Chapter 16
16
Nora
I stood in front of Fiona’s dress shop and considered my options. Go in there or borrow Mom’s car and spend the whole day driving down to Portland to find a dress. Obviously, the easy answer was just go in the very nice dress shop I was standing in front of.
But I hadn’t stepped foot inside the shop in six years because Sheila Hedgemore still worked there. Her and Nick’s little fling six years ago hadn’t lasted the summer, but every time I saw her in town I ran the other way.
Did she know it was me on the landing outside Nick’s apartment door that night? Had Nick gone back to bed with her and told her this humiliating thing I’d done? Did they laugh at an eighteen year old girl throwing herself at her life-long crush?
The answer was obviously no, but it didn’t stop me from imagining it and avoiding her.
Julie’s wedding was next week and I needed more than just a dress. I needed a dress that would destroy Nick.
A dress that would bring him to his knees, make his hands shake and have him regret every life decision he’d ever made about me.
Fiona had those dresses.
Who cared if Sheila was in there reminding me of the worst night of my life? I was fighting for something more, here. Something bigger.
Revenge.
The bell over the door rang out as I stepped inside the hushed, sophisticated store. Fiona had impeccable taste and her store gave off very European vibes. I immediately felt comfortable.
“Hello,” I called out.
“Be right there,” came a voice in the back of the store.
Fiona kept a very nice rack of consignment pieces. Prom dresses, bridesmaid dresses, vintage pieces. I went through the rack looking for the sexiest strapless dresses.
“Hello, Nora!” Fiona cried, coming through the curtain at the back of the store. Fiona was probably in her fifties, maybe sixties? But she was like a lot of French women I’d met while living in Paris: timeless. She wore trim black pants, a pair of chic black ballet slippers and a black turtleneck. Her silvering hair was cut in a sleek bob.
I want to be her when I grow up.
“Hey, Fiona. Uh…I expected Sheila to be working.”
“Nope. She’s on her honeymoon, so it’s back to the basics for me.”
Her honeymoon. Right. So silly to be thinking that Sheila would even care about what happened six years ago. It was a good reminder to me that life moved on, and history became just that. History.
“Your father still grumbling about how much money I took from him at our last poker game?” Fiona asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. I love making Roy grumble.”
“He calls you the Black Widow,” I confided in her.
She steepled her fingers together in a villainous pose. “Excellent,” she said with a wicked smile. “Now what brings you here?”
“I need a dress for a wedding.”
“My darling, I’ve seen all your videos. Why don’t you wear that sexy Gaultier piece you found in that thrift store in Marais? Or that vintage Dior? Or even…who was that new designer with that whimsical red dress?”
“DeVilmorin?” I said with a wry chuckle. “Can you imagine that dress at a Calico Cove wedding?” The dress she was talking about was floor length, completely sheer and blood red.
“Perhaps not. But the Dior…”
“They were spectacular, weren’t they? But they’re gone. I had to sell them. All of them.”
Fiona gasped as if I’d stabbed her, then her lips thinned out into a grimace. “Men,” she spat.
“Indeed,” I said. “Anyway, I can’t afford new so it’s consignment only.”
“Not a problem,” she said and came to stand beside me in front of her consignment rack. She smelled of Maison Louis Marie, which was to say she smelled like every rich French woman of a certain age. I loved it. “What is our motive?”
“Motive?”
“Darling, every time a woman puts on an evening dress she has something she wants to accomplish. Class, elegance, sophistication, sex, revenge.”
“That one. The revenge one,” I said. Six years of pain from Nick not seeing me as a woman. Only to have a split second of change on a dance floor. A split second he wanted to forget ever happened.
That felt revenge worthy.
“This one,” Fiona said and held up a dress on a silk hanger.
It was red silk, it was fire, but it was long sleeved.
“I’m looking for something that shows off my shoulders.”
He really shouldn’t have said that thing about the shoulders. Poor Nicky.
“Got it.”
Together we continued to go through the rest of the dresses in my size. I was running out of options when Fiona squealed.
“This one! Yes. This says hell hath no fury.”
She spun towards me, holding up a midnight blue dress with spaghetti straps so thin they looked like they would snap from the slightest tug.
Nick’s thick fingers came to mind. Sliding under the strap, pulling it down over my naked shoulders. I did a full body shiver.
“Gimme, gimme,” I said, reaching for it.
“Dressing room is in the back.”
I flung aside the curtain and walked through the showcase area with the dais surrounded by mirrors. The elegant couch between two champagne buckets where best friends and mothers sat to help brides decide which gown to say yes to. In one of the little dressing rooms I took off my jeans and sweater and slipped the dress over my head, getting chills as the silk brushed my skin.
The second I pulled those straps up over my shoulder I knew this dress would be his destruction. The dress hugged my curves, hit mid-thigh and said I take no prisoners.
And the spaghetti straps…honestly, they just begged to be snapped.
“Let me see,” Fiona said from the showcase room outside my door.
I stepped outside. Fiona stepped back, taking me in from top to bottom.
