Lie to Me: A Contemporary Billionaire BWWM Romance (7 page)

“Then why in the hell did you bring me here!”

Once Nick had explained that Vanessa and Jacques Jourdan had bonded over ballet and that it was inconceivable that he would not bring the subject up and therefore it was necessary for Zoe to have some sort of basic grounding in the art-form, they got down to a discussion of Nick’s theory that no one actually liked ballet any more.

Zoe agreed whole-heartedly – ballet was like salad, people said they liked it but they really just ate it because it was supposed to be good for you. It was a conspiracy. When the second act began they entertained themselves by exchanging whispered comments about the dancers and individual audience members, pointing and collapsing in stifled giggles. As the evening progressed, the comments became less whispered and the giggles less stifled, until one of the stewards asked them to either keep it down or leave.

They chose the latter option.

They left the theatre still laughing and joking about the ballet itself and the people who voluntarily went to watch it. At one point on the walk back to the car, Nick thought he might actually pass out from laughing so hard.

Later, he dropped Zoe off at her apartment.

“Thanks,” said Zoe, “for a horrible night that turned out to be pretty fun. Let’s never do it again.”

“Amen to that.”

“See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.”

There was still so much to learn.

Nick drove back home and went to bed. But he did not sleep, at least not immediately. He lay awake, long into the early hours of the morning, staring at the ceiling with a smile on his face. He had taken a few girls to the ballet because they had wanted to go, he had taken many more girls to places that were actually fun, but he was not sure that he had ever come home feeling like this. He felt light-headed, excited and… he felt happy. He had not thought that he was unhappy before, in fact he was pretty sure that he had not been (certainly he had no reason to be anything other than happy).

But this… this was something else.

* * *

L
earning
about new and exciting (and boring) cultural activities was only the first part of Zoe’s breakneck ‘sophistification’, sooner or later they had to address the issue of her appearance. Nick had purposefully left this thorny but unavoidable issue until they had had a chance to get to know each other a bit. It didn’t matter whether a girl was a shallow narcissist or a dedicated feminist who refused to shave her armpits, Nick knew no woman liked to be told that they look terrible.

Of course, Nick wasn’t about to use those words.

And, in fact, it wasn’t that Zoe looked terrible exactly, she just didn’t look like the woman that Jacques Jourdan was expecting, or indeed the type of woman who would be allowed into the building in which the all-important meeting was held by any entrance other than the tradesman’s. From her messy hair, mismatched outfits, and her scuffed ‘sensible’ shoes, Zoe’s ‘look’ could be defined by one word: comfort. Well, maybe another word also: thrifty.

That was about to change.

“I like my hair like this,” said Zoe, defensively.

The hairdresser – whose name was apparently Steven, although Nick severely doubted that was what he had been christened – looked at the mass of unruly curls and pulled a face that was somewhere between disgust and disbelief. “It looks like your lady garden has migrated upwards and then got out of control.”

“It’s very ‘you’,” said Nick, more diplomatically. “But, for the purposes of this project, you’re not ‘you’. You’re Vanessa. And Vanessa would never have hair like this.”

“Not on her head at any rate,” added Steven, unable to let a good analogy go. “I don’t know whether to cut it or wax it.”

“How about you shove it?” suggested Zoe, acidly.

“Kitty has claws,” said Steven, who seemed determined to play the stereotype of his profession to the upmost.

“Let’s start by styling it,” said Nick.

“Let’s start combing it.” said Steven, who would not be told his job.

“I combed it this morning,” snapped Zoe.

“If you say so, I won’t call you a liar,” replied Steven. “But I will say that you’re playing fast and loose with the term ‘comb’. Like using a toothbrush to sift through haystack.”

Nick was not sure that this new analogy was a great improvement on the last one. “Perhaps we could have more work and less commentary?”

Steven, put his hand on his hip and struck a self-consciously ‘get her’ pose. “I’m not about to take styling advice from…” he waved a hand to indicate Nick’s overall ‘look’, “… this.”

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” said Zoe from the chair.

“You might as well go get lunch. And probably dinner. Maybe breakfast too. This is going to take awhile.” Steven snarked.

* * *

S
teven hadn’t been joking
. Hours later when Nick returned, Steven was still hard at work. Although Steven kept up his running commentary throughout (it seemed to be a standard part of the service), and Zoe kept punctuating his efforts with ‘Oww!’ there was no denying that the man knew his profession. When Steven finally spun the chair around to present the new Zoe, Nick was stunned.

“Wow.”

“I know,” said Zoe, who was impressed despite herself. “I look… I look good.”

