But it wasn’t.
It was the redhead. Lacey.
She stared at him, her vivid green eyes echoed by the green design of her corset. It was one that Rocki had called an underbust, and although the woman was almost as slender as Mara, he had to admit, it did wonderful things for her. Still, he found himself wishing it was Rocki sitting there. He could hear her voice, husky, low, full of laughter and humor, filling the room next door.
“So you’re engaged to the Wicked Witch of High Street.”
Cole burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. He supposed he shouldn’t laugh, not so easily. But hell, the name was fitting.
Lacey continued to stare at him, a smile dancing around her lips. “Well?”
Cole, still chuckling, lowered his gaze to his whiskey glass. “It’s not exactly your business, is it?”
“Well. Not exactly. But I keep seeing you staring at Rocki. And I’ve seen her staring at you. I’d be really excited about that. But if you’re engaged...well. I don’t like it. She needs to get back in the game, but not with a married guy.”
Smirking, he took a sip of his drink. Then he sighed. “Well, that’s not going to be an issue with me,” he said.
“And that’s because ...?”
“Damn. You’re nosy.”
“Yeah, I am.” She gingerly leaned over to the side, something that was too graceful to be called a slump. He couldn’t exactly describe it. “You got any idea how hard it is to slouch in one of these?”
“No. And I’m happy not knowing, too.”
Lacey laughed. “Awesome. Because I’ve got to tell you, men in corsets? They just don’t work for me. I’m glad to hear that’s not your thing.” She tapped her index finger on the arm of the couch, still watching him closely. “I’ve got to say, you just don’t seem to fit with her. Mara, I mean. She’s so...cold and bitchy. You seem perfectly human.”
“Don’t you think you should get to know people a little better before deciding shit like that?” he asked irritably. He took another drink and settled deeper on the couch, staring up at the ceiling.
“So I’m wrong? You’re cold? You’re not human? Maybe she’s not as bitchy as she seems?”
For the longest time, he was quiet. Then he answered softly, “No. But she didn’t used to be that way. Lately, though...well. It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. Not after tonight.” He closed his eyes.
“And what happened tonight?”
He popped one eye open and stared at her. “It doesn’t concern you.”
Lacey hummed under her breath. “Okay. Well, answer this. You got the hots for Rocki or not?”
He didn’t answer, but he suspected the slow crawl of red up his cheeks did the answering for him.
Lacey laughed. “Awesome. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go cause some trouble. You got your checkbook handy? You might need it.”
Frowning, he opened the other eye and watched as she slipped out of the room, moving into the crowded mess of the restaurant. What the hell...?
“What the hell?” Rocki muttered, watching as Lacey came back up on stage.
“Ladies and gentlemen. We have one final date to auction away tonight.” Then Lacey paused and added, “Although it’s more for the men. Sorry, ladies. And guys, some of you have been
asking
for this for a long while ...”
Dread curdled in Rocki’s stomach as she stared at the back of her friend’s head.
Oh, shit.
She wouldn’t.
Then Lacey looked back at her with a wicked smile. “Tonight, folks...Lush is going on the auction block. One date—one night of Lush’s company. A movie, dinner, a night at the opera...you can choose or let her decide. Now, can we open the bidding at five hundred?”
Rocki, feeling more than a little lightheaded, and altogether furious, stood there stunned as half a dozen hands went up in the air.
I’m going to kill her.
But by the time the bids went up over twelve hundred dollars, she was feeling a little less murderous. Still very light-headed. Swallowing, she made her way to stand next to Lacey. She rested a hand on the podium—she needed the support, badly. She smiled out at all the faces she couldn’t see, thanks to the lights.
Next to her, Lacey was grinning and having the time of her life. “How about fifteen hundred? Do have fifteen hundred?”
There were fewer voices now.
One voice called out, “Sixteen hundred.”
For reasons Rocki couldn’t explain, that particular voice sent a shudder of dread down her spine. Revulsion. Fear. Not that one, she thought…
Another voice called out for seventeen hundred.
She breathed deeply, or as deeply as the lacings on her corset would allow.
Staring at Rocki standing on the stage, Cole told himself he wasn’t going to do it. He’d just broken up with his fiancée. She was still grieving over her husband. It was a bad thing all around. Right?
