Nothing to Hide

“I STILL CAN’T believe I was fired. Everyone loved my work. They told me so every day. Well, okay, most days.” Allie McDonald paced from one end of her and Julie’s living room to the other, which took about four and a half steps. You had to love the wide-open spaces of Manhattan apartments. She could pace the kitchen standing still. “Clients loved my ideas, too. I heard a hundred times how their products or services really popped in the pieces I designed. And most of all, it makes no sense that they’d let me go and keep old whatshername, who everyone hated, even though she’s been there forever.”

“Yeah?” Her roommate sedately turned a page of Saveur magazine, her long legs tucked under her on their bright red couch. “Get over it.”

“I know, I know, you’re sick of me.” Allie stopped pacing and shoved her hands through her long hair. Her bangs were getting caught on her eyelashes. At least she could hack those off herself. The rest could just keep growing until she got another job. With luck she wouldn’t look like Rapunzel by then. “I’ve been whining about this for the past week.”

“Have you?” Julie turned another page, examining it with apparent fascination. “Honestly, I stopped listening after the first four or five hundred times.”

Allie cracked up. A native New Yorker through and through, Julie Turner talked tough but she’d walk through lava to help those she loved. They’d been roommates and fast friends at the Rhode Island School of Design—Allie with a full scholarship, Julie with a full tuition check from Mom and Dad—and had found this apartment through one of Julie’s parents’ friends. No matter what you needed or wanted in the city, the Turners knew someone or knew someone who knew someone.

It would be very easy to hate Julie if she wasn’t so wonderful. Beautiful, sophisticated, wealthy and smart, she led a charmed life. Men fell for her in droves. She could eat whatever she wanted and stay thin. Straight out of RISD, she’d landed a job at Vanity Fair...

Come to think of it, Julie was the type of woman Allie’s father had ditched his family for. Only Julie was human.

Allie wasn’t the type men lined up for. She had dull caramel-blond hair and girl-next-door features, scoured secondhand shops, made her own clothes and controlled her weight through relentless exercise and constant sacrifice. It took her nearly a year after graduating to land her job as a graphic artist at Boynton Advertising. Five years later, having been promoted to assistant art director, the company hit hard times and—bang, thanks, bye—here she was, pounding the crowded New York City pavement again, worrying about rent again, though Julie had promised to cover her until Allie got back on her feet. Trust funds must be wonderful things. The closest Allie ever got to a trust fund was the jar in their old Brooklyn apartment into which her mother dropped quarters whenever Allie babysat her five brothers and managed not to kill any of them.

She flopped onto the couch next to Julie and let her head sink back on the cushion. “I feel like a failure.”

“You’re not a failure.”

“I didn’t say I was a failure, I said I felt like one.”

“Stop feeling like a failure.”

Allie clapped her hands. “Hey, that worked. Thanks!”

“Your problem is that you don’t have enough to do.”

“Because I have no job, because I was fired.”

Julie snorted. “You’re doing everything you’re supposed to be doing to find another one. But it’s not enough to fill your day, so you—”

“Get restless and cranky and then I whine at you.”

“Yuh-huh.” Julie put down her magazine. “Hey, you know I don’t mind. Whine away. God knows I would. Losing your job is serious stuff. As I’ve said over and over, if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know. Besides giving you my job.”

“Aw! I was just about to ask for it.” Allie grinned at her. “You are doing more than enough just putting up with me. This is so not where I thought I’d be six years out of school.”

Julie lifted a perfect dark eyebrow. “My point is you need something to do, some project. Like design a line of clothing that will take London, Paris and Milan by storm. You’ll fill your time and your creative well.”

“My creative well.” Allie stared hopelessly at a triangular crack in the ceiling paint. She hadn’t designed anything substantive since she’d started working at Boynton. “Someone threw a plagued rat into it.”

“There’s my little optimist.”

Allie’s cell phone rang from her back pocket. She pulled it out. Maybe a job interview? Maybe London, Paris or Milan?

“It’s Erik.”

“Oooh, your favorite colleague and sexual predator.”

“Ex-colleague. Who finally did stop hitting on me.”

“Because you’re not there anymore.”

“Good point.” Allie answered the call. “Hey, Erik.”

“Alli-i-ie.” He yelled her name so loudly Allie yanked the phone from her ear. Julie rolled her eyes and went back to her magazine.

“Shhh, Erik. Jeez, you just made my head explode.”

“And that’s a problem because...”

“What’s going on? No!” She raised her hand dramatically. “Don’t tell me. Boynton wants me back. They’re begging, in fact.”

“They should be. They’re morons for letting you go.”

Even though Erik tended to say whatever people wanted to hear, she decided this time he was being absolutely sincere. “They certainly are.”

“So how are you doing?”

“Anxious. Frustrated. Bored.”

“Need a little excitement?”

“Uhh...why don’t you tell me what kind of excitement first, then I’ll tell you if I need it.” A lead on a job was the kind of excitement she needed. Erik trying to get into her pants was not.

Getting into female pants was what Erik did. If he could get women to pay him for sex, he’d be twice the billionaire he already was, due to family megabucks. Sometimes she thought the only reason he paid her so much attention was because he still hadn’t succeeded with her. Nor would he ever, which she’d told him in no uncertain terms, but to Erik that was so much blah-blah-blah.

The funny thing was, Allie liked him. Really liked him. She respected that he worked hard at a day job like the rest of the poor rats in the race. And she suspected that underneath all the BS and swagger there was an insecure mess of a guy with a really good heart. She even managed to feel a little sorry for him. Which meant she was nice to him, which, unfortunately, meant he thought he still had a chance. Men were pretty slow about stuff like that.

“This is the chance of a lifetime, Allie.”

“Uh-huh.”

“How’d you like to spend a week in the Adirondacks on Lake George? Or two weeks?”

“Your family’s summer house?” She’d heard about the place and had seen a few pictures—beautiful house, beautiful lake. The temptation was immediate, even as she was formulating her no-thank-you speech. Leave hot, smelly New York in July for a luxury oasis? For a wonderfully cool, breezy, relaxing week...or two? It would be impractical, irresponsible, and serve as needless encouragement for the Great Horned Predator, but who wouldn’t be tempted?

“Yes, our cottage in the woods.”

Allie snorted. If that enormous place was a cottage, she was the queen of planet earth. “So, Erik, we’re talking a week up there, just the two of us?”

Julie shook her head emphatically no.

“Oh. Well... Wait, I haven’t gotten to the best part.”

“I’m listening.” She was a little afraid of the best part.

“My grandmother and great-grandmother were total fashionistas and they never threw anything away. The attic is full of their clothes. In mint condition.”