She’d already subjected me to more eye shadow and mascara than I typically wore over the course of a month. I peered at my face in the mirror as she ran to her closet. She’d done an amazing job. I typically didn’t worry about my looks too much, accepting that I was a woman of average attractiveness. That was fine by me. But the way she’d fixed my hair and did my makeup made me feel special and pretty, as if I were a dusty jewel that had finally been polished.
She came back into the room carrying a black, one-shoulder dress.
I wrinkled my nose. “There’s no way in hell I’m wearing that.”
Hannah set her jaw, and I could tell she was ready for a fight. “Oh yes, there is. Gabriel Betts is a gorgeous billionaire CEO. I also have inside information that you happen to like him. So you are wearing this dress, and you’re gonna look hot, dammit.”
I miserably fingered the thin material. “I can’t wear something like this. I’d look ridiculous.”
My sister smiled. “I promise, if you look anything other than drop-dead gorgeous, you don’t have to wear it. Deal?”
I nodded at her, but I felt sweat start to form on my back.
She shoved a bag at me. “I bought you these.”
I peered in, seeing only small scraps of black lace. “Are you serious?” I wailed, sitting down on my bed.
“I’m only trying to help, I swear. A dress like this needs appropriate undergarments…trust me. Now, get dressed.” She looked at her watch. “I’ll be outside for two seconds. If you can’t figure this out”—she pointed to the bag—“just holler.”
I glared at her. “I was accepted as an early admission to MIT. I think I can figure it out.”
I struggled to figure out which way the thong went and then hoisted myself into the strapless bra. Hannah had been correct…it was more difficult than I’d thought. Once I had everything assembled, I looked at my reflection in the full-length mirror. I looked…different. Sexy.
I swallowed hard, worrying that I was going to be sick, and pulled the dress up. It was snug…actually, it was skintight. I zipped it and admired the way it hugged my curves. I went into my closet and selected a pair of black heels that Hannah had given me for Christmas.
She knocked on the door and came in, her jaw dropping. “Sweet baby Jesus. My big sister is a supermodel CEO goddess.”
“Ha.” I wobbled in the heels in the middle of my room. “I admit this looks nice, but I really can’t wear it. I’m not comfortable. I’ll make a complete ass of myself.”
Hannah came toward me and took my hands earnestly in hers. A worried look marred her pretty face. “Gabriel Betts is a big deal. Almost as big a deal as you. I want you to have fun tonight. I also want you to give yourself the best chance of being successful.”
I sucked in a breath. “I don’t know what successful means in this context.”
She nodded. “I know. And that’s okay. But if you like him, and you want him to like you back, you have to show him that you’re interested.”
“I’m not interested.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You suck at lying, you know.”
“I know.”
Gabe rang my doorbell a few minutes later, which didn’t give me enough time to change or argue much more about changing.
I opened the door, and he beamed at me. “Hello, Lauren.” His eyes raked over my dress. “Wow.”
I felt myself redden. “Wow?”
He brought his eyes back up to mine and smiled sheepishly. “I mean, you look stunning.”
“Thank you. You look nice too.” In fact, he looked handsome and sexy in dark-rinse jeans, a charcoal jacket, and a white button-down shirt that was open at the throat.
Hannah peered past me. “I’ll say,” she whispered.
I elbowed her. “This is my younger sister, Hannah. Hannah, this is Gabriel Betts.”
“So nice to finally meet you!” Hannah exclaimed, shaking his hand and jumping up and down as if she were an excited puppy. “Take good care of my sister!”
“I intend to.” Gabe nodded at her indulgently and turned back to me. “Are you ready?”
I nodded and accepted the arm he offered. “Bye, Hannah.”
“Have fun!” she squealed.
I sighed in relief when we walked down the stairs, away from her. I leaned in toward Gabe, loving the smell of him—clean and masculine.
He leaned toward me, too. “We’re going to Saratoga, in case you want to let your security know.”
“Thank you.”
He led me to his fancy electric car and opened the door for me. “Text them the address in case I drive too fast for them.”
I sighed as I slid in. “You know, even though I’m a scientist, I’ll never figure out that door.”
“I sort of caught on that cars weren’t your thing. What type do you have, anyway?”
I wrinkled my brow. “A BMW?”
He laughed as he pulled out of my driveway. “Are you sure?”
“A BMW…sedan. I think.” I sighed. “My sister picked it out. I don’t—”
“Have time for those sorts of things,” he finished for me. “I get it. Nothing to be ashamed of. Your sister seems nice, by the way.”
“She is nice…even though she’s a little excitable. We live together. She’s my publicity director.”
“I know. I spoke with her when I was trying to set up my meeting with you. She was much more accommodating than you were about that.”
I shrugged. “She’s a lot more carefree than I am, which is a good thing. She should enjoy being twenty-two.”
“What about you? Did you enjoy your early twenties?”
I didn’t answer for a moment. A lot had changed for me in the past few years, including the loss of my parents. Since then I’d felt an urgency to live life to the fullest. For me, that meant finding my life’s true purpose and throwing everything I had into building it.
“I was building my company then, sleeping on a futon in my lab every night. But yeah, I enjoyed it. It was a time of a lot of growth for me, a lot of breakthroughs.”
“I love how passionate you are about your work. But did you relax? Did you have fun back then?”
“Of course not—not the type of fun my sister’s having. I had fun with my beakers and spreadsheets, and she has fun shoe shopping and going to trendy restaurants. But Hannah and I want different things, and I support that. I don’t want her to feel like she has to work all the time just because I do.”
“Have you always lived together?”
“Just since she finished college. Our parents died when I was nineteen and she was sixteen. She wanted to finish high school in Michigan while I was still at MIT. Then I moved out here. She chose to study at Stanford so we could be close to each other. When she graduated, she helped me pick out the house. She said it was time to stop sleeping on a futon.” I didn’t want to talk about this, all of these personal nuts and bolts, but it just came out. Sometimes, it was hard to hide the bald truth.
“I’m sorry about your parents.”
“It’s okay. It was hard to deal with then because it was sudden. They died in a car accident.”