Bare

Chapter 1

Chapter One

She. Would. Not. Scratch.

The air conditioning was pumping, but hot sweat dampened Rosemary Cashman’s armpits, making them sticky.

Her fingers cramped from gripping the arms of the conference room chair.

She angled her head to the side, hoping her wig would reposition enough to alleviate the all-consuming itch, but it didn’t work.

She. Would. Not. Scratch.

Not here. Not in front of her boss and their client.

She just needed this interminable meeting to end.

“Rosemary, are you all right? You look pale.”

Armando Pannetone’s voice was gentle with the soft lilt of an Italian accent. In the six months she’d worked at Pannetone & Associates, she’d never heard Armando raise his voice. He didn’t need to. People respected him and listened when he spoke.

A pang of guilt made her shift in her seat.

From her first day of work, Armando treated her like family.

He’d hired her despite her limited experience and had patiently trained her.

In a matter of weeks, they’d settled into the type of easy rhythm that usually took years to develop.

He wasn’t just her boss. He was her mentor.

And here she was, thinking about bolting in the middle of a meeting so she could scratch her head.

She squeezed the armrests even tighter, trying to ignore the itch that was so intense it bordered on pain.

“Rosemary?” Armando repeated, his thick gray eyebrows drawing together.

Armando’s scrunched brows portrayed his emotions as clearly as a neon sign at midnight. He was worried.

She nodded, hoping the small head movement might generate some relief. “I’m fine. It’s just a headache. I forgot to take my allergy pill this morning.”

That wasn’t really a lie. The itch was so irritating that her head was aching, and she had forgotten her Claritin.

“Why don’t you go get an espresso? Espresso is the best remedy for a headache.”

Even with her scalp on fire, her lips curved up at the corners.

To Armando, espresso was a miracle drug.

Last week, she’d overheard him prescribing espresso to Lily as she cried at the front desk over an argument she’d had with her older, married boyfriend.

Rosemary would have told Lily she was better off without the boyfriend, but Armando had assured the receptionist that meeting the man for espresso would solve all their problems.

Right now, she’d be grateful if someone would pour an espresso over her head. It would give her an excuse to move her wig and get some relief.

“An espresso sounds amazing.” She fought to keep her tone calm and professional. “Are you sure you don’t need me any longer?”

Armando swiveled his chair to face their client, Salvatore Moresco.

“I invited you because Sal’s been asking to meet you, but I think we’ve covered all the high points.

If anything else comes up, I’ll fill you in later when we touch base on the Girard warehouse payment schedule and financials.

Sal, we can handle the rest without Rosemary, correct? ”

Sal’s eyes hardened into shiny marbles. “I thought the Girard payment schedule would be done today. Those payments need to go out.”

Companies generally did their own payables processing, but Armando arranged the payment of every invoice for each of the Moresco family businesses.

It was an odd arrangement, but if Sal wanted to pay the firm’s high-dollar hourly rates for busy work, who was Rosemary to question it?

She just wanted to get out of the meeting so she could deal with the infernal itch.

Armando met Sal’s irritation with patience.

“I understand, but you specifically asked that Rosemary start working on your matters. I need to train her and oversee her work. That means things are going to take a bit longer. I know you’re traveling for the next several days.

Everything will be done when you return.

If anyone is eager for payment, I’m sure you can make a call, and they’ll be happy to wait. ”

Sal’s cool, dark gaze fixed on her. He appeared tall, even while sitting with his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles.

Even though Rosemary didn’t consider herself short, she’d had to look up to meet Sal’s eyes when they’d been introduced earlier that morning.

He’d been standing then, and his strict posture and neatly buttoned jacket had partially concealed his paunch.

His middle-aged girth was more noticeable now that he was sitting and his suit coat was unbuttoned.

His thick black hair was sprinkled with gray, and his skin shared the same olive tone as Armando’s.

His appearance was that of a sleek, Italian grandfather, but there was something in his posture that suggested he owned the room... and everybody in it.

Silence ate the passing moments. Sal continued to stare.

