20. Mara
20
MARA
“ Y ou should try it on.”
Even with my heart racing a million miles an hour from being snuck up on unawares, I keep my balk hidden. I doubt a day will pass when I won’t have to suppress the urge to squeal, but the more I work with Ark’s team, the more developed my skills are becoming.
I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. Even long-term employees struggled to hide their fright when Ark’s mother arrived out of nowhere for an impromptu visit at the beginning of the week. They scrambled in all directions, leaving me as the sole employee to officially welcome her.
She didn’t accept the hand I held out to her in offering so a woman as refined and influential as her wouldn’t be subjected to my annoying stutter. She dismissed my welcome with a gesture nowhere near as friendly and with her chest puffed out like a rooster.
The air stretching the material of her couture blouse deflated like a popped balloon when Ark halted my exit by snatching up my wrist. He gave me no indication I should be fearful of the repercussions of my cowardice when he told me he would meet me in the kitchen, but I must not be competent in his expressions, because I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since Monday morning.
It is now Friday afternoon.
I stuff away my pathetic whine for a more appropriate time when the person who snuck up on me reminds me that they’re still present. “The color will contrast beautifully with your skin tone, and it will make your eyes even more dazzling.”
I finish taking in a one-of-a-kind Wilfred Iwona gown before spinning to face the voice. I’m not surprised by Riley’s arrival considering her high placement on Ark’s team, more relieved.
Riley and Rafael were the only two people who didn’t glare at me with disdain when I was introduced as the newest member of Ark’s team at the commencement of my placement. They smiled with their eyes before joining me in the kitchen for the impromptu brunch Ark had instigated but failed to attend.
Breakfast was plentiful. The spread that morning and each that followed was more than Ark’s team could handle. You’d swear Chef is feeding an army of a hundred, not the ten or so guests who float in and out of Ark’s apartment throughout the day.
The wastage was heartbreaking until Chef boxed up the leftovers at the end of the day and had Darius load them into the car that drove me home. The residents of my building have been eating like kings, and although it has only been a week, my uniform is already getting a little tight around the midsection.
When Riley arches a brow, impatiently awaiting an answer, I run my hand down the gown she caught me admiring. “It’s beautiful, but I don’t think it is me.”
“Why?” she asks, her tone neither stern nor angry. She’s more curious than anything.
“Because…”
I want to say that never in my life would I find it suitable to spend eight thousand dollars on a dress, but the pain in Riley’s eyes cuts me off. They’re so bright and confident, yet clouding years of hurt—possibly even decades. My stinginess could cut her down further if she mistakes my reply, so I’d rather veer on the side of caution.
“Because today isn’t about me.” My chest sinks as pain strikes my heart. “It’s about her.”
Unlike mine, Riley’s sigh is vocal when she follows the direction of my gaze. A film crew is documenting Veronika’s visit to Wilfred Iwona’s invitation-only boutique. Her charm and intelligence have had the crew eating out of her palm for the past three hours and me quickly remembering my place.
I’ll be fortunate to carry her purchases, so I don’t need to try them on.
My eyes snap to Riley when she says, “This dress wasn’t designed for Veronika. Her body type is all wrong for this style. Her hips and ass will ruin it.” Her eyes are back on me, heavy and demanding. “You, on the other hand, were made for this dress.”
She plucks said dress from the rack like her bank account won’t cry processing the surcharge for a gown this pricy before she heads for the changing rooms at the back of the boutique.
“Let’s go, Mara. I don’t have all day.” Her tone is snappy, and it has my thoughts drifting to another resident of the Chrysler building for the umpteenth time today.
I haven’t seen Ark in person in almost a week. I’d be a liar if I said I hadn’t missed his presence. An aura like his lights up the room when he enters it, so every room in his once glitzy apartment has been bland and uninviting since Monday morning.
I follow Riley like a puppy does an owner when she hits me with a silent demand for obedience. Her “do as I say” stare replicates Ark’s to a T.
“Wilfred will have a fit.”
Dark hair spills down Riley’s back when she cranks her neck back to face me. “Why?”