“Do you have the proper undergarments?” she asked.
“A bra isn’t going to fit under this dress,” I said with a laugh.
“I meant panties. We sell nude thongs.”
“I’ve got the right underwear,” I said, trying to be French about the whole thing.
“Perfect. Then I would say, yes. Yes, that dress is going to hurt someone.”
“Mission accomplished,” I said, looking at myself in the mirrors. The color did nice things for my hair and my skin. The dress was short, but not too short. Tight, but not too tight.
Fiona reached over and gathered my hair in her hand, making a twist at the back of my head. Yes, that was perfect. It made even more of my shoulders.
“Did I hear you and Nick are going to Julie’s wedding?” Fiona asked, casually.
“Where would you hear that?” I jerked away and she let go of my hair.
“Nick said something about it the other night. At poker.”
“Oh. Right,” Mr. Never Talks is suddenly telling everyone what he’s doing? “Yes. But this dress…it’s not for him.”
“Of course not.” She clearly did not believe me.
“I don’t need any revenge on Nick,” I tried to convince her.
“Understood.”
“This is more for me and my self confidence.”
“It suits you perfectly and will make you feel like a goddess. You need shoes.”
I shook my head. “Not in the budget. I have a pair of neutral beige pumps. They should be fine.”
“Pumps? Beige?” She said it like I was going to wear my father’s work boots with the dress. “Absolutely not.” From her wall of shoes she grabbed a delicate pair of silver open toe heels. “My treat. I take enough of your father’s money each month, it’s only fitting I give something back. Try these on.”
I slipped into the silver shoes and turned to look back in the mirror. I was inches taller, my boobs looked about ready to spill out and my shoulders screamed… touch me.
“He won’t know what hit him,” Fiona said.
“There’s no him,” I insisted, but she wasn’t believing me. I’d never known Fiona to be a gossip. The men at the poker game gossiped like hens, but Fiona was a vault.
And she was generous. And extremely smart.
I found myself doing something I hadn’t done in ages. I pulled out my phone and took a video. Of the store. Fiona. And then I slowly showed off my beautiful shoes, my legs that looked longer because of them. The dress, the way it skimmed my ass and stomach and then finally the thin straps. I didn’t say anything. I could make a voice over later. If I did anything with it.
I saved the video to drafts.
“Are you going to post that?” Fiona asked. She was a business owner and she knew what my video could do for her store. However, she was also a friend and was aware of what had happened.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Well, let me know if you do?”
I laughed. “Oh, you’ll know.”
Once upon a time, a video by me could change a business owner’s life. Cafés would be lined up out the door. Restaurants would be booked up for weeks and products would sell out.
I didn’t have that clout anymore, and in truth, a video from me might bring really unwanted attention to Fiona’s beautiful store.
Later, I would delete the video.
“You have to let me pay for the shoes.”
“Fine,” Fiona smiled. “But it’s your lucky day because they’re on sale. Ninety-nine percent off.”
I took her charity with a smile. “Well, look at that. Maybe my luck is changing.”
My luck was not changing.
Dad was going to be so pissed. I turned the key in the ignition again and nothing.
This is what you got when you didn’t follow anybody’s good advice.
Nick had promised me he would find me a reliable used car I could buy, but in my opinion, he’d been dragging his feet for weeks. In his opinion, he hadn’t seen anything that was good enough. But I was starting to suspect there was something else behind his hesitation.
I knew I’d hurt him when I sold the Mini, but every time I sat in it all I could remember was sobbing my guts out while I drove home from his apartment.
So, after a burst of confidence from my new dress and shoes, I’d decided to use that empowering female energy and make a life decision. I needed a car. I was a capable person. I’d grown up watching Nick take cars apart and put them together again, so I wasn’t an idiot when it came to car buying.
The shop was closed on Sundays so I’d called up an Uber and took myself to the used car dealership in Chester. A place where hundreds of people bought quality used cars.
Now I was stuck in the parking lot of the Chicken Stack Shack, with cooling chicken fingers in my lap. Sitting in a silver Chevy Malibu with reasonable miles for its age and an excellent car report – that wouldn’t start.
My options were limited. Call Mom, but she would tell Dad. Call Dad and be prepared for the lecture of a lifetime.
Call Nick and have him say I told you so over and over again every day for the rest of my life.
I had some fleeting thoughts about reaching out to Uncle Jackson, but it would only put me in deeper water with Nick and Dad.
In any other scenario, they would always be my first call.
With a sigh, I resigned myself to my fate.
Nick answered on the second ring.
“Hey Nora,” his voice echoed through the speakers of the car. Yes, I’d bought a car with Bluetooth accessibility, I wasn’t a car idiot.
“Is there any chance I can tell you something without getting a lecture?”
“Considering you’re leading with that…my guess is no. What’s happening?”
“I bought a used car.”
Silence on the other end of the line.
“It’s four years old, with only forty-thousand miles. It’s off a lease, so it was well maintained and it had an excellent car report for a really great price.”
