The woman’s smile flickers, but she recovers quickly. “Of course. Daywear? Dresses? Something more casual?”
“Casual,” I say sharply, before Lorenzo can decide I need to be draped in silk and marched around London like a prize.
“Of course.”
I spend the next twenty minutes pretending I’m not acutely aware of him trailing through the store like a shadow I can’t outrun. He doesn’t hover, exactly. He simply remains within sight, hands in his pockets, coffee-dark gaze lifting every time I emerge from behind a rack with another option I’m considering.
It’s infuriating.
Also, impossibly distracting.
Everything I choose has to do two things at once: not cling too closely and not make him suspicious about why I need that. Which means flowy skirts, soft cotton, loose knits, and anything with structure in the wrong places goes straight back on the hanger.
When I reject a fitted cream dress without even taking it off the rack, he says from across the room, “That one would’ve looked good on you.”
I don’t look at him. “Maybe I don’t care.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
I shoot him a glare over my shoulder. “You are a plague.”
His expression doesn’t change. “And yet you still came out with me.”
I mutter something obscene under my breath and follow the saleswoman toward the fitting rooms before I do something stupid, like throw a shoe at his head. A nice, pointy one that probably costs more than my college tuition.
The fitting room is enormous, bigger than some bedrooms I’ve slept in, with soft lighting, a velvet bench, and a mirror that feels determined to show me far more than I want to see.
I shut the door firmly behind me and call out, “You are not coming in here.”
His voice drifts through the wood a second later, maddeningly calm. “I hadn’t planned to.”
“That sounds like a lie.”
A pause. Then, “It sounds like self-control.”
I roll my eyes so hard it almost hurts.
The first few dresses are immediate disasters. Too tight. Too sheer. Too expensive looking in a way that feels less like me and more like something he would choose. By the fourth one, I’m sweaty, irritated, and one bad zipper away from losing my mind.
Then I find the sundress.
It’s soft blue, almost the color of faded sky, with delicate straps and a bodice that skims rather than clings. The waist sits high enough to flatter without trapping me, and the skirt falls loose from there in a graceful sweep that hides more than it reveals.
Relief loosens something deep in my chest.
I pull it on carefully, turning this way and that in the mirror, adjusting the neckline, smoothing the fabric over my hips, making sure nothing shows that shouldn’t. It’s pretty. Feminine. Quietly lovely in a way I haven’t felt in months.
For one dangerous moment, I almost smile at my reflection.
Then there’s a knock.
“Elizabeth.”
I freeze. “What?”
“Open the door.”
“No.”
