Page 89 of Filthy Rich

Bea comes out in her lacy dress. “You ready?”

I force a smile. “I love that.”

Bea rolls her eyes. “No one really loves what they settle for. This was our second choice, and we both know it. There’s no reason to pretend, not with me.”

“He’s still not answering?”

She sighs. “He dumped you, okay. It made no sense, but then why would he cut us all off? What’s going on that we don’t understand?” Bea starts pacing again. “We have our album shoot today, and then we have to go back home. I hate this, because he has weeks left, and I just can’t disappear and hope he’ll come to his senses. Jake’s not smart with stuff like that. You have to shove him the right direction or he gets confused.”

I hate this almost as much as the moment Jake dumped me.

Even though I felt so stupid in that fragment of time. What kind of idiot confesses her love to someone who’s about to dump her? Read the room, Octavia, geez. To make matters worse, I realized as I walked back inside that his stupid co-star May was standing on the other side of the car the whole time.

She heard my pathetic confession and his breakup soliloquy.

I’m sure they’ve laughed about it together.

Heck, I’ve laughed about it, bitterly, but still. I was truly delusional to think that I’d fit into his shiny life. I get it. No hard feelings. But it could have gone down in about two thousand and three less embarrassing ways.

I push that futile thought out of my mind, and I throw my lace-overlay mini dress on, and I force myself to at least glance in the mirror. I touch up my makeup and hair, and then I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. By the time Bea and I reach the location they chose for our shoot, we’re raring to share our ideas.

But when we get to the pin, it looks nothing like we expected.

“The Walt Disney Concert Hall?” I ask.

“It’s pretty, at least,” Bea says. “But what are they going to do with us here? We talked about fountains, town squares, and open spaces.”

By the time we park, we’re already late, and the heels we chose aren’t exactly jogging friendly. I nearly twist my ankle, but we manage to shoot inside less than five minutes late.

We’re both panting like labradors on a summer’s day, though.

Which, in LA, November almost is.

“Finally,” a woman in all black says. “Hurry back. We still have to get you dressed.”

I frown. “We are dressed. Who are you?”

“Yeah,” Bea says. “We used the approved costume budget for these. We have artistic approval over the album cover. It’s in our contract.”

The woman shrugs. “I answer to Eddy. You can follow me and argue with him.”

But when she finally stops walking and we barge through the double doors into the dressing area, Bea and I both freeze. I can’t even form words.

“What is that?” I whisper.

Bea shakes her head.

“This is what you’re going to wear.” The woman points. “Eddy’s insisting.”

It’s the gown.

I walk toward it slowly, terrified and delighted. Afraid and excited. I lift my hand toward it, preparing to brush the back of my hand on the chiffon. That’s when I notice there’s a small card pinned to the top of the dress form.

I pull out the stick pin and pluck out the card.

My name’s clear on the front, and it’s handwriting I know. Small caps—only the first letter of each word is larger, but everything is caps.

It’s from Jake.