Seducing The Wolf - By Marisa Chenery Page 0,16
moment Royce and I walked out of the gym."
"He means well, Billie," Janice said with a laugh.
"It would so serve him right the next time I have to chase his ass down to leave him stranded in the middle of nowhere."
"Enough about Hayes. We're here and I intend to enjoy this girls' shopping trip. I have the feeling once the baby comes I won't be doing this for a while."
Billie realized Janice was right. The mall loomed up ahead. In no time at all, Janice found a parking space and they were headed inside. Billie hoped this would be a quick in and out trip, but she soon found out it would be far from it as Janice dragged her from one store to another. At the first store they went to, Billie detested all the clothes. She found them to be downright dowdy. In the next one she fared no better. She would have been fine if she liked frilly, flowery concoctions, which she didn't. The third clothing store turned out to be the charm.
The style of clothes looked to be designed not for middle aged women, as the first store's clothes had been, or for preppy teenagers, as was the second store. Billie had already decided whatever she bought would be black, and something in a style that if she had to wear a dress to someplace else, she could get away with wearing it and not look out of place.
It didn't take her long to find a rack that held a large assortment of black dresses. As she looked through the rack, Billie noticed Janice had gone to look at another rack nearby. When Janice made a sound of exclamation, she turned to see what had caught her sister-in-law's attention.
As soon as Billie saw which dress Janice had pulled off the rack, she started shaking her head. "Ugh. No way."
"Ah, come on, Billie. At least try it on. I think you'll look incredible in this."
"Are you kidding me?
"No, seriously, you have to try this on."
Billie eyed the dress. It was a sleeveless sheath dress made out of a satiny material and was the color of a rich, dark red wine. She'd never worn anything in that color or that style in her life. From the looks of it, she had a feeling the dress would be form-fitting as well. "I don't know, Janice. I want to impress Royce not make him turn away in disgust."
Janice shoved the dress at her. "Billie, I can guarantee you Royce will not be disgusted. I bet he'll feel the exact opposite. More like he'll be picking his jaw up off the floor as he wipes the drool off his chin."
Taking the dress from Janice, Billie made her way over to the fitting rooms. Once she had the dress on she could see Janice was right. The dress looked better on than it had looked on the hanger. It hugged her curves in all the right places. The length of it fell to just above her knees. Billie gave herself one final look over in the mirror inside the fitting room before she stepped out to show Janice.
She was immediately blinded by a bright light as Janice used her cell phone to snap a picture of her. Billie blinked away the stars that appeared before her eyes. "Was that really necessary and what are you doing now?" She suspiciously watched her sister-in-law punch a bunch of numbers on her cell phone.
"It was absolutely necessary. As for what I'm doing, I'm sending the picture to all your brothers."
"You're just as bad as Hayes."
"I think they all need to see you in that dress to remind them how much of a woman you actually are. Your brothers tend to forget the fact that you aren't just one of the guys."
"Or you'll have them trying to be even more overprotective than they already are."
"There, it's done," Janice said as she typed in the last number. "Now get back in there and change. We need to go get you some shoes to match that sexy dress. Time's a wasting."
* * * *
Billie had just enough time to grab a quick bite to eat since Royce hadn't said anything about taking her out for food as well, and have a shower after she got back from shopping with Janice. Normally, she let her hair dry on its own, but that wasn't an option. She dragged out her hardly used hair dryer and quickly blew her hair dry.