Three steps inside, a properly pretty woman with her hair in a slicked back bun and wearing the spa’s turquoise uniform top greeted us. “Ms. Kaas, Ms. Romanov, right this way.”
Ms. Romanov.I was never going to get used to that.
“Just a moment,” Clementine said as she tugged me to a stop.
The spa lady kept walking until she was farther up the hallway, obviously letting us have some privacy.
“Doyouwant to change your hair back?” Clementine asked me, her eyes focused on mine as she scrutinized every minute micro-expression I didn’t even know I was making.
“I hadn’t thought about it until now. It’s a big change. I should probably think about it.”
Clementine nodded. “Then we’ll just do facials and preparation for the event tonight.”
“Is that okay?”
“Of course!”
And yet, all those pictures of myself on my phone spun through my mind. Scrolling backward as my hair darkened tomy real color felt like I was flying backward in time, back to before Jimmy had sucked me into his orbit.
Back to before Jimmy.
Back to before I had made the monumental mistake that was Jimmy.
Back to when I’d known who I was, or at least back to when I’d been trying to figure out who I was before I’d taken the easy route and become just whatever he and his family and his church had wanted me to be.
I touched Clementine’s slender arm. “Would they have time to dye my hair today? The lawyers are supposed to be at Nicolai’s suite at three o’clock.”
“The more important question is whetherthe spahas time for you. I’ll tell Nico to move that legal appointment until tomorrow.”
The appointment to finalize the post-nup contract, yikes. “Yeah, but it’s kind of important, and I don’t want to cause any trouble.”
But Clementine was already on the move.
“Anong?” she called and strode down the hall to the woman who’d been guiding us. “I was wondering if we could have a consultation with the salon for something more extensive. We’re concerned about time.”
The woman smiled, a dimple creasing her cheek. Her nametag vertically spelled “Anong” in the same thin font as theLazulisign out front. I hadn’t even realized her brooch was a nametag because the stylized modern font looked like bubbles and sticks. “Of course, Ms. Kaas. We’re always pleased to help you.”
“If it’s no trouble,” I clarified. “If you happen to have an opening.”
“For a friend of Ms. Kaas, we willfindan opening,” Anong said. “Just tell us what you’d like done.”
Clementine had connectionseverywhere.
I thanked the woman, maybe a little too profusely, while Clementine grabbed her phone out of her purse. The case was matte silver, like steel but just a little more lustrous. She held it close to her face and spoke rapidly, without any particular emotion. “Nico, delay that meeting with your lawyers until five o’clock or tomorrow. Something more important has come up.”
The spa was a whirlwind of cosmeticians and beauticians and estheticians and stylists and cosmetologists and consultants. I was not so much pampered aspreparedlike the main course at a state dinner.
At five-thirty, the spa spat us out through the main door, where Ueli and a driver were waiting to bustle us into the back of the SUV and speed away into traffic.
Ueli and the new guy, Mordecai, stopped the SUV in front of Billionaire Sanctuary at five forty-five to let us out. Mordecai was one of the few security guys who spoke with an American accent, so I felt like I kind of knew him more, and I knew that was dumb but I did anyway.
I carried an oversized shopping bag rustling with bottles and tubes. Ueli had tried to tell me to leave it in the car, but I hadn’t wanted to bother him with lugging it up to Nicolai’s suite.
As we crossed the desert-scalding sidewalk, I slowed as we approached the smoked glass front door, but Clementine marched right toward it and had to stop short when the isolated, disapproving face rose to the surface of the darkness within to peer at us.
Clementine’s head angled so that she stared right back at him, and she stomped her foot, her delicate leather kitten heel probably melting on the egg-frying sidewalk.
The guy behind the door finally opened it, and Clementine strode through, towing Ueli and me into the sudden blast of air-conditioned chill.
