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Kimberly and Olivia left Kellen, Brigit and Mercedes in a waiting area. In this part of the salon the pinkness of the waiting room vanished, replaced by white, white and more white. I’d never seen so much colorlessness in my life. Once I was seated in a closet-sized dressing room with Olivia and Kimberly, the barrage of questions began. Cut, color—apparently a dozen different kinds of white existed, from linen to ivory to gold to frigging virgin snow. I thought back to my nightmare, recalling all the layers of tulle and princessy poof, and described the exact opposite. I wanted slim and elegant.
“If I see poof, I won’t even try it on,” I warned Olivia.
“Of course.” Olivia nodded sagely, making notes on her clipboard. “I’d never dream of putting you in a big dress. You’re such a petite thing.”
Kimberly put in her two cents, obviously having a specific vision of my wedding. The words regal and sophisticated got used a lot, making me wonder how Lucas had spun this wedding to her. “I want her to look like a queen,” she concluded.
“She will be unforgettable,” Olivia promised.
Fifteen minutes later a half dozen plastic bags hung in the room. The dresses trapped inside made me think of full body bags in a morgue. That thought was followed shortly by, What the hell is wrong with me?
The first dress I tried on was a shade Olivia called blush, but I was nobody’s fool. It was pink and had a giant flower below my bustline. I gave Olivia an are you kidding me look, but she ignored me and presented me to Kimberly for inspection. The wedding planner regarded me with careful hesitation. She obviously didn’t want to give her opinion until she had assessed mine.
I glowered.
“Well…um…it’s nice.”
“Let’s go show the girls!” Olivia suggested, excitement overwhelming her.
I knew why. I’d spotted the price tag before she’d draped the rosy monstrosity over my head, and this cupcake topper of a dress was valued at a staggering twenty-five thousand dollars. I would pay that much to never look at it again.
I was paraded in front of the girls. Brigit loved it, to no one’s surprise, and Mercedes did her best to cover her laughter with a cough, but she coughed so much Olivia sent a subordinate to get Cedes some water, which made Kellen start sniggering.
I sighed and smiled at Olivia. “Let’s try something else.”
Three dresses later I was developing a lace rash and running out of patience. How could any bride in her right mind look forwards to this part of the experience? Even without the extra skirts and bustles, the dresses were heavy and cumbersome, the boning of each bodice threatened to cut off my breath, and all the white was making me feel more than a little guilty about the super-hot sex I’d had before I got here.
My impatience was starting to show. Every time Olivia brought a new dress to replace one I’d rejected, I would groan. To keep my girls from staging a revolt, someone had brought them a full bottle of Moët and a plate of finger sandwiches. I’m sure it was going to be added to my final costs, but I didn’t care as long as they were enjoying themselves.
Judging by the bubbling laughter that erupted every time I came out in a new dress, they wer
e having way more fun than I was.
“I’m not good at this,” I complained to Kimberly when Olivia ducked out. “I’m not the kind of girl who feels her wedding is the best day of her life. I don’t care about this stuff.” I pointed to the wall of silk, satin and the godforsaken tulle.
Ignoring my uncharacteristic outburst of honesty, Kimberly smiled at me and patted my arm with a forced sisterly compassion. “It will be worth it when you see the look on Lucas’s face the first time he sees you.”
I tried to imagine the moment, but all I could bring to mind was Lucas’s cold eyes staring at Desmond’s dead body while he asked me, “What have you done?”
“I guess.”
Olivia returned a moment later, and soon I was trussed up again, itchy lace draped over my shoulder and my back exposed. The dress was pretty, but I wish someone had warned me how heavy lace was.
Trudging out, I stepped onto the platform in front of about ten thousand mirrors so the girls could get a look at what fifty-seven pounds of Venetian lace did for my five-foot-four frame. I turned so they could see the bare back.
Which was how I saw the gun.
The figure dressed all in black wouldn’t have stood out thanks to the uniform of all Kleinfeld employees, but the ski mask was a little out of the ordinary. As was the raised Beretta in the attacker’s gloved hand. There was a flash of light, followed by a muffled pop from the silencer. Without thinking, I dove for the most vulnerable person in range.
Olivia and I tumbled to the floor as the mirror exploded into a million pieces and Kimberly began to scream. Kellen joined in the chorus, obviously still scarred by the memory of what had happened on the highway earlier in the week. I, too, remembered that night as the pain in my shoulder responded to the sound of gunfire.
Mercedes—bless her police officer blood—had withdrawn a gun from an ankle holster and was ducked behind the loveseat with Brigit next to her. I rolled off Olivia and instructed her to stay the hell down. She was crying so hard I didn’t know if she heard me, but I hoped her common sense would give her the same instruction.
“Cedes,” I whispered loud enough for her to hear me as I hunkered down behind a mannequin. “I need my purse.”
She didn’t question me, just grabbed the large leather satchel and hurled it in my direction. With my beloved SIG 9mm in my hands, I immediately felt safer. With a bullet loaded in the chamber, the whole situation was less uncertain and foggy.
The salon was almost empty thanks to our late-evening appointment, but there were still quivering, whimpering masses of bridal white pressed to the floor and crying black-clad employees hiding in recessed closets, their hands covering their heads. I saw a young woman in a wedding dress get to her feet, and before I could shout out a warning she made a dash for the waiting room.
