“Now.” He caps the tube and steps aside. “Look.”
He angles a mirror toward me.
The woman staring back is a stranger.
Her eyes are enormous—deep, luminous brown framed by dark lashes. Her cheekbones catch a warm glow. Her mouth is full and soft, rose-petal pink.
She is beautiful.
I have never before felt beautiful. I have felt dirty, sinful, a vessel of temptation. Not beautiful. Never beautiful.
My vision blurs.
“Oh, no no no.” Nicholas crouches beside me, his hands hovering near my shoulders. “No tears. I used waterproof mascara, but there are limits.” His voice is gentle beneath the humor. “Prudence. Listen to me. Everything I put on your face—it’s not creating anything new. It’s just pointing at what was already there.”
I press my knuckles against my mouth and breathe until the sting fades.
“Now then.” He rises and claps his hands. “Ronan mentioned a party tonight. Which means we need?—”
“The sunset dress,” I tell him.
“The sunset dress.”
He returns to the closet and selects the dress that shifts between coral and burnt orange depending on how it catches the light. He pairs it with brown ankle boots that have a low, sturdy heel, and gold earrings that dangle in delicate drops.
I don all the chosen garments.
Nicholas tugs the hem, adjusts the neckline, and steps back to survey his work.
His whole face brightens. He presses both palms flat against his own sternum.
“Ronan O’Rourke is going to swallow his own tongue.” He steers me toward the floor-length mirror. “Go on. Look.”
I do not recognize myself.
My own reflection is still holding me captive when the elevator chimes.
Moments later, Ronan stands in the doorway. He’s wearing a charcoal suit with no tie, the top button of his shirt undone. His hair is pushed back from his face. He looks as polished as the first time I saw him, when he strode across the yard at the Enclave.
He stops.
His mouth opens a fraction. His gaze travels from my boots up the line of the dress to my face, and stays there. He does not blink.
“Oh, he’s broken,” Nicholas murmurs quietly from behind me. “Mission accomplished.”
“You’re stunning.” Ronan’s voice comes out rough, like gravel.
The wordstunninglands in the center of my sternum and radiates outward like a pebble dropped into still water.
“Nicholas did it all,” I manage.
“Nicholas dressed you. The rest is all you,” Nicholas clarifies.
Ronan has not moved from his spot, and his gaze has not left my face.
Nicholas gathers his leather bag, slings it over his shoulder, and pats Ronan on the arm as he passes. I catch the words he murmurs on his way toward the elevator, “You’re welcome, you absolute brute.”
The elevator doors close behind him, and Ronan and I are alone.