I wish she were more than a one-word interrogator. I’m the type who requires prompting to initiate a conversation—a lot of it.
Shame slowly chokes me when Riley refuses to accept my many silent rebuffs. “Because I don’t have the funds to replace the gown if I w-were to wreck it.”
“I’m fine with that.” Her shoulder almost touches her ear as her glance at the outfit I changed into before chaperoning Veronika’s appointment switches her “so what” expression to brilliance. “It isn’t like you don’t have the skills to make this gown what it should be.”
I look at her as if she has a second head. “That dress is perfect.”
A grunt rolls up her chest as she screws up her button nose. “It could be better.”
Now I’m certain Wilfred will have a fit. I took only a handful of online fashion courses, but even I know you never diss a designer on their home turf.
This is Wilfred’s only brick-and-mortar store. People travel across the globe to gain access to her designs in person. She is hugely successful, so I’m surprised by Riley’s level of criticism.
Riley isn’t. She looks smug. Calm. She seems so comfortable in her own skin that I wonder if I read the pain in her eyes wrong. Perhaps her true personality only flourishes when surrounded by like-minded people and not the uber-rich she spends most of her time with.
Eager to discover if my findings are true, I nudge my head to a box of tissues outside the changing room. “Grab the tissues.”
“What for?” Her gag is audible. “If you think a dressing room is a designer’s equivalent of a hairdresser’s salon chair, you are poorly mistaken. I don’t do crying. Ever.” There’s a hint of deceit at the end of her reply.
“I’m not going to cry.” I can’t recall the last time I cried, so I am confident in my assumption. “I just refuse for my pits to get anywhere near that gorgeous material, and I’m sweating s-so much that I’m worried the chicken at lunch was bad.”
She smiles, and it eases the swirls of my stomach. I’ve never had a girlfriend, so I’ve never learned the difference between banter and gross oversharing.
I feel like my line was a bit of both.
“Oh my god.” Tears prick my eyes as I take in the full picture in the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the main changing room.
The gown is a perfect fit. It hugs my breasts and floats over my midsection before pleating at my hips to give my body the ideal hourglass shape. I’m not yet convinced I can pull off the bulky mermaid tail skirt, but I can’t take my eyes off the detailing in the bustier to worry about not showing an ounce of leg.
I feel pretty. Beautiful, even.
I look like I’m worth my weight in gold, and I am not the only one noticing.
“Wow.”
That didn’t come from Riley, whose mouth hasn’t re-hinged since she began dressing me like a Barbie doll almost twenty minutes ago. It is far too deep to belong to Riley and way too possessive.
She also can’t make the hairs on my nape stand on end by speaking one word.
Only one man has that skill.
Arkadiy.
The air in my lungs evicts in a hurry when my eyes lock with Ark’s in the reflection of the mirror. He wets his lips before adjusting his position so he can rake the front of my body. His hooded gaze is wildly inappropriate for an employer to issue an employee.
His hiss when he reaches the flirty neckline of the gown makes me wet. I’ve never heard a more carnal noise, and I paid careful attention to every moan he released when he stuffed his fingers deep inside me.
Lust hangs heavy in the air when Ark returns his eyes to my face. His hooded watch infuses the stuffy space with a seductive mix of pheromones and has me fighting not to squirm.
Thank goodness the full length of the dress’s skirt can hide the press of my thighs. They’re flattened together and pulsating. That’s how burning with need I am. I’m tiptoeing on a tightrope from nothing but a stare.
Imagine how explosive the fireworks would be if he touched me again.
When Riley coughs, reminding Ark and me that we’re not the only two people in the world, a touch of shyness impinges on my cheeks.
“You look amazing, Mara,” Ark says.
I open my mouth to issue a similar compliment. He is dressed similarly to the afternoon he drove Tillie and me home. His dress shirt and suit are both black, but the lightness of his tie makes his outfit more powerful than a funeralgoer. But before a word can seep from my lips, the man of the hour’s arrival is sensed by the woman he is here for.
