Unzipped?

Lil followed her into the kitchen and Shannon could feel her friend’s concerned gaze on her back. If she touches me, I’m done for.

Lil’s small hand slipped between her shoulder blades and rubbed gently in a circular motion.

So much for my mascara. Shannon’s eyes overflowed. Tears of shock, hurt and confusion rolled down her nose and cheeks—and would probably have ended up in her coffee mug if Lil hadn’t handed her a paper towel.

“What’s the matter, honey?”

Shannon blinked at her and wiped at her nose. Useless to try to keep this inside. “I went to dinner at Mother’s yesterday.”

Lil nodded.

“The typical setup. Polished silver and crisp white linen. The Duncan Phyfe table set for two. Lobster bisque and arugula salad and some fancy French wine of hers…” Woeful sniff. “And of course she tells me my skirt is too short and that it’s trashy to expose my midriff and she practically calls the cops to remove my toe ring.”

“She doesn’t mean to make you feel bad,” said Lil. “She’s trying to protect you from other people’s judgment—and there’s a lot of it in Greenwich. It’s not a town full of tolerance.”

“I know, I know.” Shannon blew her nose. “That’s why I got the hell out and took off for L.A. after college. I couldn’t handle Greenwich anymore. God, they sell bottled repression in the grocery, there! In your choice of flavors—wild cherry, lemon zest, or peach blossom.” She shuddered.

“So you had dinner,” Lil prompted.

“Yeah. And I knew there was something weird going on, because I had to ask her for some family medical history on the phone the other day. She wouldn’t tell me anything, just said I should come for dinner Friday. So we’re sitting there staring at each other over these piles of arugula—I hate arugula! It tastes like grass—and she drops the bomb on me. I’m adopted.”

“What?”

Shannon nodded her head, then shook it, and then nodded again. “Yeah. After all these years, she tells me. Says it’s time that I know. I can’t believe this. All these years, I’ve thought I was someone that I’m…not.”

Lil stared at her for a long moment and then sat gracefully on one of the kitchen stools, tucking her dark hair behind her ears. “I don’t know what to say.”

“This one’s not in Amy Vanderbilt, is it?” Shannon sniffed again and smiled blearily through her tears.

“Not exactly.” Lil hopped off the stool again and moved forward with open arms to give her a hug. “I don’t think I’ve seen you cry in years.”

“Oh, trust me, I did my share in L.A.,” Shannon assured her, “while I was failing miserably as an actress.” Never completely comfortable with affection, she stepped quickly out of Lil’s arms after a perfunctory pat. But she was grateful for the hug—even if she couldn’t quite accept it.

This time, they both sat on the tall stools at the little tiled counter, Shannon gripping her mug with both hands. She gazed into it as if it were a crystal ball—one that could tell her about the past as well as the future.

“Does your mother know anything about your biological parents? Why did she wait this long to tell you? You’re twenty-nine!”

Shannon shrugged. “Rebecca Shane is always an enigma. I love her, of course, but we’ve always been so different. I don’t quite fit her specifications.” She took a sip of coffee. “Apparently my father never wanted to tell me I was adopted. It didn’t make any difference to him, and he thought it would just hurt me.” She blew her nose again.

“Which it does…I feel like they’ve lied to me all these years, and it’s so weird to think that the woman who gave birth to me gave me away. Like a puppy or something.”

“Shannon, it’s not the same thing at all. She was probably in difficult circumstances, and she did it out of love. Out of concern that she couldn’t give you the kind of life she wanted for you.”

“How do you know, Lil? It’s possible that she just didn’t want to be burdened by a baby.”

“Nobody can know for sure except for her. But why are you automatically looking for the negative side? It’s possible that she made the most unselfish, amazing choice, one that must have been incredibly difficult.”

The coffee wasn’t answering any of these questions. It stared back at Shannon, brown and bland and flat. She pushed it aside.

Lilia asked again, “So what does your mother know? What details did she give you?”

Shannon twisted her long curly hair into a knot and secured it with a pencil from a can on the countertop.

“She knows very little about my biological mother and father—only some basics. Apparently this woman who gave birth to me was very young, just out of high school. My bio father was a student at one of the local colleges. He played basketball for B.U. They were from completely opposite religious back-grounds—he was Catholic, she was Jewish.”

“Do you want to find out more?”