But that didn’t keep him from taking a few steps into the restaurant, getting just a little bit closer. His blood pumped hard and fast as he got closer.
The bids were at two thousand now, but fewer people were involved. As he reached the bottom of the stage, he said loudly, “Three thousand.”
Rocki looked down, startled.
Her eyes met his, wide and dark...so dark, he felt lost in them.
Screw the bad things. He wanted this woman, damn it. Maybe just having a simple date would prove that she wasn’t everything he had convinced himself she was. Besides, this whole thing was for charity...a good cause.
“I’ve got three thousand here,” Lacey called out, delight evident in her voice. “Do I have thirty-five hundred?”
Another voice said, “Thirty-five hundred.”
Because he was standing so close, Cole saw the minute way Rocki’s shoulder’s tightened, the flash of something in her eyes. Was it fear? What was it...? It didn’t matter.
“Five thousand,” he said, still staring at her.
She lifted a brow. “Five thousand?” she mouthed.
Silence fell through the room, and this time, nobody offered another bid.
Lacey grinned down at him. “She’s all yours, Mr. Stanton. For a night, at least.”
Five days later, Rocki was breathing easier. No more cards came. No more photos. She’d
almost
forgiven Lacey for what she’d done, too. It helped that Lacey wisely stayed away from the store, giving her time to cool down.
She was feeling pretty damn good about life in general, with the exception of the fact that she had a date with an engaged man hanging over her head. She could handle that, though. After all, it was just a date. She even had a plan in mind. They’d go ice skating, if it was her choice. Ice skating, if somebody wasn’t used to it, was exhausting enough that he’d be a boneless mess by the time they were done, she figured. Pizza first, maybe. Nice, fun, easy. Not remotely romantic.
She could handle this. She’d handled touchy situations before, after all.
She could handle Cole Stanton.
All she had to do was get through one date. Of course, it would help if he would call and set up the date. But that was a problem for later. Right now, Rocki had customers.
“There is just no way.” The petite, curvy little blonde stood in front of one of the display tables, holding up a red silk corset and shaking her head. “It’s gorgeous, Miley, but there’s no way one of these things would fit me.”
Rocki studied the blonde and made a rough guess at her waist size. The woman had roughly the same body type as Rocki, although she was somewhat shorter. Of course, there had been times when Rocki thought baby giraffes were shorter than her. On her way over to the table, she selected one of the corsets that she thought would work.
“Hi. Is anything I can help you with?”
Miley, the blonde’s friend, looked at Rocki. “Do you have anything that would fit my friend?”
“You bet.” She smiled at the blonde. “We need to measure your waist, but I imagine you’re 36 inches or so. I definitely have things in stock that size. Perhaps this...?”
Rocki held out the corset she had picked up. It was similar to the red one the blonde had been admiring, but was designed for women with a shorter torso. The blonde looked at it and then looked away, jerking a shoulder in a shrug. “It’s not so much my waist I’m worried about. If things fit my waist, they don’t fit my boobs. If they fit my boobs, they don’t fit my waist. I’ve tried these things before and they just don’t fit. The hooks never line up right.”
“Why don’t we give it a shot?” Rocki smiled. “Something tells me you were trying something more along the lines of a bustier, not a true corset. The laces in the back make it a lot more customizable than you would think.”
She managed to talk the girl— her name was Lara—into slipping her blazer off and trying the corset on over her T-shirt. “The first few times you wear one of these, it takes a bit longer to get it on,” Rocki warned. They stood sideways in front of one of the mirrors so Rocki could show them both the proper way to lace the corset up. “Always make sure the laces are loose and hook the front first, just like I showed you.”
Lara squirmed a little as Rocki started tugging on the laces. “Are these safe?”
“Yes.” Rocki grinned at her in the mirror. “The problem with old-fashioned corsets was that many styles went against a woman’s natural body type. Mine don’t. Another problem was that they would remove ribs to make the waist even smaller. We’re definitely not doing that. Other issues come from lacing it too tight or wearing them too often.”
Lara was gaping at her. “They would remove
ribs
?”
