My Lady Lipstick Read online

  As Adya had said, you find out who your friends are.

  There might be plenty of people who liked you—until you wrote something honest that they didn’t want to hear.

  There were colleagues who supported you—until your agony was too hard to watch.

  You could have love that made you strong, and still discover that it didn’t make you strong enough.

  She opened a new document. Closed her eyes and visualized the monsters of what she called Boss Anxiety. Melting brown ache of despair. The shattering scream of lightning terror. The yellow of shame flooding into Kerry’s eyes when she had realized Paris really meant it, that she wasn’t going to stay and fight. Something else crept into her thoughts—the quiet lavender of relief when Diana had touched her hand.

  She wrote her feelings and fears almost without breathing until her fingers finally stopped moving and her brain couldn’t find another word.

  Her stomach let out a painful growl as she titled the document with the day’s date and closed it unread. Somewhere in the last few hours the sun had set. The wind had come up again, rattling the screen door. Headlights from a passing car turned raindrops on the windows into prisms of orange and blue.

  The endless river of anxiety was drained for now, by her own choosing. She turned on lights and closed the drapes to push all the dark away. She owed much to the therapist her mother had taken her to in her teens, who had suggested that Paris’s love of gaming gave her many tools she could use to confront and win against Boss Anxiety. Paris had learned to accept that even when she won, like in a game, the enemy regenerated and battled again.

  Having to battle it again wasn’t failure, it was part of the game of life she’d been given. She hadn’t needed meds for several years now. If she needed them again it also wasn’t a failure. The battles had gotten easier and shorter, most of the time. This one was the worst in a while. It wasn’t just the letter. It was also that her mind had considered, for a long moment, how she might be a witness for Grace and Adya. Go to a place where she knew she’d be photographed and write her real name in a document that would become a searchable, findable public record.

  She really wanted to be a witness for them and their inspiring decades of love. A year ago she wouldn’t have considered the possibility at all, and that meant something had changed. She would have to think about that.

  The final step in her engineered, word-spewing catharsis was deleting the document permanently and letting go of the words and what they represented.

  A few clicks and it was done. Battle won. For now.

  Sleep. Tomorrow would be better.

  Chapter Eight

  At first it was research, and then Diana couldn’t put Anita Topaz’s books down. She’d gone back to the market multiple times until she had all five. She’d read far too late into the night and then again the next night and the next. Monday morning she was in the corner deli and at the bottom of an espresso before she felt awake.

  It was hard to decide what kept her turning the pages. The heaving bosoms of the women combined with the hunky, unshaven guys on the covers made them the kind of book she’d never expected to like. They certainly hadn’t been in her curriculum growing up. A good, complicated mystery was her usual go-to when it came to books. Miss Marple and Inspector Wexford were her heroes. There were puzzles in Anita Topaz’s stories, sure, but they could hardly be called whodunnits.

  Nevertheless, she couldn’t stop reading. Heroines fell from grace, or had grace stolen from them. In the struggle to reclaim their lives or simply survive, heroes came into the picture. Through mutually suspicious partnership, the couple triumphed over malice and circumstantial adversity. Best friends and trusted allies were colorful and diverse, including a few gay ones, though none resembled Paris Ellison, the real Anita Topaz. There was always a strong sense of justice at the end of these stories, like in a good mystery. There was also heaps and heaps of hot sex.

  Hot, sexy love that went on for hours, nights, days even. That part did seem…unrealistic. She could accept, she thought with a grin, that a cast-off rich girl could find true love in a soup kitchen with a man who was funny and moved like a ninja and treated her with respect and turned out to be an Internet tycoon on the lam from mobsters who thought he had the magic code that unlocked the world’s banking system forcing them to run for their lives through every country in Europe and parts of Canada. But sexual satisfaction the first and every time?

  That part of the novels was foreign territory for her.

