“Classic. Natural. Preppy with an edge.” The woman reiterated my options.
“I have philosophical objections to colored pants,” I said. “So that one’s out.”
“Don’t just look at the clothes,” the man instructed. “Take in thelook.”
Rolling my eyes at someone twice my size probably wasn’t the wisest course of action.
The female stylist crossed to me. She walked lightly on her feet, like she could tiptoe across a bed of flowers without breaking a single one. “The way you dress, the way you do your hair—it’s not silly. It’s not shallow. This…” She gestured to the rack behind her. “It’s not just clothing. It’s a message. You’re not deciding what to wear. You’re deciding what story you want your image to tell. Are you the ingenue, young and sweet? Do you dress to this world of wealth and wonders like you were born to it, or do you want to walk the line: the same but different, young but full of steel?”
“Why do I have to tell a story?” I asked.
“Because if you don’t tell the story, someone else will tell it for you.” I turned to see Xander Hawthorne standing in the doorway, holding a plate of scones. “Makeovers,” he told me, “like the recreational building of Rube Goldberg machines, are hungry work.”
I wanted to narrow my eyes, but Xander and his scones were glare-proof.
“What do you know about makeovers?” I grumbled. “If I were a guy, there’d be two racks of clothing in this room, max.”
“And if I were White,” Xander returned loftily, “people wouldn’t look at me like I’m half a Hawthorne. Scone?”
That took the wind out of my sails. It was ridiculous of me to think that Xander didn’t know what it was like to be judged, or to have to play life by different rules. I wondered, suddenly, what it was like for him, growing up in this house. Growing up Hawthorne.
“Can I have one of the blueberry scones?” I asked—my version of a peace offering.
Xander handed me a lemon scone. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
With only a moderate amount of teeth-gnashing, I ended up picking option three. I hated the wordpreppyalmost as much as I disliked any claims to having anedge, but at the end of the day, I couldn’t pretend to be wide-eyed and innocent, and I deeply suspected that any attempts to act like this world was a natural fit would itch—not physically, but under my skin.
The team kept my hair long but worked in layers and cajoled it into a bed-head wave. I’d expected them to suggest highlights, but they’d gone the opposite route: subtle streaks a shade darker and richer than my normal ashy brown. They cleaned my eyebrows up but left them thick. I was instructed on the finer points of an elaborate facial regimen and found myself on the receiving end of a spray tan via airbrush, but they kept my makeup minimal: eyes and lips, nothing more. Looking at myself in the mirror, I could almost believe that the girl staring back belonged in this house.
“What do you think?” I asked, turning to Libby.
She was standing near the window, backlit. Her hand was clutching her phone, her eyes glued to the screen.
“Lib?”
She looked up and gave me a deer-in-headlights look that I recognized all too well.
Drake.He was texting her. Was she texting back?
“You look great!” Libby sounded sincere, because she was sincere. Always. Sincere and earnest and way, way too optimistic.
He hit her, I told myself.He sold us out. She won’t take him back.
“You look fantastic,” Xander declared grandly. “You also don’t look like someone who might have seduced an old man out of billions, so that’s good.”
“Really, Alexander?” Zara announced her presence with next to no fanfare. “No one believes that Avery seduced your grandfather.”
Her story—her image—was somewhere betweenoozing classandno-nonsense.But I’d seen her press conference. I knew that while she might care about her father’s reputation, she didn’t have any particular attachment to mine. The worse I looked, the better for her.Unless the game has changed.
“Avery.” Zara gave me a smile as cool as the winter colors she wore. “Might I have a word?”
CHAPTER 35
Zara didn’t speak immediately once the two of us were alone. I decided that if she wasn’t going to break the silence, I would. “You talked to the lawyers.” That was the obvious explanation for why she was here.
“I did.” Zara offered no apologies. “And now I’m talking to you. I’m sure you can forgive me for not doing so sooner. As you can imagine, this has all come as a bit of a shock.”
A bit?I snorted and cut through the niceties. “You held a press conference strongly suggesting that your father was senile and that I’m under investigation by the authorities for elder abuse.”
