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“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
She didn’t know what she was all riled up about. So what Hudson was going to be there?
They were barely friends.
But she spent the next four hours with Shae (Ned grumpily in tow), shopping in the massive ALEXA Berlin mall, trying on dresses.
Dresses.
And shoes.
And this was never in her contract. But she managed to find a one-shoulder black dress with a not-too-high slit up the side, and a pair of black pumps with a little shimmer on them, and what was shedoing?
Shae applied her art degree to Iris’s face and hair, putting it up in a French twist, and at five p.m., Iris stood in front of the mirror and didn’t recognize herself.
“You clean up well, sis,” Ned said after he knocked and Shae let him into the bedroom. He added a whistle. “Hoping to impress someone?”
“Not even a little,” she said and grabbed the tiny bag that held her wallet.
Shae leaned close, spoke into her ear. “He’ll notice, I promise.”
She met Shae’s eyes and wrinkled her nose. “I’m trying not to care.”
“Oh yes. That outfit hasI don’t careall over it.” She winked.
The limo arrived and Iris grabbed her wool coat and left the apartment before she lost her nerve, ripped off the dress and donned her sweatpants and a T-shirt.
Yannick and Zach had piled out, holding the door for her.
One of the guys inside started with a whistle, but Yannick shut them down with an upheld hand.
She looked at Zach, then Yannick. “Thank you. What, did you guys kill a bunch of secret security agents? Or join a top secret intergalactic agency? What’s with the black suits?”
“There was a sale down at suit supply,” Zach said, and she wasn’t sure he was kidding.
She somehow managed not to fall as she got in in the ridiculous heels Shae’d had her buy. Arne, Roque, Jakub, and Milos were inside, and she sat next to Milos on a long sofa.
Zach and Yannick sat opposite her.
Suddenly, she very much missed Abe. “Any word on Abe’s autopsy?” she asked Yannick. “Confirmation of his poisoning?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Um, now?”
“Sorry. I just…”
“No word yet, Iris.” Yannick gave her a tight-lipped smile.
The limo driver turned on some classical music, as if they might be going to the opera, and they drove through the city a short way, over the river starting to sparkle with light, to what looked like a giant warehouse. Other cars—limos, Bentleys, Rolls Royces—were pulled up to a massive lighted portico entrance.
They pulled up like they might be royalty. Or celebrities.
The door opened, and a valet ushered them out.
A couple stood by the door, greeting everyone, a gorgeous blonde in a shapely gold dress—Iris recognized her, with a start, as the General Manager, Deborah Saint. Next to her stood the Director of Football, a German-American who had played back in the early days, a Warner Burgmann. She shook their hands, then received a program and headed inside.
The venue had perhaps been a former warehouse, because the ceiling soared five stories, with balconies that ran overhead, open pipes, and massive cement columns now decorated with tulle and chrysanthemums.
Paintings to be auctioned off sat on easels at the front of a room crowded with round tables and yellow-and-red floral centerpieces. Gold place-settings, templed white napkins, and at the front of the room, a chamber orchestra played a waltz.