Shannon fidgeted and crumpled what was left of the paper towel into a ball. “I don’t know. I’m torn. For better or for worse, my parents are the people who raised me. The ones who spoon-fed me and changed my diapers and kept me from sticking my fingers into electrical outlets. The ones who taught me how to read and ride a bike. The ones who sent me to college. You know?”

Lilia nodded.

“I may never be proper enough for Rebecca, but she’s my mom. It’s her voice in my head that governs my basic human values—her voice and Dad’s. Not the voices of two strangers who happened to conceive me at a frat party or something.”

“But you can’t help wondering.”

“No. I am so utterly confused and blindsided by this—” Shannon checked her watch “—and I need to get it together and convince three different appointments today that I am the self-assured answer to their prayers. Hah.”

“Well, if it’s any comfort to you, you look great. You are the only person on the planet who can get away with those clothes and still look professional.” Lil’s brows rose as she scanned the black-and-orange outfit.

“I know.” Shannon grinned. “It’s all in the attitude.”

“Add your leopard-print reading glasses and some concealer, and nobody will have a clue you were just bawling.”

“Hey, hey, hey. We all know that I am waaay too cool to bawl. I just emoted a little bit.”

It wasn’t in Lilia’s nature to snort. But her look said it all.

SOMEHOW, SHANNON MADE IT through the morning and her first two appointments. The first one, Mrs. Drake, was a divorcée who’d recently graduated with honors from law school at age forty-two. She just needed some basic posture lessons—“Shoulders back! Stomach in! Chin up! Project confidence!”—and help putting together an acceptable corporate wardrobe. She also needed to hear, after twenty years of being put down by her ex, that she was bright, talented and had a great future ahead of her.

Shan loved helping women like Mrs. Drake. She felt such a sense of achievement when, after a few sessions, she sent them out into the world again, re-born in a new skin.

Her second appointment was a teenage girl who looked highly intimidated by her new coach and surroundings. Shannon’s heart went out to awkward, homely Janna, and she forgot her own problems. Eyes desperate behind her ugly glasses, Janna confessed that she was in love with a “cool” boy who would never look at her unless Shannon helped her. She was going to pay for her Finesse sessions with her babysitting money, and it seemed all too likely that her mother didn’t know she was there.

Shannon hesitated for a moment, debating the ethics. Then she caved in. After all, it wasn’t as if she were going to outfit the girl with a thong and spike heels. But take her babysitting money? Shannon couldn’t.

“Hold on just a sec, sweetie,” she told her. “I’ve just got to run get some paperwork.” She smiled reassuringly and slipped out of her office, closing the door behind her. Moments later, she stood in Jane’s office.

“I can’t charge this one,” she said. “It would be criminal. She’s all of fifteen. Isn’t there something she can do around the office?”

Jane tapped her pen on her nose.

“Stop that! I thought we broke you of that habit when you drew all over your face.”

“Dominic thinks I’m sexy with a Bic mustache. Can the girl type?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hmm.” Jane sat for a moment, thinking, and then brightened. “Mailings! She can help do the direct mail stuff. How about that?”

“Perfect.” Shannon spun on her heel, grabbed a generic information form off Jane’s credenza and returned to her own office.

“Here we go,” she said, handing the sheet of paper to Janna, who peered at it from under her stringy bangs. “If you’ll just fill this out, we can get started. The good news is that we’ve just begun a student discount program. Oh, and by the way, we’re looking for someone to help out here a few hours a week. Would you be interested? I know you’re not technically employment age, but we could just reduce your bill by the hours you work.”

Janna looked as if she might kiss Shannon. Mentally Shan pieced through her closet for a few things that would fit the girl. Babysitting money wouldn’t go too far in terms of haircuts, clothes and makeup.

When Janna left, it was noon, which vaguely surprised Shannon. She wasn’t hungry. She felt restless, her identity crisis rushing back into her consciousness. Who had actually given birth to her? Where was she now? What did she look like? What nationality was she? What were the circumstances under which she’d had a child—and given her away?

The questions flooded her mind and made her feel unbalanced. She had to get out of here for a while—especially before she faced Hal Underwood, a brain who had single-handedly built his own software company, so successfully that he was now taking it public.

That was impressive. A lot more impressive than failing as an actress; trying to make a living as just one more pretty face in an ocean of them. It also beat out a career grooming people like a monkey.

