LITMIR.BIZ

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toward the ceiling and try to keep your eyes open wide.”

      “That’s the third coat of mascara you’ve put on,” Trish pointed out. Makeovers exasperated her. Good, bad or ugly, she was who she was, and all shining-up her act was going to do was make her expect things that were never going to happen.

      Yeah, she’d learned that the hard way.

      Trish reached out for the hand mirror on the counter but Cilla fixed her with a look. “You take one peek and I’m not giving your jeans back. Ever.”

      “Come on, Cilla, I’m feeling like your personal Frankenstein monster, here. I can put on my own lipstick.”

      “Uh-uh.” Cilla came back from her makeup drawer with a lipstick the color of ripe cherries. “I want you to get the full impact.”

      The full impact was what Trish was worried about as she worked to keep her mouth still under the tickle of Cilla’s lipstick brush. Simple, low-key and in the background, that was the way she liked it.

      Cilla finished and set the lip color down, then she stepped back with her hands on her hips and studied her friend. “Now that’s a sight to see,” she said in satisfaction, and then laughed. “That was the most scared I’ve seen you look since that time we ordered a male stripper for your birthday.”

      “Just tell me I don’t look like Tammy Faye.”

      “You don’t look like Tammy Faye,” Cilla assured her. “Okay, upsy daisy, but don’t look at the mirror in here.” She covered Trish’s eyes until they got into the bedroom. “I want you to get the total effect all at once.”

      “I’ll get the total effect if I trip and break my neck.”

      “Almost there, almost there…okay, you’re in front of the mirror. Are you ready?”

      Despite herself, Trish felt a little tingle of anticipation. “So show me.”

      “Ta-da,” Cilla sang and dropped her hands.

      For a moment, all Trish could do was stare. And a gorgeous stranger in the mirror stared back at her. The other “her” stood with a silky waterfall of absolutely smooth red-gold hair flowing to her waist and a mouth as tempting as chocolate. The features that had always seemed too delicate in comparison to her sister’s sun-tossed California blond looks were suddenly vivid and underscored with some special importance. Expert makeup played up the hollows in her cheeks and rendered her slate-gray eyes dark and somehow mysterious. “Wow.” She raised her hands to the soft strands of her hair. “Wow,” she said again.

      “Do you like it?”

      “I’m…wow, Cilla, really. I’m amazed.” With a little surge of excitement, Trish turned to and fro to get the full effect. And, she had to admit, in the outfit she wore, it was some effect indeed. The evening required a bold statement, Cilla had decreed. Digging in her closet, she’d come up with her best studded-leather dominatrix look. To Trish’s amazement, she’d actually been able to zip it up, although taking a deep breath made her breasts swell upward alarmingly. The leather bustier molded her waist, the skirt fit her like a second skin. Fishnet tights and high-heeled red ankle boots completed the ensemble. It might have been couture, but it looked like something out of an S&M club.

      And it looked really fabulous.

      Still, she wasn’t sure she was such a good judge of party wear. “Are you sure this isn’t a little over the top?”

      “Are you kidding? At a do like this?” Cilla sniffed. “You’ll be tame. Too bad we couldn’t get you a whip,” she added thoughtfully. “It would add that little extra touch.”

      “For that ‘you’ve been a bad boy lately’ look?”

      “Like I said, you never know. You might enjoy it.”

      Trish rolled her eyes. “Hardly. Although it feels like the person I’m dressed up as would.” She turned to inspect herself from behind.

      “That’s the fun part, isn’t it?” Cilla said cheerfully, slipping into her nurse’s costume. “Haven’t you ever wanted to do that, be someone else just for a night?”

      Trish’s standard answer was that who she was would have to do. If she wasn’t one-hundred-percent thrilled with life, that was only to be expected. She’d shed the crazy expectations of being a siren, of having men tumble at her feet, of finding true love with Mr. Right. She just wasn’t built for it. Her friends could tell her she was a hopeless romantic all they liked. Wanting love and believing that it had any place in her life were two very different things.

      For one night, though, maybe it could be different. Maybe for this night she could be someone else, see how the other half lived.

      Slowly the corners of her mouth curved up into a smile and she vamped in the mirror. “Be someone else, li’l ol’ me?”

      “Why not?” Cilla slicked her dark-gold hair back behind her ears and hung a stethoscope around her neck. “In this getup, you could have yourself a time. What do you think?”

      Trish grinned at her reflection. “I think we’d better get to the party.”

      FORTY MINUTES LATER, as they stood outside Sabrina’s house, the notion seemed altogether less brilliant. Sabrina lived in Venice, a small neighborhood south of Santa Monica. An ambitious developer in the thirties had built a neighborhood of houses along a series of narrow, criss-crossing canals dug into the California soil. Now, newly dredged and fashionable, the neighborhood held echoes of the real Venice or Amsterdam, with its small arched bridges and houses next to the water.

      It definitely didn’t go with dominatrix-wear. “I can’t believe I thought this was a good idea,” Trish murmured, pulling futilely at her skirt as they made their way up the walkway to Sabrina’s house. It was one thing to be wearing the outfit in Cilla’s bedroom; it was another to wear it in public. Not even the silk duster she’d thrown over the top helped.

      “Stop picking at your clothes,” Cilla scolded.

      “It’s too tight.”

      “It’s Gaultier. It’s supposed to fit like that.”

      “How come I’ve never seen you in it, then?”

      Cilla shrugged and twirled her stethoscope playfully. “You know couture. You can get away with wearing it once, but that’s about it.”

      “So this is my one big chance?”

      “Make the most of it,” Cilla advised, then groped in her candy-colored Louis Vuitton Murakami bag as her cell phone burbled for attention. “Hello?”

      Trish walked a few steps away, adjusting her bustier. Okay, so maybe she felt like the lead actress in some 1960s French sex farce. She just needed to get into character. It wouldn’t be her walking into the party, it would be her alter ego, the one who loved being outrageous and living at the center of the whirlwind. It would be okay.

      “You have got to be kidding,” Cilla burst out from behind her. “What happened to the escort? On second thought, I don’t care. Send her a limo. I’ve got a party to go to.” Cilla paced a few steps, tension vibrating in every line of her body. “All right, all right, fine,” she said shortly. “I’m in Venice. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” She ended the call and cursed viciously.

      Trish stared. “What was that about?”

      Cilla turned to face her. “Apparently our designer for the couture show tomorrow isn’t satisfied with our events coordinator picking her up at the airport and taking her to dinner. She’s insisting that I do it.”

      “Why you?”

      Cilla blew out a breath of frustration. “We’ve met once or twice at her shows.”

      “Not to mention the fact that your family owns Danforth’s and the entire Forth’s chain and has more money than God.”

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