Veronika’s voice pierces my ears when she shouts Ark’s name. She uses his full name, and despite her naturally high pitch, it rolls out of her mouth as if she is in the middle of ecstasy.
The hem of the dress she’s trying on isn’t close to decent, but jealousy never surfaces since Ark’s eyes don’t float down her body.
His top lip furls at one side, and his breathing comes out in a hurry.
His reply mimics Riley’s to a T when she realizes the fashion faux pas Veronika is making with one of Wilfred’s most iconic pieces.
“That’s not how you’re meant to wear that gown.” Perfume and another smell I can’t quite describe fluffs up when she makes a beeline for Veronika, who suddenly looks panicked. “You’re wearing it upside down. The hem is beaded, not the bust.”
Ark and I stand shoulder to shoulder for several minutes, watching Riley tear Veronika to shreds. I kind of feel bad for Veronika until Ark says, “Designers.” His tsk adds to the spasms in my pussy. “You’d swear they only create masterpieces for themselves.”
It takes me a few seconds to click on to what he is saying. When I do, I’m shocked.
Riley is Wilfred Iwona.
That’s why she didn’t care if I ruined her gown. It is hers to do with as she pleases.
“Does Veronika kn-know Riley is Wilfred?” I ask Ark, too curious not to snoop.
I feel his eyes on me, hot and heavy and floating over my face, before his breath tickles my ear. “No. Riley likes to keep her pseudonym separate.” A touch of a smile graces his lips, and it makes me hot. “When rumors started circulating that she was copycatting Wilfred’s style, she placed an ad in a local inquirer announcing herself as Wilfred’s newest understudy. Nobody has questioned her since.”
“Because she’s young,” I say before I can stop myself. “People assume anyone under the age of twenty-five is only good at m-making coffee and designing apps.” A snippet of bitchiness lowers my tone. “And cleaning up after them.”
With all of Wilfred ’s team assisting with the near catastrophe Veronika has caused a priceless gown, I shift on my feet to face Ark. I plan to ask him to lower the zipper I can’t reach in the back of the dress, but I take a handful of seconds to admire a bone structure too complex for the world’s best sculptor to replicate.
Ark is a beautiful man. It is impossible not to stare. His lips are plump, his nose is perfectly straight, and his eyes are so intensely imposing I swear they can see through to a person’s soul.
I’m appalled by my behavior when my stalk is busted. Ark doesn’t seem to mind. He only caught my stare because his eyes were conducting their own lengthy gawk of my face.
It is an effort to reel in my shame that I am lusting over a man above my league, but I give it my best shot. I push off my feet and head deep into the underbelly of the boutique while tugging on the zipper in the back of the dress.
“I sh-should get changed. Darius will be here shortly,” I say while recalling the new schedule Rafael handed me the morning of my inauguration.
Despite Mrs. Orlov’s numerous reminders over the past week that I am a member of Ark’s cleaning team, not his private life, there isn’t a single cleaning task on my new schedule.
I sneak in a handful of tasks when no one is looking, but for the most part, I’ve spent my week twiddling my thumbs and chaperoning Veronika to and from appointments.
The remembrance that I am Veronika’s equivalent of a lap dog should lower the excitement that slicks my skin when Ark senses my struggle with the zipper.
Regretfully, it doesn’t.
My new schedule has kept me off Mrs. Orlov’s radar long enough only to catch the occasional berate. It would be ten times worse if I were stuck in the apartment with her day in and day out, and I can’t help but wonder if that was Ark’s plan when he designed my new schedule.
“Let me.”
Ark’s full, throaty tone sends goose bumps racing to the surface of my skin. They grow in size the closer he approaches, then augment when the briefest flutter of his fingertips as he pulls my hair to the side of my neck shoots a shiver down my spine.
I hear a zipper lowering before an audible gulp swallows it.
“There you go.”
The dress hangs loosely around my frame, but I can’t force myself to move. Ark is still clutching the zipper, which now sits near the two dimples in my lower back, and I don’t want anything to force it away, not even the perceived hurt our closeness could thrust onto a woman who wants to be more than Ark’s friend.