“What’s the problem then?”
“It won’t start.”
More silence. Fuck my life.
“Where are you?”
“In the parking lot of the Chicken Stack Shack just outside of Chester.”
“Go back inside the Shack and wait for me there.”
“Nick, no one is going to bother me in my car.”
“Go back inside the Shack and wait for me there,” he repeated.
“I should have called Dad,” I said, more to myself, but I was on Bluetooth.
“Maybe you should have, because he might consider you too old to spank, but I do not.”
I could not resist: “Nick…are you into that?”
“Shut up, Nora. Get out of the car, go back into the store where there are people. Wyatt and I will be there in twenty minutes.”
“Wyatt? As in your surprise half-brother Wyatt? Why is he with you?”
“Because he’s a child who apparently can’t watch hockey games by himself.”
“Hey, I heard that!” Holy shit. Wyatt Locke was at Nick’s place. Was Nick starting to accept him into his life?
“Twenty minutes, Nora.”
“Oh cool, I’m finally going to meet her. Let’s go.”
The phone call ended and I did as Nick commanded, taking my cold nuggets and fries back inside the chicken joint to wait.
At least this way I could snag an extra honey mustard sauce.
“You’re staring at me,” Wyatt said from the front passenger seat of Nick’s truck.
“I know,” I admitted without any shame. “I can’t seem to stop.”
“You a hockey fan?” he asked.
“Not at all.”
True to his word, Nick had arrived at the Shack with Wyatt Locke twenty minutes later. They hooked up Silverado , the name for my new car, to the back of the tow and I’d hopped into the back seat of the truck’s cab.
Because I wasn’t a jerk, I’d bought some extra nuggets and fries for the guys as a thank you, which they both quietly scarfed.
“I’m trying to see if you look anything like Nick,” I said, leaning forward between the two front seats.
“Nora, is your seat belt on?” Nick asked, but I ignored him.
“Like when I was watching the whole Celebrity Truth thing with you and Sydney Malloy going down, should I have known you were his lost half-brother?”
“I wasn’t lost,” Wyatt said. “We just didn’t know each other existed.”
“Not going to lie,” I admitted. “There were times growing up with five brothers and sisters, I wished I didn’t know some of them existed either.”
“Five?” Wyatt asked, astonishment in his voice. “Your parents must really be into each other.”
“They are. True love. The whole shebang.”
Nick met my eyes in the rear view mirror. “Don’t even try it, Nor. You adore your family.”
“Of course I do, but nobody adores anyone all the time. So Wyatt, is Sydney Malloy as nice as she seems to be?”
“Nicer,” he grunted.
That made me happy. It was good that some celebrities were exactly who they appeared to be. Authentic. Genuine. I’d tried to be that way when my account started to blow up. Not that anyone cared in the end.
“Nick’s allergic to strawberries,” I said. “Are you allergic too?”
“You’re allergic to strawberries?” Wyatt said, looking over at Nick.
“I’m not allergic,” Nick said defensively. “I just don’t like them.”
“Because he’s allergic,” I said.
Wyatt laughed and shook his head. “I like this girl,” he said.
“I like you too,” I said. Wyatt was like an older brother in a way Nick never was. I didn’t want to kiss Wyatt even a little bit. “Is there anything else you want to know about Nick that he hasn’t told you?”
“Nora,” Nick barked. “Enough.”
“I’m just saying, I know you better than anyone else, so if Wyatt wants to know anything, I’m a good source of information.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Wyatt said with a wink.
“Hey, since Nick’s a relative now, will he be invited to your wedding? Because Nick, you might need a date for that.” I pushed forward again to explain to Wyatt. “Nick and I’ve been doing the wedding date favor thing.”
“So I heard,” Wyatt said, and I thought I detected some humor there. “Yes, you and Nick will be invited to the wedding.”
Nick shook his head. “Geezus, Wyatt, don’t encourage her.”
“It’s too late,” I said, with a squeal. “I am encouraged.”
Wyatt’s place was on the way to the garage, Nick dropped him off first.
“My place is only a little further,” I pointed out, thinking I might spare myself a lecture or a spanking. Which shouldn’t make me have all over body shivers, but it did. “You could drop me off first. If you wanted to.”
He glared at me over his shoulder. That was a hard no.
He pulled up next to the old Le Coeur cottage and Wyatt hopped out of the cab. He turned and looked back at me. “Nora, nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
“Nick, you, my brother, are fully fucked. Have a nice night.”
He slammed the door and I climbed from the backseat into the passenger seat and buckled up. “What did he mean by that?”
“No clue,” Nick said as he put the truck in drive and headed for my place. He pulled up to the curb in front of my house and I was relieved to see that it was mostly dark. No one waiting up for me.
“Well, go ahead and do it,” I said. “Say what you’re going to say. I’m ready for it.”
“Only one thing to say,” Nick said, leaning toward me, one arm slung over the steering wheel, the other on the back of the passenger seat. “Are you going to take your spanking like a good girl or a bad girl?”