Stir (The Sizzle TV Series Book 5)

Chapter 1 – Natalie

“Moira, you cannot be serious.”

Moira waved her croissant at me, which, honestly, was just unnecessary. Do I look like the kind of girl who needs pastries waved in her face? No, I do not.

“I am completely serious,” she says, dropping the carbohydrate calorie-bomb back onto her plate. “The best way to get over the last one is to get under the next one.”

“Keep your voice down,” I say, feeling myself blush. We’re the only two sitting inside the Market Street Market café, but Jill is behind the counter, and there are two older couples waiting for their order closer to the door.

“You. Need. To. Get. Laid,” my soon-to-be-ex best friend says, plenty loud enough to carry over the quiet jazz drifting from the café speakers.

“Yes, thank you. You have saved me the trouble of buying a billboard to announce it,” I whisper loudly, covering my eyes. “Meanwhile, I’m trying to solve a problem here.”

I learned a while ago that it was a whole lot better to focus on the things I can control than things I can’t. And speaking as somebody who’s just celebrated one full month at her goal weight, I like to think I’m capable of handling things myself.

“Dating apps,” Moira suggests, sipping her latte.

“Pass.”

Moira rolls her eyes. She thinks I’m old-fashioned for it, but that is one type of rejection I am not prepared to handle. Not now, maybe not ever.

“Ooh, I can set you up with?—”

“No blind dates, either.” For the same reason. And Moira knows it, so she lets that one go without a fight.

I am not setting myself up to be rejected by some dude who has some picture in his head of what I’m supposed to look like. Been there, done that, still paying the therapy bills for it. Or, in my case, the gym membership fee.

Moira taps the side of her cup with a long, manicured fingernail, the bold fuchsia clashing with her vivid copper hair. Somehow, it looks terribly fashionable.

“Maybe we start smaller,” she says contemplatively.

“Like what?”

“Shopping spree,” she says, grinning as the idea takes root. “Makeover-style.”

“I don’t need a makeover.” I lost sixty pounds. If anything, I’ve already had a makeover.

“You need a new wardrobe.”

I glance down at my clothes. “What? This shirt is oversized.”

“It’s at least two sizes too big to qualify as oversized, woman,” says Moira. “You spent all that time and effort to get fit. Isn’t it time to show off your work?”

She’s got a point, and I know it.

“What if I gain the weight back?”

Moira snorts. “You won’t.”

“But what if I do?”

“Then we’ll go shopping again,” she says simply, shrugging like it’s a silly question. “Fact remains, you need some clothes that fit.”

I sip my coffee and let her have this one. “Maybe. But only because I need a dress.”

Her eyes light up. “Ooh, we get to get fancy.”

“A bit. Nic got our invitation to the Sizzle HQ ball in a few weeks. I’m expected to dress appropriately.”

Moira squeals. She’s a sucker for makeovers, has been since middle school. I know it; she knows I know it. What she doesn’t know is that expanding my wardrobe has been on my to-do list for a while. But being the fantastic best friend I am, I let her think this one is her idea.

“You’re not worried about running into Captain Dickhead?” Moira asks.

“Jeff will be there,” I say, rolling my eyes at Moira’s nickname for my ex-boyfriend, “Since he still works for Sizzle.”

“Even better,” she says, sitting up straighter, mischief in her eyes. “Time to show that asshole what he’s missing. You deserve more.”

I’ve been pretty lucky not to run into him, honestly. I took the job as Nic Pendergrass’s personal assistant-slash-office manager—I’m his secretary, let’s be real—because he was ready to hire me on the spot so I could leave my position at Sizzle with no notice. I was worried at first because Nic’s office is in the same building, only two floors down from Sizzle HQ, where I used to work. But so far, I haven’t been forced to share an elevator with Jeff Markum or his svelte new girlfriend.

I clear my throat. “When are you free to shop?”

“For this? I vote we get started now. We’re going to need all the time we can get.”

My current clothes are really not that bad. I have enough clothes for work, and my workout gear still gets the job done. But I let her walk me down Market Street through the cold toward the string of retail shops the next block over. Moira frog-marches me into a tastefully decorated, high-end lingerie store straight away.

“We’re starting from the ground up,” she tells the saleswoman, who looks me up and down. The gleam in her eye suggests my credit card is going to take a beating today.

Trying on smaller sizes is gratifying, even if I have to cut Moira off after the basics are taken care of.