“People do strange things in the name of beauty.” Rocki shrugged as she smoothed down the laces. “Okay, once you’ve got all the slack out, you tie it in a bow at the center. See here? You don’t tie at the bottom but in the center. Got it?”
When she’d finished, she rested her hands on Lara shoulders and turned her toward the mirror. “What do you think?”
Lara simply stared. “Oh.” With a tentative hand, she touched the rich red fabric of the silk and stared at her reflection. “Wow. Really, wow.”
“Told you.” Miley stood next to Lara, grinning. “Damn, Lara. You could have given Anna Nicole Smith a run for her money. Look at you.”
Rocki smiled. “You do look amazing.”
“I love it.” Lara turned around, staring at the back for a second before turning to look at her profile from the side. “Granted, I think it would look better without the T-shirt. Probably works better on its own.”
Rocki shrugged. “Well, T-shirts under corsets aren’t typical, but I wear bodysuits under mine sometimes. Or a camisole, that sort of thing. Especially in this weather. The corset itself is warmer than some people would think, but it only covers so much. Those uncovered bits get cold fast.”
Lara bought the corset, along with a black camisole to wear beneath. As she was checking out, she asked, “What did you mean about people doing weird things for beauty?”
“Well, they do.” Rocki passed the receipt over to Lara and then leaned back against the counter. With her arms crossed over her chest, she said, “Think about it. It’s not a new thing; people have been doing it since time began. Mayans and other ancient peoples would bind the skulls of their babies. Chinese people would bind the feet of their female children. At one time, makeup had arsenic in it. Then we had women who would remove ribs to make their waist smaller.”
She sighed. “And today is no better—Botox, plastic surgery, fad diets that are ridiculously unhealthy.” Shaking her head, she shoved off the counter. “You’ve got teenaged girls who starve themselves or make themselves puke because they think that in order to be considered beautiful, they need to look like the women in magazines. It’s not even a teenage thing, really. How healthy are the women who are constantly on diets? Then you’ve got women like me who aren’t exactly
unhealthy
–I’m not, just ask my doctor. I won’t ever be the ideal vision of beautiful for ‘society’—and I’m fine with that. A lot of women though, and even men, are so focused on the society-created image of beauty, they do crazy things to their bodies. They aren’t healthy. They aren’t happy. And they do it all in the name of beauty. Yeah, to me that’s weird.”
“But you sell corsets and sexy lingerie for a living.” Lara shook her head. “Isn’t that sort of the same thing?”
“I don’t see it that way at all. I sell things to make a woman feel good and feel better about herself. If you feel better about yourself, if you feel beautiful, then you are beautiful. Screw what society thinks.”
At that, Lara smiled. “I want that on a bumper sticker.” Then she glanced down at the burgundy bag she carried and smiled. “And, I gotta admit, I felt pretty damn beautiful wearing this.”
“That’s because you
are
.” Rocki lifted a brow. “Beauty doesn’t have anything to do with the size of your clothing.”
“Thank you.” Lara looked down, a blush creeping over her cheeks. “You have no idea how badly I needed to hear that.”
“You’d be surprised. We all need to hear that sometimes.”
Just then, the bell over the door sounded. And in walked Cole Stanton.
Shoot. Reprieve over.
Customers, Rocki could handle. Nervous customers, unsure customers, bring them on. Cole Stanton—that was a different matter entirely.
Bullshit. You can do this. You can handle him.
She made herself look at Lara and Miley and smile. “I hope to see both of you back. Please be sure to call or e-mail if you have any problems or questions.”
With her heart in her throat, she turned to look at Cole as the two women left. Her heart did a little slam dance in her chest and she was no longer quite so sure could handle him. Well, she
could...
but the way she wanted to handle him was totally unacceptable, considering his situation—the
engaged
one.
Why in the
hell
did he have to be engaged?
Cool, she told herself.
Keep it cool
.
As the door swung shut behind Lara, Cole smiled at her. “I’m not chasing customers away, am I?”
“No. They were done.” Her palms were sweating, she realized. This is stupid. She hadn’t let a man get to her like this since...well, not since Brant.
Shit
. Oh, this was bad. Very, very bad. She needed to get him out of here. Like now.