Being a stylist would mean I was workinginfashion.Withclothes, not just wearing them. I thought I’d shelved my dream of becoming a designer, but apparently, if my sweaty palms are a sign, there’s a tiny piece of my inner child lodged somewhere, holding out hope. I let her be the one to talk when Imogen returns. That little girl who screamed when she got her first sewing machine and turned socks into Barbie clothes deserves this moment.
“I’ll do the personal clothing manager position. I’ll be good at that. And the timeline’s good.” I wave a super casual hand. “It’s almost March. Bet they rush the background check.”
Despite her wet hair and puffy orthopedic shoes, Imogen looks like an angel as she considers my answer. Beautiful, with underlying terror. “Okay, that works for me.” She takes a swig from her pale-pink water bottle, nudging at the medical tape around one ankle with her other foot. “I’ll let Mei know. She’ll be your manager.”
“And she’ll believe that her star athlete’s jilted ex-fiancée just so happens to know the perfect hire, in the nick of time?”
Imogen flinches. “They—yes. He leftme.”
“And the team would know you’re pissed about it.” I watch her fingers tremble as she caps her water bottle. “I’m sorry. I know it’s uncomfortable to talk about. But we have to get the story straight.”
She glances at the mirror when she replies. “They always liked me. They won’t expect it. I… I can say we met at fashion week a few years back, and that you mentioned wanting to become a stylist. That you have connections in the industry as an influencer.”
“That’s good.” I smile, and she looks relieved. Not a sadist, justa woman. “And how many people from the team were at your wedding?”
She pauses. “A few. But I believe I created enough of a spectacle to distract from you.”
I weigh that response. I know Bernard didn’t see me. When he discovered Imogen’s bathroom hiding place, he had the wherewithal to wait until she was ready to meet him in the hallway outside. Plus, I sidestepped a majority of the photographers and have been using one of my burner accounts to monitor Winston’s post-breakup social media as he embarks on his #SoloTraveling sugar scrub vacay. The only other person I’d really talked to that night had been Faust, the driver, and that base is covered, too. He’s on another team this season. It’s close, but not that risky.
Because it’s only a risk if I left an impression on him, which… yeah, no. I didn’t.You’re just not memorable, kid, was how my modeling manager had put it.You might’ve been a pretty fish in a small pond back home, but you’re in the big leagues now. I thought we’d have luck in the commercial space, do the whole redhead-next-door thing, but … you just don’t have it. Sorry.
“There’s always a potential for crossover,” I say, though. “Someone’s sister could be working on the team now and remembers when I dumped her brother. Things like that. But it’s never happened.”
“Really?” Imogen tilts her head. “But you’re pretty.”
I smile, a little amused. It’s a compliment to her—pretty enough to make a mark.Luckily, it isn’t true. “Thank you, but it’s okay. People don’t remember me.”
“I would.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. I really don’t have time to fight her on this. “Where did we meet?”
“In… the bathroom?”
Folding my arms, I tilt my head back at her. Time for my worst-received party trick. “Sag Harbor, two years ago, at that theater by the yacht club. You asked me to help you re-zip your dress.”
A surprise breath punches out of her, and I give her time to process. Remember. Then, “Oh my God. What—how did you do that?”
I shrug. Explaining that her world is small and selfish—and I’m evil and foster eidetic memory through journaling about the people I meet—probably isn’t comforting. “I’m good with faces. Moving on,” I point at her, “why are you helping Stark-Benzin after everything Bernard did to you? And you can’t tell them it’s because you’re a good person.”
More relief from the ballerina.Not beautiful enough to remembermust be a death blow here, like it’d been at my modeling agency. “It’s closure,” she says, her voice distant. “A last good deed.”
It’s whatThe Nutcracker’s Clara would do. And the Sugar Plum Fairy. Probably the White Swan, too. I wonder if acting on her anger is harder than I thought for Imogen, a person raised to perform as these perfect, gracious heroines. Always saving the day with true love’s kiss or whatever.
I hope not. I file that thought away, though.
“Great.” I stand, suddenly feeling like I need to get out of here, for her sake. “Can you send me a list of things I should know about Bernard? Favorite colors, perfumes, painful childhood memories I can mimic, whatever would make the idiot fall in love with a con artist.”
“Ha. Sure.” She plays with the keychain hanging from her water bottle. It’s a fidget spinner, like the one Renata foisted on me last year as a “birthday present.” “Can I ask you something, Cat? If that is your real name.”
It isn’t. “Ask away.”
“How are you so confident this will work? You go on these missions knowing you can make a man fall in love with you. It’s just… tricky for the rest of us.”
“Missions” makes me sound like a spy. Cute. “I have failed a few times, if that’s what you mean,” I remind her. Prospective clients always get the same spiel about my four cardinal rules:no cops, no lawyers, no refunds, no boyfriends. That last one’s for me, not them; they can rebound all their feelings away. “But honestly? Falling in love is the easy part, and it’s even easier when you don’t actually care. I don’t fight. I don’t disagree. I don’t try to make them see my point of view on marriage or politics or religion. All their jokes are funny. All their stories are fascinating. I only say no to sex and 99.9 percent of kissing, which actually works for the whole thing, because sex is as human as fighting about God or where to go for dinner. And I’m a daydream that a lot of men secretly think they’re entitled to: the woman who isn’t human. If he falls for this—whenhe falls for this—it isn’t because I’m better with men, or the better version of you. It’s because I’m not anyone.”
It’s all so easy. With a man like Bernard, you only have to become a mirror to shatter them.
“Damn,” Imogen replies, breathless. “I like you.”
