Page 17 of Exposed

“A part of me felt you wouldn’t, so I finished up my errands earlier and came back. Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong, nice to meet you,” he said, extending his hand to my father and mother. Kenny Jr. shook hands with him.

“No reason for me to ask how you know them. Being the military bodyguard, you probably have the CIA on speed dial,” I joked, opening the back door of the car for my brother to get inside.

“CIA, FBI, and a few prime ministers,” Dominic answered, opening the door for me to get in on the passenger side.

“Thanks,” I said, watching him jog over to the driver’s side before I leaned over to unlock the door.

“What’s your name again, son?” my mom asked.

“Dominic Combs, Ma’am.”

“Are you married?”

“Ma!”

“What? It never hurts to ask.”

“Vivien, leave that girl alone,” Kenny Sr. said.

Dominic drove us to their hotel, and I stayed with them through dinner until I received a call from Carol about a new discovery she found. I told my parents I would be back later tonight. I jumped up excited to get back to work. I knew she was taking some of my ideas and experimenting and I told her the second something looked good to let me know. I took an Uber since it wouldn’t take me long to get there. I didn’t think I needed to call Emmanuel and bother him.

“Thanks for the ride,” I told the Uber driver and shut the door. Novah was having too much fun with my family, so sliding out was easy.

Showing my badge, I walked through security and waved to Axel, the night security guard.

I knocked on Carol’s door, but she didn’t hear me, so I knocked again and the door swung open.

“Sorry to bug you so late,” Carol said.

“You're not bothering me, my parents understood.”

“Awesome! Well I wanted to show you what I’ve been working on.”

She headed to the lab and I fell behind. Placing her badge against the security sign, I followed in and grabbed a lab coat and goggles. Carol opened the glass case that held the samples of colors and gestured for me to take a seat.

“These look good, Carol.”

“Well, it’s because of your ideas and my science brain that we’ve come up with the right mixture.”

All of the colors looked bold, rich, and smooth. Sliding on gloves, she passed me a test strip to test it out on my arm.

“How many colors are you thinking for the first batch?” I questioned.

“Ultimately, it’s up to Danielle, but I think starting with five main colors for a palette would be perfect. Maybe even showing off each one in a different theme.”

“These look really good. I can’t wait to get these out to my fans.”

“I commend you with opening up your life to the public. I doubt I could ever do that,” Carol said.

“It’s not really too bad. I do have boundaries, but overall they respect me and don’t pry.”

Shutting the glass case closed, I removed the gloves and followed her over to the desk and we looked at the monitor of all the colors up close together. She pointed toward a light pink color that looked like cotton candy.

“I know you guys have the signature red look but think about this pink possibly being added to the collection,” she said. I nodded taking in all of her details and keeping notes on what worked and what didn’t.

“Danielle has a vision for the launch, we can always present these to her for the second launch.”

“It’s getting late, I need to get home to my husband and kids. We can talk more tomorrow,” Carol informed me, removing her coat and grabbing her jacket and purse.

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