As it turns out, the man Andy fell in love with is more of a mystery than she first thought. When they give their relationship another chance, it's not long before Lex's secrets begin to unravel, threatening their happily ever after.
• - • - • - •...
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Of course, I sourly regretted insisting that we accepted Miriam's invitation. With the gala the next day, I seriously had other issues to handle.
Thankfully, the matter of the dress had been settled with Tamika's help. She had contacted her friend who had sown her gorgeous Halloween gown. The seamstress, Jessika, had agreed to meet us Wednesday after work. Her apartment was packed with rolls of fabrics, two sewing machines, shelves and shelves of strands, fringes, buttons, glitter...
From what I understood, she was a fashion student, and worked on the side to pay for her expenses. She dealt with a lot of entertainers, mostly drag queens, and was amazing with gowns. When I came with Tammy, she had a few on hand from past assignments. After trying them on, we'd settled on a dress perfect for my body shape.
She needed to work on it, to adjust its height and make it tighter at the waist, and I'd go fetch it and pay her on Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon I had my haircut appointment, then Lex was picking me up at home at five so we could head to the hotel.
I was so not ready.
To my disappointment, work wasn't even providing its usual distraction. Things had been very slow, since the holidays were right around the corner. We were actually off until Christmas, only coming back for four days between the holidays, with a weekend in the middle.
My app had gone out into the world, and we were slowly getting feedback and numbers on beta testers. As expected, there was a lot of room for improvement. But rather than dive right back into it, it had been decided that we'd wait for the new year to resume our work on it. That way, we'd have accumulated a strong base of feedback, thanks to a month of testing.
As soon as January started, I'd be elbow deep into scripts and tests, but until then, work was rather dull. I had nothing to take my mind off the fact that I was having dinner with the terrible Miriam Coleman. I was so fucking stupid. I should have listened to Lex and let him refuse her invitation. I'd been full of good intentions, but those now paved my personal hell of regrets.
Well, as I'd told Lex, we'd just have dinner and leave. And if she tried to stir shit, we'd go home early. Because he knew her well, he'd apparently sent her a text, telling her in advance that she better behave or else. I wasn't sure what the "else" enticed, but Lex could be an intimidating man, so I was sure his threat would be effective.
When we pulled up in front of the gate, I just stared at the house, mouth agape. Holy fuck... The place was huge, right in the middle of Seattle's most expensive neighborhood. Twenty people could live there and barely ever see each other. And it was empty most of the year?!
It had three stories plus one under the roof, towers, dozens of wide windows... Given the late hour, it was hard to guess the exact color, but the house seemed to be built with gray stones, its roof gray tiles. It looked cold, stiff, and unfriendly. It wasn't a homely house, but an intimidating mansion. I could totally imagine it being haunted.
