in puzzlement. Blake has absolutely everything. Looks, wealth, a beautiful girl on his arm – but I can’t find a single picture with a genuine smile on his face. It all looks forced, manufactured for the camera flash. It makes me feel a little sorry for him. If having everything isn’t enough, how will he ever be happy?
Then I give myself a mental smack upside the head. Why am I wasting good sympathy on a mean, cranky bully who terrorizes his employees and steals cabs and cuts in line and probably-almost-definitely would cheat on his girlfriend with me?
I don’t know, there’s just something inside me whispering that there’s more to him. The genuine smile he beamed at his niece…the lost look on his face in those pictures…or it could just be my hormones talking.
I push back my chair, tuck Blake’s file in my purse, and set out to do some shopping. The jewelry department is located on the third floor. Four suitably scary armed guards stand at attention, two on each side of the glass doors. In their crew cuts and dark suits, they look like bodyguard extras from a heist film.
“Hello, guys!” I sing, and wave my pass at them. They barely move their heads in acknowledgement. Blake probably gives demerits for smiling.
One of them taps some numbers into a keypad, and the doors open with a whoosh. I walk in and stand there for a moment, soaking in the glowing beauty before me.
Hudson’s prides itself on its displays, and this one is a stunner. Three-quarters of the room is a garden theme tableau. Bejeweled mannequins in summer frocks bend over to smell flowers made of more jewels. They hold up ruby-studded birds on their fingers. They sit at small tables in an artificial flower garden sipping from teacups full of sapphires. The air is scented like a summer meadow. Faint strains of classical music drift as if on summer breezes.
This is what I love about Hudson’s – the way their displays dazzle the eye and engage all the senses. It’s an ever-changing series of tableaus, like walking through a museum of modern art.
Ingrid, head of the jewelry department, moves from behind a counter on the far side of the room, crossing the floor with swift, scissor-like strides. Six foot tall, Nordic and intimidating, she wears her white-blonde hair woven into braids that are swirled into a chignon. She’s clad in a houndstooth Chanel suit accessorized with ropes of pearls. Across the room, a couple of sylph-like employees chat with a dark-skinned woman in a sari as she peruses the glass cabinets.
When I tell Ingrid that I’m shopping for Sloane, she makes a face.
“He’s back together with her? I heard they broke up.”
Interesting.
Nope, nope, don’t care. “He must be. She’s on Thérèse’s list.”
She shakes her head disapprovingly. “Too bad. No accounting for taste.”
I have to admit, every picture I saw of her made me dislike her. She had a smug, territorial look on her face that reminded me of the mean girls in high school. Still, I’m probably going to have to deal with her quite a lot, if she’s dating Blake, so I should try to cultivate a more positive attitude.
“Well, she is pretty.”
“Pshht.” Ingrid blows a scornful raspberry. “So’s deadly nightshade.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Unfortunately, this deadly nightshade is about to get a very nice birthday present.”
Ingrid leads me over to the glass counters and stands by while I look through tray after tray of ice-white diamonds in every conceivable style. Modern, classic, art deco, avant-garde. Based on what I saw on Sloane’s social media feed, she likes things big, flashy and traditional. I select diamond earrings and a tennis bracelet. For Christmas, according to Ingrid, Blake bought Sloane a necklace worth six figures.
Ingrid shrugs. “He never skimps.” She doesn’t look particularly impressed as she says it. Something about Blake leaves his employees cold, apparently.
I wish I could say he had the same effect on me. I wish all the heat that he sends blazing through me was pure rage. There’s nothing pure about the way he makes me feel, though. I’ve had dreams about him so dirty that I shocked myself.
Ingrid steps behind the counter and does some wrapping magic, then holds up two boxes for my approval. They’re wrapped in shiny silver paper with curlicues of ribbon and little sprigs of artificial flowers twined onto them.
I accept them and balance them in my hands, admiring her handiwork. “This is amazing, thank you kindly. I