Page 78 of Unwillingly His

“Really?” Her eyes lit up.

“Absolutely.” I smiled.

It was the least I could do.

She had been put into a situation where she didn’t have options, and she was making the best of it in a way I didn’t think I could have. I had been put in a terrible situation, but I had options.

I wasn’t willing to give up everything, but I wasn’t willing to be Lucian Manwarring’s trophy wife.

I wanted my lifestyle and my freedom, and I didn’t want him to win.

Seeing me slinging hash at some greasy spoon or begging on a corner was just as bad as begging for attention or money in his bed.

If he wanted a trophy wife, I was going to make him look elsewhere.

CHAPTER 29

STELLA

“Take it all off,” I said, staring into the large, round mirror with the bright pink plastic frame.

“All of it, honey? You mean like three or four inches?” the stylist asked behind me, popping his gum. His sheers were in one hand, and his other was propped up on his hip while he considered my long, luscious hair.

“Do you donate hair for kids with cancer?” I asked.

“Of course, as long as it’s long enough and untreated. Have you dyed your hair before?”

“Never.”

“Keratin treatments or perms of any kind?”

“No.” I smiled. My stomach was tight, and my nerves were making me a little jumpy, but I was excited.

This was the moment I took my life back.

“Well, then. Your hair would be perfect, but we would have to cut it to at least here,” he said, picking up a lock of hair between two fingers and bringing it just below my shoulder.

“What do you think about here?” I asked, moving his hand up to my chin.

“Honey, whoever he is, he isn’t worth it. I mean, this is not the best way to mend a broken heart. You should go on a drinking spree and like fuck his best friend or cut up his clothes. All of that is fine. That is recoverable, but don’t do something as permanent as chopping off all your hair for a breakup. No man is worth it. It will take years to grow all this back.”

“This isn’t for a breakup.” I smiled. “This is shedding my old skin—the old me.”

“And what is wrong with the old you? If I’m going to do a complete lifestyle makeover, I need to know that it’s for the right reasons. I don’t want you coming back tomorrow screaming how I destroyed your hair.”

“My parents died in a horrible car crash. I was stuck in the car with them freezing for sixteen hours, and since then, I have been wallowing in a pit of depression and wine. I let other people dictate the terms of my life, and I am done. It’s time for me to shed the skin of being the girl I was after the accident to the girl I am now, who is on the path to healing physically and mentally. I don’t want to be the broken orphan girl anymore. I want to be the bad bitch survivor. I’m becoming fierce, more independent, and less sad. I promise you this has nothing to do with a man. Nobody has broken my heart.”

“Hmmm.” The stylist looked at me, tapped his shears against his lips, then moved in front of my swivel chair, looking me up and down like he was considering all of the options. “We will do an edgy asymmetrical bob, having it come forward so it’s going to be higher in the back and longer in the front. What do you think?”

He moved behind me and grabbed my hair, bending it up and trying to give me an idea of what my face shape would look like with the new hairstyle.

“I like it,” I said, “but I have one very important question.”

“What’s that, darling?”

“Would you have time to dye it as well?”

“Absolutely. What were you thinking? Maybe a nice balayage or just some face-framing highlights?”

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