Huge Deal - Lauren Layne Page 0,11

the eyeliner, the haircut, or a wardrobe refresh.

But Kate already knew all of that. Of course she didn’t need any of that. Of course she wasn’t lesser just because she wasn’t glamorous. Kate knew who she was, and she liked who she was, even if Kennedy Freaking Dawson had dismissed her as hardly irresistible.

Not to him, maybe. But one day Kate would meet a guy who did find her irresistible, just as she was.

Regardless, that wasn’t why Kate was doing any of this. Today’s shopping and salon escapade wasn’t about men. It was about Kate and the fact that she was itching for a change. It was the same itch she’d gotten a few years earlier. She’d scratched it then by going to business school, financed by a very generous Ian.

Kate had gotten her MBA, which resulted in a title upgrade from administrative assistant to office administrator, as well as the corresponding pay increase. But more important, she’d felt like a new, changed woman.

It hadn’t occurred to her that the luster of getting her MBA could ever dull, but here she was again with that same itch. And though a haircut was a poor comparison to a master’s degree, her gut told her a fresh look was exactly what she needed. As a starting point, anyway.

She met the stylist’s gaze in the mirror. “Can you just make it . . . better?”

Brianna grinned. “How short are you willing to go?”

“Eh, don’t go crazy,” Kate said. “I had a very ill-advised pixie cut once. Let’s just say I do not have the bone structure to pull that off.”

“Oh, I think you do,” Brianna mused, lifting Kate’s hair away from her face and studying her. “But don’t worry, I think we can keep it long and still remove some of the weight. You also booked a color. What are you thinking there?”

“I’m thinking that I want to stay a brunette, but I’d love if my hair was something other than Hershey’s-bar brown. Especially since it’s not even the Hershey’s Special Dark variety of chocolate,” she said grumpily, glaring at her hair. “It’s like the milk chocolate kind you put on s’mores, because it’s too boring on its own.”

Brianna patted her shoulder. “Trust me. I know exactly what you want. I’m going to go mix some color. Can I get you a magazine?”

“Yes please,” Kate said. “Maybe something with a beauty section and makeup tips?”

If she was going to freshen up her look . . . might as well go all the way.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so glad you called,” Sabrina said, plucking a lipstick tube off the counter, winding it up to study the color, then winding it back down again when she saw it was a violent orange shade. “Nobody knows their way around this city’s cosmetic counters like I do.”

“You know you can buy all of this stuff online. Free shipping,” Lara said, tapping her nail against a foundation bottle.

“Which normally I’d do,” Kate said, giving an overwhelmed glance around the cosmetics department. “But I confess, with this stuff, I don’t know where to start.”

Yes, she’d ended up calling her friends after all. She’d managed just fine on the hair front. Thanks to Brianna’s skill, Kate felt like a whole new woman. Somehow the stylist had managed to leave Kate with her trademark long locks, but her hair was shinier, straighter, and seemed to move with Kate instead of just sort of hanging there. The color, too, was exactly what she’d wanted. There was no crazy change, no too-light streaks, just a little bit of something to make Kate’s natural color look richer.

But then Kate had hit up the cushy department store for stage two of her mini makeover, with the intent of splurging on high-end lipstick, because . . . how hard could that be?

Hard, apparently.

Normally, Kate walked into Sephora and picked up the same beige-pink lipstick she’d been wearing since her very first post-college interview. The brown liner that she sometimes wore, sometimes forgot, was drugstore variety and suited her just fine—when she could remember it.

Today, though, she’d wanted something different, wanted to change it up.

Turns out, too much selection was not always a good thing, and she had found herself overwhelmed by all of the options.

“Okay, what are we thinking?” Sabrina said, surveying the dozens of counters. “Something to go with the new hair, obviously.”

“Which I can’t get over,” Lara said reverently. “How do you get it to swing like that?”

“Money,” Kate said, trying not to think