Page 21 of RAKEish

CHAPTER 8

Tuesday evening, the new and cosmetically improved Luxury Stone sat nursing a glass of water at the bustling bar inside newly opened Manhattan Mingles while waiting on Scott. He was supposed to have met her outside the doors but had sent a text saying he was running late. While she would have preferred to have entered the bar together, her damn shoes were not made for standing around, so she’d sucked it up and walked in alone.

Stilettos were sitting shoes if ever God had made sitting shoes.

She’d give Scott five more minutes. If he couldn’t bother to show by then, she would ditch this joint, go home, shower, and do a reset back to Monday’s Lux, Frankie be damned.

The magazine’s editor-in-chief had stopped by to see Lux’s transformation. After several seconds of eyeballing Lux, Frankie had shrugged and told the Glam Team—anxiously awaiting her accolades—‘it will do.’

Then Frankie had told Lux where to meet Scott for their first official ‘fix-the-queen-of-dud-dating’ dates. This followed by an evil-eye reminder to Lux that Naked Runway had spies everywhere. If either Lux or Scott showed any sign of not giving their everything to the challenge, Frankie would declare them both losers.

Lux glanced at her watch. His five minutes were up. She stood and turned toward the exit. That’s when she spotted the back of Scott’s dark head. “It’s about freaking time.” She stayed in place and waited for him to spy her in the crowd.

Only he put zero effort into finding her. He was too busy talking and posing for pictures with women. When he took a black marker from a brunette and signed her flat stomach, Lux had had enough. Taking a breath of bravery, she exhaled and carefully heel-toed her way toward him, her new heels clicking against the polished floor of the upscale Manhattan bar.

The lesson in stiletto-walking had been an interesting one that had lasted two hours. In the end, she’d mastered the proper foot strike and had learned the art of placing each step in a straight line instead of allowing them to fall on two different pathways.

The extra hip movement…not so much.

The big reveal of the new her had come after Lux had successfully walked an imagined red carpet where at the end had been placed a shrouded, full-length mirror. Ziggy had stripped away the cover in a dramatic fashion and when Lux saw the new her, she’d cried.

Which had resulted in Isabella crying and Ziggy fussing at Lux not to ruin her makeup.

Mother had been wrong when she’d told Lux to work on her personality because she didn’t have the face to keep a man long term. The face that had stared back at Lux in the mirror had been transformed from ordinary to extraordinary. It was truly amazing what could be accomplished with makeup.

Ziggy had played to the strength of her emerald-green eyes, intensifying their hue with carefully chosen shadows and liners. As he’d explained while he worked, the colors he selected were not just complementary, but were chosen from the palette of her irises, which deepened the green to a richness he called mesmerizing. He’d then framed her eyes with a hint of gold highlight at the corners, which he declared made the green stand out even more against her fair skin, like dew-kissed leaves against the morning light. From there, he’d meticulously brought definition to her cheekbones, creating an interplay of light and shadow that seemed to elevate her entire visage. On her lips, Ziggy had opted for a shade that was a whisper above her natural lip color, a soft, muted hue that enhanced without competing with the dramatic flair of her eyes. It was as if he’d chosen the barest hint of pink found on the inside of a seashell. The application was masterful—a matte finish that spoke of elegance and subtlety, giving her lips a fuller look that was inviting and touchable. This balance of bold and understated was a silent testament to the internal tug-of-war she faced—admiring the artistry, yet questioning the change.

While Mother’s advice had been wrong on so many levels, Lux would still hold out for a man who fell in love with her intellect, her wit, her sheer tenacity any day over one who’d fallen for the enhanced curve of her smile or the sway of her hips.

Even so, Lux would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit she loved the way it felt knowing she looked as good as any of those ladies draping themselves all over Scott. How would he react to the new Lux? Would he suddenly find her worthy of his interest, or would he have the same underwhelmed reaction as Frankie?

Almost upon him, Lux glanced down and was immediately distracted by what was surely too much braless cleavage. According to Isabella, bras had now been replaced by a new product on the market called CAKES. Grippy, nonstick nipple covers which were way more comfortable than a bra. Nonetheless, Lux didn’t want Scott to think she was trying too hard.

Hell, she didn’t want him to think she was trying at all.

Deep in thought about what she would do if one of her anti-nippleage thingamajigs decided to ungrip itself from a boob and fall to the floor, she plowed into a warm body that smelled like thunderclouds. Forgetting about her nipples, she searched for a solid surface to grasp for balance. Unfortunately, the movement resulted in the content of her glass going airborne—

Which resulted in an audible chorus of gasps ringing out around her. Then graveyards-on-a-Monday-night silence descended around them. It was either that or the blood roaring in her ears kept her from picking up on things like voices.

After a moment of mind-numbing shock, reality returned. She’d just spilled water on…she glanced up to see who. Hell’s fudging bells. It was him.

Scott growled, grabbed her wrist, and yanked her into his body like a damn caveman, resulting in a shiver of trepidation sweeping through her. But one whiff of his cologne and the fear was replaced by her heartbeat going all swoony wonky.

Swoony! Wonky! Like a Victorian heroine on the verge of a fainting spell. All because a nice smelling thundercloud held her. How pathetic was that?

“It’s been a while since a beautiful woman threw a drink on me,” he said in a voice soft and teasing.

She stiffened. He had no idea who he held in his arms. If he did, no way would he have used that flirty tone. “I most certainly did not throw it,” she said against his chest before pushing out of his arms enough to look up into his eyes. That’s when he comically began the process of realizing the woman in his arms was the same woman who’d turned his smooth existence into one filled with potholes.

“Doc?” he murmured.

“Surprise,” she said.

One second, his expression was a mix of tempered irritation; the next, his features were sliding all over the place as he shifted from one emotion to another.

His eyes, initially narrowed in annoyance, were now wide in sheer disbelief. It was as if his brain was frantically trying to reconcile the woman standing before him—this glamorous, composed figure—with the mental image he had of his known adversary.

About to make another snarky quip, she witnessed a flicker of something else—a brief, involuntary spark of admiration or even attraction. Of course, he suppressed it almost immediately. But she’d seen it—that split second where his defenses dropped and his true reaction slipped through.

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