Festive in Death (In Death #39)(75)

“You look good.” Trina began packing up her tools. “My work always looks good. I’d leave you the lip shine, but you wouldn’t remember to slick it up anyway, so I’ll leave it with Mavis. She’ll remind you. Your man’s going to look strip-me-naked good ’cause he was born that way. You need to look good.”

“I don’t want people to strip naked when they look at me.”

On a bray of laughter, Trina continued to pack up. “They’re going to look at you and think: That’s one frosty bitch cop. Maybe you were born the bitch cop, I added the frosty. It’s what I do.”

“I can live with that. For a party.”

“This is the max,” Mavis cooed as she came back out of the closet. “The maximum mag. It looks like somebody melted old gold coins and made a dress. That’s my Leonardo.”

Eve studied as Mavis held it up. A pale, luminous, somehow watery gold with what looked like a very low-scooped neckline and long thin sleeves. She wouldn’t have called it—quite—teeny-tiny like Mavis’s dress. But it definitely earned tiny.

“Is that all of it?”

“You’ve got the body for it. Runway model but with muscle tone.” Trina closed two satchels, the size of the Dakotas—North and South. “The fabric’s why I used the Gold Dust shade of body glo.”

“You’re going to look awesomillion,” Mavis declared. “Want help getting into it?”

“I can get myself dressed.”

“Step into it, pull it up,” Trina ordered. “Don’t put it on over your head. Come on, Mavis. We’ll find a spot and I’ll do your temp.” She shouldered each enormous satchel, picked up the small gift bag. “Thanks for the candles. I really like burning the fragrance, like there’s one for each season.”

“No problem. I didn’t really—”

“Thanks.” Trina cut her off. “We’ll have the chair and table out of the way after I do this temp.”

“Right behind you, Trina.” But Mavis scurried over to Eve as Trina walked out. “You helped her.” She kissed Eve’s cheek lightly.

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Maybe not, maybe that’s even better. See you at Party Central at Party Time! And we’ll all woo to the hoo!”

Alone—at last—Eve took her glass of champagne, drank. Breathed for a minute or two. All that female energy in one place tended to make her jittery. And, yeah, Mavis had it right. All that energy focused a little too closely on her made her jittery.

She looked at the dress again, then the shoes Mavis had set down by the bed. Gold again, with high red heels, red piping around the edges, even around the open toes. But, thankfully, no fussy straps. Still, she wasn’t putting them on until zero hour, she promised herself, and glanced down at her feet.

Her toenails were painted gold. When had that happened?

She’d live with it, that was all. It was one night. She could live with gold toenails for one stupid night.

She saw the incredibly tiny thong-type deal with the dress, sighed and wiggled into it. Happily, Leonardo had built in the tit support, so now she wiggled into the dress—as ordered—from bottom up.

It fit like it had been made for her because it had been. So there was comfort, at least, and it was really nice fabric, soft, sleek, with a gleam rather than a glitter. She could live with gleam.

She opened the jewelry case. Long, twisty diamond-and-ruby drops for the ears, another ruby in a star-shaped setting dangling from three thin chains twinkling with tiny diamonds. Her dressy wrist unit, and a trio of thin bangles—one ruby, two diamonds.

She had some small relief she’d, at least, seen all the pieces before. So he hadn’t gone out and bought her more.

She put on the earrings, the necklace, was fighting with the last bangle when Roarke came in.

Trina was right, she thought. He did look strip-me-naked good in his dark suit and his perfectly knotted tie of gold and red. He wore the little petunia on his lapel.

“When did you get dressed?”

“I used alternate quarters. You look wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.”

“The word’s ultramazing.”

“It certainly fits.” He circled his finger in the air, smiled when she huffed at him. “Indulge me, would you?”

She did the turn.

“Once more?” he asked as he approached her. Then he caught her shoulders from the back. “Well now, that’s adorable.”

“What? What?” She struggled to see her own back, caught sight of something painted just above the low, nearly ass-brushing, back of the dress. “Shit. Shit! What the hell is that? What did she paint on me? Get it off!”

“I believe it’s a sprig of mistletoe, and I wouldn’t remove it for the world.”

“Why would she do that?” Aggrieved, Eve kept twisting to try to get a full look. “I was actually nice to her. Sort of.”

“That may be why. Mistletoe, Eve. And what is the tradition for under mistletoe?”

“How the hell do I know—that kissing thing? That’s the kissing deal, right?”

“So it is. And it appears to me she’s just given you a celebrational way of saying kiss my ass. It’s you, darling. Absolutely you.”