The Best Friend Scandal - Lucia Jordan Page 0,62

hide the scene, and I stood in front of the store and looked at it.

The perfect fantasy scene stood before me, one just for Hensley. There was a completely realistic woodland backdrop, made from real foliage and trees that I had brought in in temporary planters hidden with moss and roots at the base to make it look authentic. The lights strung at the ceiling were hidden behind the branches to make it seem like starlight shining through the trees' canopy. Even in the daytime, the lighting looked magical. I added something special in this display—a single chair. It was a throne made out of branches that had been woven together and dusted with speckled mushroom caps that looked like they were growing up around the base of it. That would be where Hensley sat for what she believed was a photoshoot for the launch.

I stood outside in awe for a few moments, soaking in the energy of the anticipatory moment before it happened. Commuters were walking by and stopping to gawk at the beautiful scene with me. Just wait until they saw what was coming.

“You ready?” Meg asked as she stepped outside to join me for a moment.

“Definitely,” I smiled.

“Good,” she said. “Because I think that’s your princess coming up now.”

I turned to see that Meg was right. Hensley was walking down the sidewalk toward us. She looked so beautiful that my breath caught in my throat. She had put a jacket over the top of the dress, which hid most of the naughty bits that would be revealed beneath the translucent fabric. But she was still a sight to see, and just as expected, she was turning every eye that caught a glimpse of her.

“Hey,” I said as I reached out to hold her once she got close enough and kissed her softly on the lips.

She smiled as if she hadn’t expected me to do that right here out in front of everyone on the street. Or maybe she was still worried and doubting my feelings for her since I never did respond to what she had said. It didn’t matter because all those doubts were soon going to be put to rest.

“Wow, you look stunning,” I said.

Even in the street setting, even with a jacket over the dress, she looked incredible. She had even done up her hair and makeup to be in a fantasy style since she thought this was an actual marketing photoshoot. Her hair was twirled up into braided heaps on her head, studded with leaves and glittery rhinestones that looked like there was a galaxy entangled up in her braids. Her makeup was shimmering, and the long, curled cat-eyes drawn on with eyeliner made her look as if she belonged more to a fairy kingdom than a kingdom on earth.

“I thought that I would play it up a bit,” she laughed. “Since it would probably be my first and last actual photoshoot.”

“You look incredible. There aren’t words in any language that I know that could adequately describe how lovely you are.”

She blushed as we walked inside so she could get into place inside the window display. She took off her jacket and stepped up onto the raised platform inside the window.

“This is amazing!” she said. “Your design team did this?”

“Actually,” I replied, “only I did.”

She looked at me in shock. I mean, I was a designer, too, but she hadn’t really seen too many of my creations lately because I had been mostly working on my company's business end. I couldn’t blame her for being surprised that I was actually quite good at it.

“This is absolutely astonishing,” she said. “You did a great job.”

“Thanks,” I smiled as my nerves started to crawl a bit and my heart started to jump around inside of my chest.

“Where do you want me?” she asked.

Passerby started to stop and stare into the window when they saw such a beautiful “model” in the store display, looking as if she had just stepped out of a fantasy book and was displaced inside the real world for just long enough for them to witness.

“Uh, just a sec,” I said as I tried to stall in order to calm my nerves. “Let me talk to the photographer. I’ll be right back.”

I stepped outside the store to catch a breath of fresh air and gather my thoughts. What if this didn’t go the way I hoped? I had to push that thought from my mind; it would go perfectly. I looked up