If they’re not already more than that.
I overheard Veronika’s defense. I know she is refusing to leave until she gets the full shebang out of Ark’s invitation. I’m just confused as to why Ark is agreeing with her terms. He’s powerful and well-liked. He could have any woman he wants, so why is he bowing at Veronika’s feet?
He must want her. That is the only plausible explanation I can find.
“I—”
“Shh,” Ark whispers, his word as searingly heated as the look he gives me in the mirror while moving his hand to the shoulder strap of the dress. “We’re not doing anything wrong. I’m just ensuring the gown isn’t crushed when it floats to the floor.” A smile unwillingly tilts one side of my mouth when his following comment floats over my ear. “I know firsthand what Wilfred charges for a custom gown. The dry-cleaning bill she would impose if it were sullied before it is officially purchased would be atrocious.” The trickle of desire making me hot turns me into a furnace when he discloses the reason the gown fits so perfectly. “I also want a moment to admire my brilliance. I did well with my measurements considering what I had to work with. This dress fits you like a glove.”
Panting, I peer up at him.
Even if I want to act stupid, his eyes won’t allow it.
They tell me everything I need to know.
This dress wasn’t removed from the sale floor before Veronika could unearth its beauty.
It was never placed there since it is a custom creation.
I’m one hundred percent confident of this, and my assuredness flourishes when Ark says, “It’s not the quality of the dressmaker that makes a gown exquisite, Mara, but the qualities of the woman wearing it.”
As my breathing tapers, the noise of the film crew and the starlet they’re documenting ceases to exist. There is no one else in the world but Ark and me. But even if there were, there’s no way I could stop this.
I’m blinded by need and achingly desperate for him to finish what we started in his office last week.
“P-please.”
I flick my eyes to the side when he flattens his hand against the rouching in the middle of my gown. He’s not saving the gorgeous material from the dirty floor of the boutique. He’s ensuring it remains glued to my body while also exposing I’m not the only one incredibly turned on by his closeness.
He’s hard, his cock throbbing as brutally as the pounds of my clit.
I lean into him when he buries his nose into my hair, and he inhales deeply. “Fuck, I’ve missed that smell.”
As the velvety serenade of his moan rolls through me, his hand dips lower. He’s seconds from touching me again, from making me his, when we’re interrupted by a highly likely source since I asked them to meet me here. The boutique is only one block from the bulk-buy grocer we visit once a month.
“Mommy!”
Tillie skips across the room, dragging Mrs. Lichard with her. Her steps are as fast as the one Ark uses to slip through the curtains of the changing room.
Her innocence makes her oblivious to the cause of the redness creeping up my neck.
Mrs. Lichard is nowhere near as fortunate.
Her cheeks are still inflamed from the near-miss when we climb the stairs of our building two hours later and stumble onto a package on my doorstep.
“Who is it for, Mommy?” Tillie asks, her eyes wide like they were when she unwrapped her Nintendo Switch.
“I d-don’t know.” My stutter is easily excusable. I’m perplexed as to why we have received a gift. It isn’t my birthday, and I don’t actively give my address to anyone, so no one could have sent Tillie a belated present.
Tillie is so excited that she looks on the verge of peeing her pants. “Open it, Mommy!”
Her elation grows tenfold when I peel back the red ribbon tied around the glossy white box in haste before popping open the lid.
Air whizzes between my teeth when I drink in the dress Ark purchased for me. It looks as regal in the box as I felt while I was wearing it, but Tillie doesn’t pay it an ounce of attention. Her eyes are steadfast on the invitation that arrived with the one-of-a-kind custom gown.
It is for Ark’s fortieth birthday party, and her name is cited next to mine.
“Can we go, Mommy? Please. I’ll do all my chores and clean my room.” She races inside, prepared to start her promise now if it gives her a chance to attend a celebration I usually decline before she sees the invite. “And you won’t even have to buy me a new dress.” Her beaming-with-joy eyes lock on to the glossy white box. “There’s plenty of material in there for the both of us.”