The unknown Hal Underwood was already giving her an inferiority complex; taking her back to high school where she’d been treated as the stereotypical dumb blonde.

Shannon swept her keys off the corner of her desk and grabbed her lime-green suede hobo bag. “Gotta run some errands!” she called to Lilia and Jane. “Back by one.”

She made her way outside, into the gray, chilly Connecticut spring. Hey, God. Don’t you know it’s April? Could you improve the weather just a bit?

Shannon got into her white BMW roadster and put the top down in defiance of the weather. The car, a gift from her parents, now seemed all wrong for her. Suddenly she hated it, hated the tan leather seats, hated the logo in the center of the steering wheel, hated the way she must look in the thing: like an expensive, privileged blonde with not a care in the world. What if her real mother was a waitress? A teacher? A postal worker? What if a car like this represented a year’s salary to her? The beemer seemed shameful in light of these questions.

She squealed out of the parking lot, the cold April wind in her hair, and headed for Highway 84.

Within moments the sky decided to dump on her, and it seemed fitting. Instead of putting the top up, Shannon let the rain soak her in a cold shower of reality. She pushed the leopard-print reading glasses to the top of her head and drove under the raindrops like a madwoman, not caring what she looked like to others.

Though the rain pelted her face and hair, trickled down the neck of her jacket and damn near froze her in combination with the wind, at least she felt alive. Not numb, as she’d been all afternoon yesterday and all night.

How ironic that I’m an image consultant. Because that’s all I am: an image. Everything about my life has been a lie.

4

HAL GRITTED his teeth, still obsessing about the information leak in his company. He’d satisfied himself that it wasn’t via an outside hacker, but only after hours upon hours of searching through the logs.

He turned into the Finesse parking lot five minutes early for his one o’clock appointment with Shannon Shane. He did not look forward to it, but he was never, ever late. All of this image b.s. was just another way to waste his time. He had more important things to do, damn it!

He glanced quickly into his rearview mirror to reassure himself once again that he didn’t look like Saddam. Okay, so the beard is bad. The hair is shaggy. But, hey! I have blue eyes. A nice smile, if anyone could see it under the mustache. No signs of mania.

He got out of his Explorer and walked, in the rain, to the entrance of this place called Finesse. Pretentious. Fussy. Annoying. This Shannon person, despite her sense of humor on the phone, would probably be one of those ladies who glided everywhere on high heels, had sprayed-into-place helmet hair and gazed at everyone with a fixed, vacuous smile.

Hal entered the place and said “Hello” to a woman in a beige silk suit. She blinked at him and took an unconscious step backward before returning the greeting. Maybe he did look like a terrorist on the run.

“Are you Shannon Shane?” he asked.

“No, I’m sorry, but she’s not back from lunch yet. I’m Lilia London, one of Shannon’s partners. Won’t you have a seat?” She gestured toward a fussy little sofa.

Hal nodded at her and sat down on the awful thing, immediately feeling smothered by the pink cabbage roses on it. It was made for females. Females much smaller than him and with shorter legs.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Ms. London asked him.

He shook his head, stared out the window at the parking lot, and began systematically picking at the cuticle on his left thumb.

“You’re welcome,” he heard her singsong pleasantly under her breath.

He wasn’t meant to hear it. He craned his neck after her. “Uh. Uh! Thank you. Too much caffeine today. A gallon for breakfast.”

She peered around her office door at him and gave him a very nice smile. “You’re welcome.”

Hal reverted to a nod again and returned his gaze to the window. April, huh. Cursed Connecticut. Where is spring? The rain poured down, relentless.

Hal closed his eyes against the bleak weather and cracked his neck for tension relief. He flexed his shoulder blades and then opened his eyes to a most peculiar vision.

A white BMW roadster—with the top down!—pulled into Finesse’s parking lot next to his Explorer. The driver, a blonde with her wild, curly hair half plastered to her head, seemed in no hurry to get out of the car. She sat there, fingers drumming on the wheel, as if she were enjoying the end of a song on the radio. As if sunshine and blue skies stretched as far as the eye could see, and not gray, chilly pellets of rain.

Nuts. She is completely wacko. The blonde pulled her keys from the ignition, opened the door and slid out two black-leather-covered legs that went up to her armpits. She stood, pushed the door shut, bent over and shook her head like a dog. She walked toward Finesse, her bright orange leather jacket gaping open, leaving her convertible’s top down.

