foot in my rear and shoved me out the door, that would have delivered the message just as well.
Thérèse and I head up to evening wear, and my head bobbles automatically as she speaks, but I’m barely retaining a word.
When we reach the evening wear department, I sense prickly hostility in the air before I even see anything. Then Sloane strides out from behind a rack of sparkly gowns.
Sloane. Because of course she’s here. This day just gets better and better.
“There you are!” she calls out to Thérèse, and slithers over to block our path. Her eyes glitter with malice. “Blake wants you to pick out a new cocktail dress for my friend’s gallery opening next week,” she says to me. “He claims to trust your taste– ” patronizing eye roll “–so I guess we’ll just have to go with that. I’ll probably have to have it taken in at the waist. I always do.” She simpers, patting her flat stomach. “He wants it to be ready for me by the time he gets back from Paris.”
He’s taking her out to dinner? If anyone had told me that a few days ago, I’d have given them the name of a therapist who specializes in delusional thinking. However, he told her that he was going to Paris, and he didn’t tell me.
I feel as if I’ve been gut-punched.
“I doubt that,” Thérèse cuts in sharply.
Sloane glares at her. “What…did you just…say to me?”
Thérèse wins my eternal devotion by giving Sloane a pitying smile. “Oh, dear, did you think that drawing out your words means you are intimidating?” She sounds very French as she says that. “I spoke to Blake this morning, and he made it very clear to me that you are no longer allowed to shop on the company credit card. He also wanted me to remind you that the jewelry was a goodbye present.”
The iron vise clamping my heart loosens a little bit.
Sloane’s smile twitches and turns into an angry rictus. She swallows and makes an ahem noise. “I didn’t say I expected Blake to pay for it. I just said that I need a gown for the gallery opening that he and I are going to attend. Together.” She shoots me a look.
Uh, yeah, I get it.
I’m trying hard for a polite, uninterested smile, but I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirrored column, and I look like a woman trying to endure a bout of very painful gas.
Thérèse pulls a two-way radio from her purse. “Hello, Jackson?” she says. That’s one of the personal shoppers. When he answers, in a burst of static, she continues. “Sloane Vanderling needs help selecting a cocktail gown. She will be paying for it with her own credit card. Just remember, when it comes to her, it’s impossible to go too tight or too low cut.”
Sloane’s eyes snap with anger. “I’ll pick it out myself, since this department is going downhill.” She spits the words at Thérèse.
“Can I give you the directions to Saks, then?”
Sloane stalks off, head held high.
Thérèse makes a scoffing noise of contempt. “Pshaw. That girl.” Then she shrugs. “I might have said a little white lie. He didn’t mention Sloane buying a dress, or not. He didn’t mention her at all.”
I hug myself, watching Sloane’s long legs viciously slicing like scissor blades as she rounds a corner and climbs onto the escalator.
“Aren’t you risking getting in trouble?” I ask her.
“What’s he going to do?” She arches a dark, perfectly plucked brow. “Fire me? Anyway, the fact that he didn’t mention her speaks volumes. If he wanted to buy her a dress he would have said so.”
I chew my lip. “Okay, I know this is going to make me sound pathetic, but I need to know. When you talked to him…did he mention me at all?”
“I’m sorry. No. It wasn’t a very long conversation; he seemed to be in a hurry. And he was only concerned with the usual. Which is Blake Hudson and nobody else.” Her voice is tart and her lips thin to paper-cut width.
I have to ask myself, if so many of his subordinates dislike Blake, especially someone like Thérèse, who knows him so well…am I just fooling myself into believing that he’s a decent man in a snark-skin suit?
I don’t believe he’s completely evil. But I also realize I don’t know Blake as well as I thought I did. I’m almost tempted to call Alice, but I’d never actually do that. It would feel like