  She decided on a second espresso and a bagel. Americans made brilliant cream cheese flavors and so far her favorite was honey and walnut. She licked excess off her fingers and wiped a smear from the dust jacket of her book. At least both models on the cover were in equal though different stages of undress. Still, the hulking beefcake male model looming over the half-naked woman left her cold.

  Anita Topaz’s couples were on fire with passion for each other. Her personal experience with men was not the stuff of stories like this. Diana had rarely lacked for male attention and what hadn’t outright annoyed her as intrusive hadn’t moved her much past lukewarm.

  She massaged the scar tissue in her shoulder. It was a tangible, visible reminder of a dozen years spent in relentless training with the bare minimum of nutrition. Like a lot of her teammates, her hormonal cycles hadn’t begun until late in her teens. Delayed menarche had left a hidden mark on her as well. All the passion she was capable of had been directed at practice, judges, and teammates. It had been nearly a year after resuming a more normal life with more food and less physical challenge before she’d even felt the faintest whispers of sexual awareness.

  A decade out of competition and her breast measurement was the only one appreciably larger than it had been at age ten. Her occasional connections with men were short-lived and fueled only by a modicum of attraction toward one who made her laugh, no commitment beyond a bit of fun, and the thought that she ought to make sure everything was at least functional now and again.

  She studied the near-clinch pairing on the front of the book again. Her lips twisted as she thought of photoshopping her brother and his wife-to-be’s heads on to the bodies of the models. William was head-over-heels for Millie and she hoped they would be happy.

  She had made herself happy with acting. She loved the experience of getting to know the rhythm of villages and neighborhoods, and the fellowship that grew out of small communities. At first she’d moved all around Great Britain, then branched out to Ireland and Europe. America and Canada had followed. She went home sporadically, changed out her wardrobe and played the part of the dutiful daughter to the hilt.

  Her mother didn’t understand Diana’s wanderlust, or the fixation on having a never-quite-successful acting career. But the Countess didn’t know about Diana’s real goals. She would never know that the same part of Diana that had pursued the perfect round off back salto with a full twist mount onto a four-inch wide beam loved the challenge and daring it took to plan and execute a perfect theft.

  Like gymnastics, she did it because she dared herself to prove that she could.

  She also did it because she couldn’t stand to see someone using pottery from a conquered people as an ashtray. Or a sacred fetish as jewelry that happened to match their latest coat. Or a piece of native art to gavel in their greed-is-good conference.

  Ronald Keynes Reynard was in her sights now. And it was going to be a most satisfying job. It would mean taking a few chances. Risk was a familiar friend. Audacity was one of her strengths, and she was going to lead with that.

  Mind made up, she walked home with another bagel for dinner later and to raid her supply of American dollars. The espresso had set her nerves to jangling and she was ready to take action. The costume shop favored by local theater professionals would be opening for the day.

  She was in luck when it came to the right kind of wig, but didn’t like their offerings of what was literally costume jewelry. They had a faux fur jacket that wouldn’
t fool any of her cousins, but good fake fur cost more than she had brought with her. Her first throw of the dice was hoping that Paris’s knowledge of couture was limited. The second throw was that she would have to use her own jewelry, at least for today’s performance.

  She turned up at rehearsal at eleven to explain that she had to withdraw because she was being called home. She’d had so many sick grandmothers in the last several years. Fortunately, both of hers had already passed on, so she wasn’t creating bad mojo by using them as an excuse.

  The understudy for the female players was delighted at Diana’s news. The director was annoyed. Darling Jeremy was the only one to express regret with any sincerity. Their response didn’t really bother her. She was moving on to a new goal, and she needed them to forget her. Within a week they would.

  By one o’clock, after an intense hour in front of the makeup mirror and picking through the selection of clothes she’d brought with her, she was within sight of Mona Lisa’s. Over the weekend the weather had turned soft again. Drizzle threatened but didn’t come down. The skies were gray, but the wind had stopped, thank goodness.

