The Revenge Collection 2018. Кейт Хьюит
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from flitting, as it had done seemingly every minute since they’d made their agreement, to being in bed with Gabriele.
The thought terrified her.
It should repulse her too. After everything he was doing, everything he was demanding, the thought of sharing a bed with him should have her crammed full of revulsion.
The butterflies in her belly shouldn’t feel like the flutters of excitement.
An image drifted into her mind of Gabriele peeling the bra from her body...
She shouldn’t have these thoughts. Not of him.
When she gave him her body it would be with the minimum of interaction on her part. She would do what she had to do and nothing more. She would not enjoy it.
Her phone went off, a distraction she welcomed until she clicked on the link Gabriele had emailed to her.
A picture of them outside Ramones had been published online. Elena had been dubbed ‘The Convicted Italian Stallion’s Mystery Date’.
The first seeds of them as a couple had been planted.
Her identity would be revealed sooner rather than later. Her profile in America was non-existent but all it would take was one Italian to read the article and the world would know who she was.
She’d have to phone her dad as soon as they got back to Gabriele’s apartment, a thought that made her already tender stomach lurch some more.
There was no time to worry about it though, as it was time for her makeover. Liana gently persuaded her to change into one of her new outfits rather than slip back into her boyish shorts and T-shirt.
In the beauty department she was taken into a private room. There, a flamboyant man named Adrian, who had the most perfectly plucked eyebrows, sat her onto a high stool and studied her face.
‘Your eyes!’ he exclaimed. ‘They are to die for. And your lips...are they natural?’
At her puzzled expression he said, ‘No fillers?’
‘No.’
‘No work at all?’
‘No.’
He sighed. ‘A natural beauty. Your face is a blank canvas for me to enhance. But first...’ He lifted the lank strands of her hair. ‘First we do something to this.’
For the next hour her hair was washed, snipped and dried by yet another stylist, all the while Adrian and Liana chatted to her and plied her with coffee. They refused to let her see the end result, Adrian explaining that they ‘wanted her to see the whole effect in one go’.
As he got to work on her face, he gently gave details of what he was doing so she could replicate it for herself.
When he was done, he took her hand and helped her down, then led her to a floor-length mirror so she could see the final results.
‘What do you think?’ he asked, smiling widely.
As she gazed at her reflection, a lump formed in her throat.
It was her but...not.
Her hair had never looked so voluminous. The severe fringe she chopped herself when it got too long had been feathered. Layers had been cut into the length, which still fell across her shoulders, but instead of just hanging there now became a frame for a face that belonged to her but one she had never seen before.
Far from making her look like a clown as she had feared, Adrian’s makeover was surprisingly understated.
Her eyes, darkened around the rims, gleamed, the black mascara making them appear rounder. Her cheeks had a subtle hint of blush on them, defining her bone structure. Peach lipstick had been applied that made her naturally full lips look even plumper.
It was hard to believe...
‘Is that really me?’ she whispered, her eyes filling. She’d never imagined she could look so feminine. She’d never imagined she could feel so feminine. Not her, the little tomboy.
Adrian put an arm around her and hugged her to him. ‘Don’t cry. If you don’t like it we can take it off and try another—’
‘No,’ she cut him off with a choked laugh. ‘I do like it. I love it. You’re a miracle worker. All of you.’
He shook his head. ‘Elena, you are exquisite. Now promise me one thing.’
‘If I can.’
‘Always use blush.’
Laughing, she threw her arms around him. ‘Thank you.’
Bags of cosmetics and face creams had been packaged for her, along with her new wardrobe of clothes. Her shopping trip was over and it was time to pay the bill.
Elena got her credit card out.
Liana shook her head. ‘Mr Mantegna has made arrangements to pay.’
About to protest—after all, she was an independent woman, no matter what charge of nepotism Gabriele laid at her door—she had a nice vision of Gabriele receiving the bill. He was the one who insisted she get remodelled. He could foot it.
And speaking of he...
Now it was time to face him.
The heels of the ankle boots she wore gave her a lift in more sense than one. Never mind being two inches taller, she found she held herself taller too as she strode through the main beauty floor with Liana at her side. She didn’t know if she was imagining it but she could feel eyes upon her and had to force herself not to stare at the floor in embarrassment. People never looked twice at her.
‘One more thing,’ Liana said suddenly, coming to a halt by the sunglasses section. She considered them for a while before going behind the counter and handing Elena a Cartier box. ‘For when you have to deal with the paparazzi,’ she said with a knowing smile.
Elena thanked her and put the box in one of the bags containing the cosmetics she was already looking forward to experimenting with.
As much as she told herself that she couldn’t care less what Gabriele thought of her makeover, her heart galloped when Liana opened the door to the private waiting room and Gabriele looked up from the laptop he was working on.
His brown-black eyes widened, and he half rose, the laptop almost falling onto the floor in the process.
After six hours in the department store, Gabriele had been prepared for Elena to come out looking better than she had before. After all, she could hardly present herself any worse. He would have had to be blind not to see her innate prettiness, even though she clearly couldn’t be bothered to do anything with it, but nothing could have prepared him for the beauty that walked into the room.
Dio, it was like one of those before and after television programmes his mother had liked to watch.
A pair of tight pale blue jeans that came halfway up her calves was topped with a long shimmering silver off-the-shoulder top under which were the straps of a purple bra. The clothes themselves were nothing to shout about but put together with clever plum costume jewellery, black ankle boots and a haircut that screamed just got out of bed without having actually just got out of bed...
It was still Elena the tomboy, but with a very sexy, feminine difference.
The pretty shell had been burst open and the intrinsic beauty had emerged.
This was the sexy, beautiful woman he would be marrying in two days.
Aware of Elena and Liana both waiting expectantly for his reaction, he closed his laptop and got to his feet.
‘Tesoro, you look wonderful,’ he said. ‘Did you have a good day?’
‘Lovely thank you,’ she replied with a sweet smile that didn’t fool him for a second.
‘You deserve it, you work so hard.’
After