22. Delilah
DELILAH
I sit up so fast the seat’s massage rollers lose track of my spine.
“Whoa, whoa, no. Nope.”
I throw up one finger. Historically, this gesture has never stopped Kane Makov from doing anything, yet hope springs eternal.
“We discussed holidays with you. As in singular. Not with you and two hundred of your closest friends. Nowhere in the fine print did it say that.”
“That’s because there was no fine print,” Kane replies as we zoom ever closer to the party of my nightmares.
“That’s exactly my point! There should have been! I would have read it, too. I read everything. I read the terms and conditions on my Hobart mixer warranty, all eighty-nine pages, and let me tell you—”
“Lilah.” He puts a hand on my thigh. “Breathe.”
I was kinda forgetting that essential step, so I do take a moment to breathe.
But it doesn’t help, because it means I’m getting a double-barreled lungful of Kane’s scent.
His palm on my leg doesn’t help, either. I’ve never been stuck with a cattle prod, but I’ve got to imagine it’s the same kind of feeling. Searing heat, head-to-toe electricity, a sense of inevitable impending doom.
Black sedans nose up to the curb in a gleaming procession. Men in dark coats stand beside them with their hands folded over their stomachs, heads turning in slow sweeps as they watch the street. Women climb from back seats in fur and silk and diamonds that catch the streetlights.
And the building. I know this building.
It’s the old banquet hall on the corner. I always thought it was dormant. Just a relic of wild and reckless Nineties New York.
Tonight, every window in it is burning with gold light.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say. “That’s the dead hall. That place has been dark for years.”
“It’s been closed,” Kane corrects. “Not dead.”
“Is there a difference?”
“A big one. Everything I own that looks dark is just waiting for me to come turn the lights back on.”
I have several follow-up questions, but I don’t get to ask them. Stepan is slowing and my stomach is turning into a pretzel.
The rear door opens. Cold pours in along with a wall of noise. Laughter, yelling, glass tinkling, music playing.
The overstimulation is so real. I’d like to curl up in a ball and hibernate until winter is over.
“You’re going to be fine.” Kane steps out, buttons his coat with one hand, and offers me the other. “Come on. There’s a room upstairs where you can change, and a woman named Galina who will do your hair whether or not you consent.”
I look at his hand. Rings, knuckles, ink creeping past his cuff. A hand dragging me into a dark and uncertain future.
I put mine in it anyway, and let a mob boss walk me into my own neighborhood like I’ve never been here before.
The sidewalk is packed—but not for us.
Because when people see Kane coming, they scramble to clear a path.
I feel their eyes glom on me as we go by. It’s not the condescending glare of the woman from Maison d’Hiver. I’d say it’s more of a curious look.
Who is she?
Inside, the heat hits me like I’ve just stuck my head in an oven door.
The lobby looks nothing like the abandoned shell I imagined from the outside. Black-and-white marble tile gleams beneath hundreds of shoes. A grand brass staircase sweeps toward the second floor, with miniature soldiers sculpted into the metal.
There are already a hundred people in here, and it’s not even nine o’clock.
I swear almost every single one of them pays their respects to Kane as we go. It’s a never-ending stream of greetings, bows, and handshakes.
“Mr. Makov.”
“Kane.”
“Boss.”
“Pakhan.”
He nods at all of them but doesn’t stop for any of them. He walks me up the stairs with his hand at the small of my back and takes me down a hallway to a door at the end.
The room inside is small and toasty, with a couch, a mirror ringed in bulbs, and a table with a hair dryer and about forty other things on it.
A woman is already standing there with her arms crossed. Her lips are bright red with lipstick and her many gold bangles and bracelets rattle whenever she moves her hands.
“Galina,” Kane says. “This is Delilah.”
She gives me a wide smile. “Delighted to make your acquaintance, madam. Would you like to sit?”
As I take a seat in the chair she offers me, Kane hangs the garment bag on a hook by the mirror and sets the shoebox on the couch. “I’ll be downstairs.”
“You’re not staying for this part?”
His eyes rake over me.
Slowly.
Heat surges beneath my skin.
“You’ll come down when you’re ready.”
He pulls the door shut behind him.
With him gone, it’s just me and this nice, albeit unfamiliar woman.
Galina turns my chair a few degrees toward the light, tips my chin with one bangled hand, and says, “Good bones. We do soft.” Then she goes rummaging in a train case the size of a toolbox. I get a minute to myself in a bulb-ringed mirror I did not ask for.
Okay, Delilah. Pep talk. Go.
You are not on a date. You are at work.
