It's a Fugly Life (Fugly #2)(34)
God, if I ever see that woman again, I’m going to punch her down there. Right in the clit. Or maybe I’d break her nose so it would be crooked forever and drive her mad.
“I’m not bad-mouthing Gladys,” Max said, bringing me out of a very wonderful daydream of me straddling his mother and beating the crap out of her face. “I think her worrying is sweet. I would’ve given anything for a mother and father like you have. They’re good people and they care.”
“Oh, f*ck you!”
Max’s head jerked back in shock.
“That’s right!” I said. “Stop being so perfect and saying all the right things. It’s annoying and making me feel all squishy.”
Max stepped forward. “You mean you love me?”
I huffed. “That’s not the issue.”
He pinched my chin. “Then what’s the problem, Lily?”
Ugh! He already knew the answer. “Can we not go into this right now?”
He tweaked my nose. “Whatever you say, Lily Pad.” He stepped around me and opened the door.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To the airport.”
“Max, no.”
“Your mother just told me she had the best day of her life running your store and ‘talking with so many interesting people.’ I need someone to fill my shoes here, and I can’t think of anyone more qualified than you.”
I gnashed my teeth together.
“It’s my sister, Lily. I have to go. So don’t force me to pull the guilt card,” he added.
Dammit! He just did! I knew how worried he had to be about his sister, and being the perfectionist that he was, he probably wanted to go to Argentina to be by her side as much as he did to oversee that everything possible was being done for her. Perfectly.
Dammit, he’s so awesome. I wanted to kick him and his perfect everything.
“No guilt card required,” I said. “I’ll stay. If it was my brother, I’d be freaking the hell out.”
Max stepped forward, threaded his fingers through the back of my hair, and beamed down at me with those beautiful hazel eyes. “I love you, Lily.” He kissed me and this time his lips were soft and tender, exactly like I might expect and want at this very moment when he was pushing me outside of my comfort zone.
“Stop it.” I pulled back. “Stop being so damned perfect all the time. It’s irritating.”
Max winked, pecked my lips, and turned for the door. “Callahan will take you to my house. The keys to your Porsche are hanging on the wall in the kitchen pantry.”
“What…” Before I could protest or ask what Porsche, Max was halfway to the elevator on the other side of the floor. Still, I couldn’t help trying to assert myself and take back a little control. “I have a rental car! And I’m staying at Danny’s!” I yelled.
Not expecting a response, I heard Max yell back, “Sure. Enjoy her lumpy cum-stained couch! Be my guest!”
Ewww… Surely her couch wasn’t cum-stained. My mind quickly went to work. Danny and Calvin were serious hump-hounds. Anywhere, anytime, and in bulk quantity. They were like the Costco of sex.
My stomach lurched as I imagined laying my body on their sofa, a place where they’d surely f*cked a few times each day.
Gross. “Fine! You win!”
Three weeks went by after Max left me at the helm of Lily’s Lovely Lies, and I did, indeed, take the helm. From day one, I found myself stepping into a role I was born to do. The overjoyed buyers and executives rolled in on a daily basis, wanting a piece of the LLL pie once we launched. “It’s what our customers have been waiting for.” “LLL is the next big thing in our industry.” “We want exclusive rights to your next season of products.” What I realized was that while Max had disassociated himself from the public face of the company, he’d made it clear to the fashion community that he would be very active behind the scenes. So while Max might have initially lost face with some of his customers when the shit hit the Cole Cosmetics fan, he had not lost his reputation as the King Midas of makeup when it came to building winning marketing strategies. Everyone on the business side still saw him as a boy wonder.
As for me, the three weeks apart had helped me to appreciate what he’d meant when he’d said I would be the face of the company. He’d meant it literally. I carried my own sort of “brand” with consumers, mainly as the ugly woman who’d captured the heart of the most sought after bachelor on the planet. To the outside world, my name and face symbolized something I’d not seen before: that beauty is in the heart of its owner.
So corny. I got that. But for the first time in my life, I was really beginning to love being me. Not so much because of external factors, but because I got to see myself through the eyes of others. It sounded strange, I knew. But sitting down with buyers, investors, and media, they all wanted to hear my story and how I’d been inspired to change an industry. If they were women, they told me how much it meant to see someone like me reach for their dream. If they were men, they had daughters, a wife, a sister or mother who told him about how my story meant something to them. The irony was that people seemed to relate to me more when my face was harder to look at, but they still wanted to know if surgery changed my life. Of course, the answer was “not really.” I was still me and the change I was after would only come with a lot of hard work.