“I’m not buying actual lingerie,” I protest. Regular underwear is enough for today, even if that black garter belt and thigh-high stockings were calling to me.

“But—”

“No. Not today.”

Moira pouts, but she marches gamely on when I remind her I have to get back to the office.

“Just you wait,” says Moira. “When I’m done with you, Nic won’t stand a chance.”

“Knock it off. He’s my boss.”

“I’m just saying?—”

“Well, stop.” I cut her off, stopping to look at the display in a suit store window. I wonder if this is where Nic gets those suspenders he’s so fond of. The thought makes my mouth go dry.

Prior to working at Pendergrass Law, I’d have called them old-fashioned, but the way he wears them…

“He’s my boss, Moira,” I say.

“So you are forever reminding me. And? He’s also smoking hot.”

“And even if he were interested in me that way,” which he most certainly is not, “do you really think I’d go there again? Because dating a coworker has worked out so well for me in the past.”

That’s how I met Jeff, of course. We met over coffee in the break room. Could I be a bigger walking cliché? That relationship had been doomed to fail from day one, even excluding the fact that he’s a jerk.

Moira purses her lips. “I’d really like to have a word with that prick.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, Moira. But you can’t afford to go back to jail.”

“It was one time. One time!”

Setting my best friend loose on my ex-boyfriend would be entertaining, not to mention satisfying, but I keep telling myself the high road is the way to go. I don’t know what he’s told our colleagues—former colleagues—but whatever it is, I don’t want to make it worse.

As bad as it was leaving Sizzle after our breakup, I got unbelievably lucky with my current job. While my new boss might possibly be slightly good-looking, I’m not about to go down that road again. Nic has never once looked at me in any way but professionally. Not a comment, no uncontrolled expression on his face, or wandering eye at any point during the last year. The man is absolutely not interested in me. And that’s fine. I’m not exactly a catch.

I mean, I’m okay. My face is more or less symmetrical, if heart-shaped and a little too sweet-looking. Given the choice, I could do without the smattering of freckles. My eyes are nice enough, if boring brown, like my hair.

“You’ve got that look on your face,” Moira says, frowning at me as I pull open the door to the next shop, heading for the women’s suits and skirts.

“What look?”

“That look that tells me you’re adding up the calories from your coffee,” she says.

I logged the calories before I ever got out of the car to meet her at the café, but I’m not about to admit it. Moira says “maintenance” means I don’t have to watch what I eat anymore, but good or bad, habits are hard to break.

Maybe there’s some fear there, too, but now is not the time. Obsessing isn’t healthy. Dwelling on my boss and his absolute indifference to my appearance isn’t healthy, either.

Half an hour later, I’ve got two new suits to my name. They aren’t cheap, but they’re a style and quality that’ll probably outlive me and everybody I know, so I hand over my card without comment. Moira is impressed, and after the fourth store takes care of the final touch, she tells me so.

The final overall look is overtly feminine, a material middle finger to the shapeless, androgynous nature of my former, fluffier self. The blouses are pure silk and drapey, the pinstriping on the pencil skirt tight enough to balance a budget on its own. On our way back to our cars, I pull Moira back into the lingerie store for those stockings.

And the garter belt too, because screw it. I’m building from the ground up, even if nobody but me is ever going to see it on my body. I’ve worked too hard on myself to hide anymore. No more poorly fitted, sloppy, secondhand slacks. No more shapeless dresses and baggy sweaters. And definitely, no more pretentious jerks who think they’re better than me, regardless of what my bathroom scale says.

I wonder what Nic will think of my new look. Probably not a damn thing. The man has witnessed nearly every stage of my personal transformation and he looked at me the same way this morning as he did the day he hired me.

My phone chimes. I swipe open the message.

“Speak of the devil,” I say.

“Were we?” Moira asks.

“It’s Nic,” I say, waving my phone at her and sidestepping the question. “He needs me to pick something up on my way back to the office.”

“I better let you get to it, then,” she says as we approach her car. She hugs me hard and kisses my cheek. “I am so damn proud of you, Nat. Don’t let him ride you too hard.”

“Moira.”

“What? I meant at work!” That’s an image I did not need.

I stow my purchases in the trunk and navigate my way to Nic’s apartment. I’ve only been there once before, to feed his cat one day back when I first started working for him and he had to go out of town for a client meeting. Forgetting a file is unlike him, to say the least, but considering he didn’t blink at my long lunch plans with Moira today, running this small errand is the least I can do.