  Not knowing which street Paris would approach from meant Diana had to linger more closely than she wanted. Otherwise, she risked not seeing her arrive. It was a busy corner on a narrow one-way street. Lorries rumbled past. Two industrious young men trundled back and forth with stacks of fragrant boxes on handtrucks, slowly loading a van sporting the logo of the pizzeria. She was apparently downwind of the oven, and the aroma of cheese and garlic made her slightly lightheaded.

  One of the fellows gave her a cheeky grin when he caught her watching them. “A kiss for a pie, dollface?”

  “No, but thank you.” She buried her nose in her book. She was overdressed and quite out of place for the neighborhood. If they returned from their deliveries to find her still “waiting for the bus” they would be curious. Curious eyes were never a good thing.

  When her watch ticked over to two o’clock she worried that she’d either missed Paris or today wasn’t the day Paris would show up. It wasn’t going to be discreet, staking out Mona Lisa’s every afternoon.

  At two thirty she concluded a meandering conversation with a garrulous older woman who adored Anita Topaz’s books and had read the one in Diana’s hand several times, and promptly had spoiled the ending which made Diana want to poke her with a pointy stick. Poke her hard and more than once.

  She was so annoyed she nearly missed Paris’s appearance across the intersection, kitty-corner to where Diana waited. Paris was carrying a small box on her shoulder. More brownies, no doubt. She looked exactly the same. Wind-blown, lanky, with a hoodie zipped to her chin.

  After about two minutes Paris’s silhouette appeared at the table near the window she seemed to prefer.

  Diana cast a speculative eye at the clouds. In about ninety seconds the sun would come out.

  Never underestimate the power of good lighting.

  Showtime.

  Chapter Nine

  Paris set her delivery of brownies on the bar and told herself she was relieved there was no sign of Diana this time. She’d even waited until later in the afternoon to avoid her. It had taken several days, but she’d regained her sense of equilibrium and gotten back on track for her word counts. For now, she was ignoring the letter—yes, it was cowardly. But life was once again safe and routine, and she didn’t want to risk that.

  Lisa scooped up the box after pausing to inhale the unmistakable dark chocolate goodness. “The day I’m having—some of these aren’t going to make it out of the kitchen. You want some lunch?”

  “Is there chowder?”

  Lisa rolled her eyes as she echoed loudly, “Is there chowder?”

  A chorus of voices chimed in, “Is God Irish?”

  “Sometimes you run out,” Paris muttered as she made her way to the table at the window. There was no particular reason she wanted to linger. She was hungry, that was all.

  Nevertheless, her gaze immediately went to the door when it opened. Not Diana. A small woman, perhaps thirty, in a thick fur coat that fell to her knees. The sunlight streaming in behind her caught a dazzle of emerald stones dangling from her ears, winking in and out of sight behind long waves of honey-blond hair that fell over one eye.

  She wasn’t the usual for Mona Lisa’s crowd and conversations paused. Paris tried to stop watching her but she seemed no more able to resist than the guys at the bar.

  The newcomer’s gaze swept down the long stretch of gleaming oak where Lisa was wiping up a spill of melting ice, over the tables near the televisions and dart board, and then to the front windows to finally settle on Paris. The perfect pink lips curved in a smile of recognition.

  Bemused, Paris caught herself before she automatically smiled back. If she had ever met the woman she would have remembered. She was walking toward Paris now, the coat falling open to reveal a short, slinky sapphire dress. Its daring neckline plunged most of the way to the woman’s navel, and framed a necklace of gold links with an emerald teardrop pendant. Paris was certain it was no mistake that the pendant rested between the slight curves of her breasts. Leather boots hugged her thighs and stretched down the shapely legs.

  “There you are,” she said to Paris in a slightly breathless voice. “We meet at last.”

  Paris knew she should say something. Instead, she was taken aback by the casual way the woman set her designer-logo handbag on the table, as if she expected to join Paris for lunch.

  “I’m sorry,” Paris finally managed. “Do I know you?”

