A Bad Boy is Good to Find - By Jennifer Lewis Page 0,78

didn’t think it looked pretty?

Well, maybe Con would.

“Darling!” Lizzie jumped as Maisie’s voice boomed in her ear. “They’re steaming some wrinkles out of the dress and we’re going to do a fitting on-camera right after breakfast. Isabel Matsuo has outdone herself.” Maisie leaned down and whispered in her ear. “You know I’m almost ready to defect to her myself. What she’s done with the pearl beads is magnificent, the way it drapes—oh!”

Lizzie raised her eyebrows. Whatever! It’s just a dress. Maisie took this stuff so much more seriously than she did.

“Raoul, you are the most talented hairdresser in the Northern Hemisphere. How on earth did you manage to get Lizzie’s poufy frizz to make ringlets?”

Lizzie gritted her teeth.

“Didn’t do a thing, sugar,” said Raoul, without looking at her. “Lizzie’s curl is 100 percent natural. This is what it does when left to its own devices, just as your hair hangs like wet shawl fringe.” He winked at Lizzie, who fought to suppress an explosive chuckle.

Maisie’s icy smile barely covered her teeth. “Well, I must go supervise the placement of the air conditioners.”

“Don’t know why we need ’em with her around here,” whispered Raoul, before she was out of earshot. “Puts a chill in the air wherever she goes. But I guess I shouldn’t talk that way about your cousin.”

“Please do. It’s music to my ears.”

“Here comes Prince Charming.” He smiled. Lizzie’s stomach tightened.

“Hey, guys.” Con wandered over, carrying a plate of food and looking his usual polished self. Lizzie tried to ignore the rush of warmth she felt at the sight of him.

“Guys?” said Raoul with a flourish of his hand. “Guys? Is that how you talk to your future bride? This is Lizzie Hathaway. Do you want her to think you fell off a turnip truck?”

“’S better than the truth.” Con took a hearty bite of croissant.

“Yeah.” Raoul stopped dusting a layer of fine powder over Lizzie’s face and looked up at Con, suddenly serious. “I heard about yesterday. But don’t you sweat it, sweetheart,” he said. Con chewed his croissant casually as if a man called him sweetheart every day. “What happened back then was none of your doing.”

“Amen to that,” said Con. “And no one’s going to be sweating around here once those things get fired up.” He gestured to the blue monsters being wheeled into position and took another big bite of croissant.

Did nothing bother him? Maybe he really did have no feelings? Lizzie took a deep breath to combat tightness in her chest.

She had far too many feelings for Con this morning and anger and resentment weren’t even among them. She bit her lip.

“No biting. Save that for later.” Raoul rolled his eyes toward Con. Lizzie forced a smile.

She wasn’t falling for him again. Really, she wasn’t! She just felt sorry for him. Simple compassion, that’s all. And strong sexual attraction. Just normal girl stuff, nothing along the lines of eternal love and all that crap.

It was a little disturbing she could only sleep with him in her bed, like a toddler with a smelly stuffed animal it can’t let go of, but that was hardly the stuff of great romance.

“Lizzie, darling, we need you!” Maisie’s distant voice startled her out of her rather panicked ruminations. “The dress is ready.”

“Coming.”

“I haven’t done your eyes yet,” protested Raoul.

“I’ll sport the natural look for now.” She rose out of her chair, relieved not to worry about mascara and liner streaking her cheeks for once.

“Later,” she said to Con, trying to sound cool and casual.

Con just nodded, but the look he gave her—dark, wary and brimming with unspoken words—made her breath stick right at the bottom of her lungs.

“It looks a little tight.” Maisie—who else?—loudly voiced the words on everyone’s mind.

Gia struggled to get the zipper up. It was stuck right above her waist. A seed pearl popped off the front and rolled to the floor.

Lizzie gritted her teeth and sucked in harder. Lights, set up around the elegant sitting room they’d commandeered as a dressing room, beat down on her like sun on the Sahara. Dino winced behind the tripod-mounted camera blocking the Adams fireplace. The dress weighed a ton, and was all she could do to keep her shoulders steady.

“Is there any room to let the seams out?” Maisie asked the seamstress who’d accompanied the dress to Louisiana. The tiny Japanese woman looked at her blankly. She didn’t seem to understand a single word of English.

“The seams,” shouted Maisie, with a forced smile, as if the