This is a shift like any other, except the uniform is a slinky ballgown and your work colleague is a green-eyed giant who melted your deadbolt and has a knack for pinning you in corners while he whispers depraved promises in your ear.
Why are we doing this?
Because of how hard I’ve worked to bring my bakery to life. Remember how happy you were the day you got the mixers? That was pure, unfiltered joy.
Remember when the walk-in went on the fritz and you almost lost the sourdough starter, and you and Priya spent a whole weekend babysitting it back to life?
Hell, remember Priya? She loves you unconditionally, and she’s got a little girl who needs her mama to keep bringing home the bacon.
You’re doing this for them.
And for yourself, too. You deserve a fresh start. Away from Connor and Vivian and all the other harpies who keep trying to drag you down into their respective circles of hell.
You can do this.
Galina returns, gives me one more reassuring smile, and then gets to work. She takes the pins out of my hair without asking and lets it fall, then combs it out with her fingertips.
She doesn’t talk much, which I appreciate more than I can say, because I just need a moment to recalibrate right now.
She sections my hair with clips and starts at the back with a big round brush and the dryer, rolling each piece under and holding it there until it cools.
Then she goes through it with a curling iron, wide barrel, wrapping and dropping and never touching the ends.
When she’s done, she flips me upside down, shakes everything out with her fingers, and mists it with an almond-scented spray. It comes out looking like beach waves that took no effort at all.
I’m starting to think Galina might be a witch.
For my face, she starts with a moisturizer that she warms between her palms first. Then a foundation she mixes on the back of her hand, dabbed on with a sponge instead of brushed.
She does concealer under my eyes in a triangle. Cream blush high on the cheeks, patted in with her ring finger. Brown liner smudged along the top lashes only, no wing, then two coats of mascara with a tissue tucked under my lower lashes so nothing prints.
Last is the lip. She skips red and picks a brownish rose, lines it, fills it, blots it on a tissue, and does it again.
Then she stands me up and points at the garment bag. “Now, the dress. Clothes off.”
I hesitate, for obvious reasons. I’m wearing the leggings and long-sleeve tee I put on in the dark at four in the morning, and underneath that is a bra that’s older than my marriage.
But Galina waits patiently. So, swallowing down my uncertainty, I pull the shirt over my head, step out of the leggings, and stand there half-naked with a stranger.
“Ah,” she hums. “I get his interest now.”
“Pardon?” I squeak.
She unzips the bag and lifts the wine-colored dress out, holding it by the shoulders. “With hips like that, you should be walking around this city with a marching band behind you.”
“Oh, uh, that’s very nice of you—”
“Nice? Not nice. Just true.” She crouches and holds the dress open at the floor. “Step in. Hold my shoulder.”
I do as she says. She works the fabric up over my legs and my hips. It goes without a fight, which is not something I’m used to.
I kinda think Ekaterina might be a witch, too.
When it’s all cinched up, Galina settles the sleeves off my shoulders and tidies up the back, then tugs things straight at my waist so all the fabric flows correctly.
“Mr. Makov chose well,” she says as she steps back to appraise me. “He knows what he has.”
“He doesn’t have anything. It’s a business thing. He’s my—” I stop, because there’s no term for it that isn’t an outright lie. “It’s complicated.”
“Mm.” She turns me by the elbow to face the mirror so I can see her handiwork. “You know he never brings anyone here? Twenty years I work for that man. Not once.”
“That’s probably a coincidence.”
“Hm.” She smooths my hair over one shoulder, steps back, and gives me a feisty little wink, like we’re sharing some inside joke. “Does that look like a ‘coincidence’ to you?”
She directs my chin toward the mirror, and I suck in a startled breath.
My shoulders are bare.
My waist curves inward.
The skirt falls around my hips instead of fighting them.
The wine color warms my skin. My hair looks soft. My eyes look bigger.
For one strange second, I see myself before I can remember all the reasons I’m supposed to dislike what I see.
Pretty.
The word almost, almost fits.
Galina walks me down the hall and stops me at the top of the staircase with a hand on my elbow. Then she lets go and goes back the way we came.
Seems kinda cruel, honestly.
Because now there are forty feet of stairs between me and the party.
I grip the railing and start my descent. With every step down, I consider a fresh new way that this evening could turn into a disaster. Every possible insult that could be flung my direction.
Off-the-shoulder sleeves? She’s built like a linebacker.
High heels? She’s lucky the stiletto doesn’t snap off.
Boobs too big, hips too wide, hair and makeup too audacious? Whore. Pig. Thick girl.
Too much in every direction.