He’d been perfectly professional during their meeting, but now, under the weight of his black-coffee-colored gaze, she felt like a butterfly pinned to a board.

Still, she wasn’t going to look away. When she was young, she’d been a natural at the quiet game, but her sister, Sage, had won nearly every staring contest. It had taken years of her sister’s encouragement for Rosemary to learn to meet any gaze fiercely.

She used that skill now to resist the urge to avert her eyes.

She wasn’t going to wither under a little scrutiny.

Even if it felt like Sal’s gaze was focused on her hair.

Armando rose and leaned across the table, becoming a human barrier that interrupted Sal’s line of sight. He pushed a Redweld full of paper across the table toward her. “Would you kindly give this to Lily on your way back to your office?”

She scrambled out of her chair and lifted the file, grateful for the errand, even if it meant she’d have to interact with Lily. Lily had treated her with disdain from day one, and Rosemary didn’t know why.

“Yes. Of course.” She forced herself to look back at Sal while she picked up her purse from the table. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Moresco.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” he responded. “I hope you feel better soon.”

Rosemary pushed the heavy glass conference room door open, took a few quick steps down the hall, and ducked into the ladies’ room. The spicy aroma of the cinnamon-apple air freshener filled her nose. She bent over, peeking under the stalls.

No legs. She was alone.

She set her purse and the file on the dark green marble counter.

Verde uba tuba. It was the same marble her mother had picked for the kitchen in Davis’s house, and she’d never forgotten the name.

She used to think of that house as her home.

Now, she couldn’t think of it as anything other than the place Davis had once kicked Sage and her out of.

The thought slipped from her mind, shoved out by the raging impulse to scratch.

Her head was a sea of prickly, itchy heat.

Her fingers closed around the cool zipper of the flower-patterned, Vera Bradley bag Sage had given her last Christmas.

She yanked it open and snatched an extra-long, thin, wooden toothpick from her stash.

She slipped the toothpick under the edge of her wig and rubbed it vigorously against her scalp.

Sweet, sweet, sweet relief.

She continued to scratch for several seconds, relishing the sensation.

Once the offending itches were alleviated, she slid the toothpick along the length of the wig, hitting any areas that were even slightly uncomfortable.

It was best to scratch as much as she could now, or she’d be back in the bathroom in half an hour doing the same thing.

It wasn’t the wig’s fault. It was high quality and well-made.

Sage and her fiancé, Ryker, had insisted on buying her the best, but even the best wigs were no match for her sweaty, itchy, finicky scalp.

The wig consultant had given her every tip in the book.

She’d tried wearing different types of wigs and wig liners, spraying her head with witch hazel, applying anti-itch powder, and even rubbing zinc on her head at night.

Nothing worked. She still experienced a maddening, all-consuming need to scratch, usually at the most inopportune times.

The wig consultant had suggested the itching could be psychosomatic.

Sage told the woman to go to hell and told Rosemary to put the goddamn things in the trash, but Rosemary couldn’t bring herself to do it.

There was no way she was going out without a wig.

The few times she’d left the house in a scarf had been bad enough.

People knew she was bald under the scarf, and bald meant cancer. Bald meant she was knocking at death’s door. Bald meant people looking at her and seeing a walking, soon-to-be corpse. They didn’t see a person. They saw death.

And no one wants to be reminded of their own mortality.

Even when she wore the wig, some people regarded her with a mix of pity and curiosity.

The ones who knew she’d been sick. The ones who knew the treatment that had saved her life had taken every bit of hair from her body.

The ones who knew the long, nearly platinum locks, so very much like her precancer hair, were fake.

The wig was a costume designed to make her appear “normal,” but she didn’t feel normal.

She felt like an alien trying to pass as human... and failing.

She’d been so na?ve. So goddamn na?ve to think she could share the truth of her hair loss with a few friends—or people she’d thought were friends.

She’d caught them inspecting her hair with furtive glances, looking for chinks in her golden armor, almost angry that her hair seemed natural.

That she didn’t look sick anymore. That she was no longer someone to pity.