When the Lights Go Down by Amy Jo Cousins

Author:Amy Jo Cousins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Twenty-four hours later she was cursing herself for an idiot.

“Oh, my god.” She’d rapidly passed the quiet-voice-in-your-head-gently-scolding-you stage and moved on to out-and-out yelling at herself. “It would have killed you to take him up on the car? Dumbass.”

The backed-up line of cars, limos and taxis waiting to pull up to the front of the Civic Opera House and disgorge their passengers stretched on for blocks. At least half a mile. She had watched the meter in her taxi for ten minutes until she’d finally given up and abandoned the car. She might be wearing a three-thousand-dollar dress, but she had less spare cash than a teenager mowing lawns for twenty bucks a pop. Every dime she had was sitting on her desk in the form of illegal weaponry. Luxuries like lingering in taxis—hell, like cab rides, period—were so not a part of her monthly budget anymore.

So she had jumped out after paying and started walking the final two blocks.

Of course, that was easier said than done in this gown.

She was thinking about buying stock in the double-sided costume tape she’d used to plaster the bodice of the dress to her skin.

That tape was the only thing preventing innocent bystanders from being subjected to a live-action version of a Girls Gone Wild video.

She had found the dress buried in the back of Sarah’s closet, where her sister had undoubtedly shoved it after wearing it once in Vegas and realizing there was no possible way she could get away with it in Chicago.

And that was before Maxie had gotten her clever little hands on the dress.

Taking advantage of a flash of inspiration from the day before, she’d gone for the JLo Grecian-style look of slashed down to there and up to here.

The sun hadn’t quite set, and Maxie was perfectly visible to passing cars on Wacker Drive, which is how she learned that the dress made quite a dramatic impact.

Quite.

A hair-curling squeal of jammed breaks and skidding tires pealed out from a car that slammed to a halt at the curb beside her. She just kept walking. There was no possible way looking could improve the situation.

At least she hadn’t caused an accident.

That time.

The gown had been stunning in its original incarnation. Brick red at the hem, it erupted into other fiery hues until it reached her shoulder, where the twisted ropes of fabric that curved over her shoulders and draped down her back glowed with a burnt-orange sheen. Even in Sarah’s closet, the neckline had plunged relatively low.

Relative was an interesting word.

It was possible that the original dress had looked like a nun’s habit, relatively speaking. Because in its new form, she was literally stopping traffic.

She peeked over her shoulder for one moment and sighed with relief when the street was clear of any gobsmacked motorists.

Prying her phone out of a clutch equally as miniscule as the bodice of her dress, she thumbed a quick text to Nick.

Here. You?

It only took a second for his reply to pop up.

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