She looked more professional in Nick’s estimation. But Nick’s initial ‘wow’ was more a reaction to how different she looked than necessarily a comment of it being an improvement. For the purposes of the project, she certainly looked better – the wild, curly hair had been tamed, straightened and coaxed into a stylish and attractive ‘do’ that would catch the eye of any red-blooded male.

Yet—somehow – he missed what she looked like before.

“It actually looks … quite nice. Sexy?” Zoe said, looking at herself askance. “I didn’t know my hair could be sexy.”

“Color me shocked,” muttered Steven.

“Yeah,” Nick hastily agreed. She did look sexy, no doubt about it. She looked much more like Vanessa. Jourdan would not have any reason to doubt ‘Vanessa’s’ skills based on her hair.

But he didn’t like it. It was okay for someone else – Someone like Vanessa. But not for his Zoe.

His
Zoe?

The use of the possessive startled him.

Nick couldn’t stop staring. Her hairstyle was designed to look sexy - sculpted and sleekly shaped to achieve a sophisticated effect. But beforehand it had just
been
sexy. Effortlessly so. Sure, it might not have been something Vanessa would have worn, but on Zoe her natural curls had looked carefree and charming.

It was the difference between Angelina Jolie and the girl next door – one looked like a robot built to be the perfect embodiment of male desire, the other was
actually
desirable.

It was possible, Nick thought, that he was giving way too much thought to the relative sexuality of hair, which, whichever way you think about it, did not have a great deal to do with the act of sex. But if it did, and he had to choose between sex with the fake, sleek, restrained hairstyle Zoe now sported, and the wild curls of before, Nick would choose the curls every time.

Which was stupid.

Objectively she looked
better
like this. Before it had been natural, sure, but now it was stylish, sexy, sophisticated and just much more fashionable.
This
was a woman people would look at, a woman they would listen to, a woman they would be attracted to but know that they had no chance with. The previous Zoe was someone they would have overlooked and dismissed with one glance.

Yes, he was improving Zoe, and her old self would soon be a thing of the past.

With the new hair came the need for a new face (‘you can’t have
this
on top of
that
,’ Steven had pointed out).

Zoe glared at the both of them.

“You must have had a makeover before,” said Nick.

Zoe shrugged. “Me and my sister used to do makeovers for each other when we were kids but I get the feeling that’s not what you’re talking about.”

“Probably not.”

* * *

T
he statuesque blonde
woman who examined Zoe looked to be about thirty percent original parts -- everything else having been replaced, enhanced or removed altogether -- but that was probably what you wanted in a makeover professional. She wandered around Zoe, looking closely at her face, making a lot of clicking, tutting, and sucking noises that Nick recalled his mechanic making last time he took his car to be serviced, just prior to shaking his head and saying ‘this won’t be cheap’.

The woman stepped back from Zoe and shook her head. “I fear this will not be inexpensive.”

Nick nodded – close enough.

“What exactly is ‘this’?” asked Zoe.

“You seem to be sweating,” said the woman with distaste.

“That’s because I’m human.”

“We can fix that.”

The blonde Amazon woman’s name proved to be Ilke, and Nick wondered if it was something about this industry that it attracted people with the most ridiculous names. As she assembled her tools, Nick thought back to his garage trip again – some of these had to be just for show! He picked up one contraption with wires and lights dangling off of it.

“Don’t touch that.” Ilke said icily. He dropped it like he’d burned himself. He sensed that one did not want to get on Ilke’s bad side.

“What are you going to do?” There was more than an edge of concern in Zoe’s voice.

“There are problems,” Ike explained. “Particularly here,” she pointed. “here, and here, and
especially
here.” She poked Zoe in various places, eliciting a strangled ‘Ow!’ from Zoe’s outraged lips.

“I don’t know what
this
is,” She gestured toward Zoe’s bushy eyebrows, “but we’re better off without it. We can’t fix everything – I’m not a miracle worker. But we can make it all hold together until you can upgrade to something better.”

“Are we still talking about my face?” asked Zoe, unsure whether to be confused, insulted or scared. “What exactly are you going to do?”

“A little touching up here and there (and especially
there
),” said Ilke comfortingly. “Exfoliating, plucking, skimming, scouring, greasing, singeing, massaging, re-touching, concealing, peeling, sealing, stretching, sculpting, modeling, stripping and burning.”

“Burning?!”

“Just a little acid.”

“Acid?!”

“And fire. Then a touch of make-up and you’re done.” Ilke turned to her tools. “This may hurt a little. For the next hour or two.”