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"Miss Meadows."
I press my palms flat on the counter and take a deep breath.
I pick up the water and drink it all.
"Miss Meadows."
"Sunny," I say. "You should probably call me Sunny."
"Miss Meadows. There is much to do.”
“And I don’t want to do any of it. He knows that. I should demand more time or something. Surely he can’t be serious about marrying me tonight.” I turn to look at him. “Charles, what do I do?”
He can see I am out of my depth and seems to take pity on me.
“May I offer you one piece of advice, Miss Meadows?"
"Please," I say desperately.
"Don't try to win the battle. You'll exhaust yourself fighting skirmishes that don't matter. Aim higher." His eyes find mine, and they’re kind. "Win the war."
“And how do I do that?” I ask.
“You start with a really good dress.”
11
SUNNY
The woman blows into the penthouse like a tornado. She's small, sharp, somewhere north of sixty, and wears all black with a measuring tape draped around her neck.
She’s followed by a frayed-looking young woman wearing tortoiseshell glasses and clutching a notepad and pen.
"I am Irina," she declares in a heavy Russian accent. “You are Sunny. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
“Yes, hello…”
She circles me, then loops her hands around my waist. "Don't suck in. I hate when they suck in. The number lies, and then the dress lies, and then we are all liars." She glances up at me. "You are not sucking in."
"No?"
"No. Good. Beautiful. Arms up."
My arms go up.
"Yellow," Irina says to no one.
"Sorry?"
"For the gala." She wraps the tape around my hips as she rattles off some numbers to her assistant. "There is a charity. You will attend with Mr. Di Zaro. You will wear yellow. Not lemon. Not mustard. I am thinking sunshine. In soft silk. It moves when you move." She steps back to get another angle of me. "You walk into a room, and the room thinks the sun came inside. That is the dress."
"That's a lot of pressure to put on a dress."
"It is a lot of dress." She gives me a small, dangerous smile. "You will be fine. You have the shoulders for it."
She spins me by one hip, and the tape wraps around my thigh. Higher than I'm expecting.
"Um. That's pretty far up."
