.”
I grabbed his hands and moved them off me before I turned to face him. “I don’t like Maggie any more than I like Magnolia. Call me Mags,please.”
His shoulders slumped as he cast his eyes down in a mournful gaze. He’d looked like a kicked puppy, and it sent a pang of guilt through me. “Mags it is then.”
I scratched my arm. “I’m not trying to be a bitch, Declan. I just need some space, okay?”
He shook his head as a knock came from the door. “That must be Evelyn. I’ll leave you to it.” He sulked out of the room, letting Eve inside as he did.
She watched him walk past her and caught the door. “What happened there?” she asked, strutting into the room with a pink make-up bag.
“He called me Maggie, and I told him I didn’t like it.” I rolled my eyes. “Okay, granted, I’vekindabeen a bitch since he came back from golfing.”
And it had nothing to do with Luca—absolutely nothing. Even if I remembered the electricity that jolted from his touch or how close he got to me.
She shook her head with a small laugh. “Oh, Mags. What’re we going to do with you?”
“Fix my face?”
She cringed. “Okay, yeah. Let’s start there. Damn, that’s bad.” She held her hands out. “Hand over your concealer and foundation.”
I walked back to the bathroom to grab them and handed them over. She stared at them with disdain, her lips curling back. “This won’t help you at all. Why do you even own these?” She tossed them on the bed before opening her bag and pulling out a tube of concealer and a bottle of foundation. “You need intense coverage.”
She motioned for me to sit on the bed, and I did. “Stay still.” She unwrapped a large bandage before placing it over my gash. Thankfully, it was big enough to completely cover the gash without the sticky part getting on it.
“How is that going to help?” I pouted.
“Who’s the beautician here?” She opened the tube of concealer and dotted it on my bruised area with the applicator. She grabbed a makeup sponge and a serum of some kind before she squeezed and a couple of drops fell onto the sponge. She pressed the concealer into my skin with it.
“You are,” I mumbled.
“Hush.” She smirked as she grabbed foundation and blended it all over my face with her sponge.
A couple of minutes later, she made a kissing sound. “Ta-da! Beautiful work, if I do say so myself.”
I made my way to the mirror and gasped. “How the fuck did you do that?” The bandage effectively covered the gash and the skin that was stained with bruising was no longer visible. The only downside was that you could tell there was a bandage from right below my lip to the bottom of my chin but only because of the slight rise. Everything else looked a thousand times better.
“I know, I’m awesome.” She winked.
“Yes, you are!” I spun around and hugged her.
She patted my back. “You might want to change. The hair is fine but you need something else on.”
I glanced down at my lounge attire and shrugged. “True enough.”
I grabbed a wine-colored dress from my bag and changed, throwing on some matching flats. “Better?” I twirled around.
“Yes!” She giggled. “Much better.”
I smiled at her carefree attitude. I’d missed this side of her. It was so rare to see her let loose and be herself. “So, spill. How’d you escape the clutches of Gerald?”
She looks at me like the fire in her eyes had just been doused with ice water. I frowned. It was as if she crawled right back inside some invisible shell and no matter how hard I tried she was unreachable once again, just like she had been for the past year and a half since she started dating my shitty cousin.
“You know what? Forget I said anything. Thank you for fixing my face.” I placed a hand on her shoulder.
She recoiled from my touch but pulled her lips into a smile. “It’s kind of my talent you know? Making people feel pretty.”