  The blue eyes—several shades darker than the form-fitting, revealing dress—were full of merriment. “Of course you do. I’m Anita Topaz.”

  Chapter Ten

  Paris’s brain sorted through the words, put them in different order, replayed them—and they still didn’t make sense. There was buzzing in her ears. “You can’t be.”

  “Why not?” The blonde slid into the chair opposite Paris, dripping with sex and money. Her coat slipped farther back on her shoulders, revealing firm lines of muscle and fine bone. The only flaw was an odd bump almost at the point of her left shoulder.

  “Is this some kind of joke? I’m Anita Topaz.” She glanced around the bar, aware that people were still staring, and why wouldn’t they? Their attention twanged at Paris’s nerves.

  Her movements leisurely, the woman extracted a book from her handbag and slid it facedown across the table to Paris. “You don’t look anything like her picture.”

  It only took a glance for Paris to recognize the damned stock photo she’d taken out of a new picture frame. Too demoralized and run to ground to use her own photo, she’d doctored the image with lots of shadow and sent it along with her submission package for the publishing contest that had put Anita Topaz into print. The soft yellow hair, pink, pink lips, and shining blue eyes were matched by the woman sitting across from her.

  One corner of the expressive mouth pulled upward and that’s when the truth hit Paris.

  “Diana!” Suddenly it was obvious—and immediately bewildering.

  She bowed her head in acknowledgment. “What do you think?”

  Paris managed to gasp, “Why?”

  “I really need a job and I have a plan. It’s a little crazy but maybe we both get what we want.”

  Paris realized that she’d been shaking her head throughout their exchange. The buzz in her ears got louder. “You don’t know anything about what I want.”

  She said it more loudly than she meant to, loudly enough to draw Lisa to their table. To Paris she said, “Your lunch will be out in a minute or two.” Her gaze was laden with curiosity as she added to Diana, “Can I get you something?”

  Still using that slightly breathless voice that was not the least bit Irish, Diana said, “I’d love an iced tea. Especially if some Grey Goose Citron fell into it.”

  “You got it.” Lisa departed after a narrow-eyed speculative study of Diana’s face.

  Paris began a furious whispered demand
but Diana cut her off with a droll, “Don’t you think Anita Topaz would drink top-shelf vodka? That’ll be my lunch money for today.”

  “She doesn’t drink—”

  “Oh but she does! All of her characters do, so it must be a favorite. They also like chocolate and fresh, crisp sheets.” With a lazy fingertip illustrating on her own body, she added, “And right there, the part of a woman’s chest where the curve of her breast just becomes visible.”

  Paris tore her gaze from the spot Diana outlined with her fingertip.

  “I’m not saying the heroes are predictable that way, I just noticed that it’s the first trait they notice, when they realize the lovely lady has all the right ingredients to light their flame.”

  “You’ve been reading my books?” It wasn’t the question Paris meant to ask.

  “I’m a method actor.” Diana was all sunny smiles as Lisa returned with the cocktail and Paris’s bowl of chowder. She engaged Lisa in a frivolous discussion about the vodka, and Lisa returned to the bar without giving any sign of recognizing Diana.

  Paris felt less like an idiot on that score at least. Otherwise, she had clearly entered the Twilight Zone.

  How was it possible to be sitting at her familiar table, with an ordinary bowl of soup, a prosaic bag of oyster crackers alongside, while across the table was a siren of a woman claiming to be… Well, claiming to be her? With hair product, eyeliner, and lipstick? Long, sexy legs, a prowling walk, and confidence in the power of her charm? Every bit the kind of woman Paris wasn’t.

  And yet, if anyone were asked to pick the Queen of the Bodice Rippers, who would they choose? Not the skinny, angular, beige-skinned butch whose only foray into the beautification department was strawberry ChapStick. And that only because anyone who didn’t use some kind of balm in a Boston winter was asking to be lipless by spring.