Forget nuts. That’s criminal! But Hal was riveted by her.

The woman stopped just outside the door, under the small green awning. She pulled a pencil out of the breast pocket of her jacket and leaned over again, shaking water from her hair onto the sidewalk. She twisted the wet, curly mass and wrung it out. More water puddled around her black spike-heeled boots.

As he watched, fascinated, she secured her hair into a knot with the pencil pushed through it and righted herself. Then she opened the door.

Hal got up from among the cabbage roses and addressed her as soon as she walked in. “You left your top down.”

“Hi,” she said, with an engaging smile. “You must be Saddam.”

“S—? Uh, yeah.” Hal pointed outside. “Your car!”

“I know, thanks. It will be fine.”

No, it won’t, you crazy woman. But you sure are…

“Thanks for pointing it out, though.” Her white tailored blouse was soaked and transparent. Hal tried his best not to look, but her nipples showed right through. His cheeks warmed. So did other parts of him.

“Your seats,” he said. “The car will be flooded.”

She shrugged. “So be it.”

She was Amazon perfection. Green cat eyes, delicate little nose, lips to make a man sob. Her breasts were full and taut; held in place by an unusual, unpadded bra. He could see little multicolored happy faces with tongues on it. Tongues. “Would you like me to go out and put the top up for you?” Do her panties match?

“No, thank you. Really, it’s fine.” She looked him over from head to toes—not rudely, just appraisingly. “I’m Shannon, by the way.”

He put a hand up to his face self-consciously. He couldn’t believe he was thinking about this woman’s panties within thirty seconds of meeting her! Peg was right. He’d been dating his computer for too long. But Shannon Shane was stunning. No other word for it.

Hal felt as though he was back in high school, gazing at the head cheerleader without a prayer. Cruel, cool blondes had surrounded him in his dreams then, laughing and pointing at him while he stood naked and tried to hide his sexual longing behind his hands.

He was once again the skinny dork behind the heavy glasses. The victim of a cruel prom prank that he never wanted to think about again. Samantha Stanton. Shannon Shane reminded him of Sam Stanton, possessor of a sadistic streak a mile wide—and too cool for school.

He braced himself, locked his knees unconsciously. Stuck out his hand without a trace of warmth. “Hal Underwood, aka Saddam,” he said. “Reporting for cleanup. Shall we begin interrogations?”

She cocked her head at him in silent evaluation. “Sure thing. Right after I find a towel.” She showed him into her office and gestured to the visitor’s chair opposite her desk. “Be right back.”

Hal tried not to notice her black-leather-clad rear end as it swung out the door but it screamed provocation and juicy, bad-girl, no-holds-barred sex. So much for his preconception of her. What kind of woman dressed like that for the office? Now hard as a rock, he needed to distract himself and…deflate.

He looked around her office. It shouted L.A. or Miami, not Farmington, Connecticut. For one thing, the walls were tangerine, and upon them hung framed black-and-white portraits of famous actors and actresses. A few framed and signed record albums were scattered artistically among them, adding color. In one corner stood a…what the hell was it? He didn’t know, exactly, but he liked it. A cross between a scooter, a bicycle and a lateral pull-down machine, the thing was painted in primary colors and splashed with secondaries like purple, turquoise, orange and lime-green. Hal tried, but failed, to discern any use for the creation. Maybe it was some mod, wild sex toy? There went his mind again, straight into the gutter.

His gaze moved to Shannon Shane’s desk, which consisted of a huge sheet of thick, beveled glass resting on four tall, hand-blown Murano vases. How she had found four different vases of exactly the same height, he didn’t know. He questioned the stability of the desk—not to mention the stability of its owner.

Behind the desk a Dr. Seuss calendar hung on the wall. How apropos. Hal had often wondered what the good doctor smoked, but the man never failed to make him smile. His gaze returned to the leather chair, and his mind to the gutter. He saw himself in the chair, with Shannon Shane astride him wearing nothing but that orange leather jacket.

Shannon chose this moment to return to the room with her jacket zipped over the wet shirt and happy-face bra. Thank God. He was hard enough without having to ogle the woman’s breasts. Not that he’d mind, exactly.

“So, Saddam,” she said. “I apologize for being late and wet.”

Wet. He almost groaned aloud. What was wrong with him?

“I got caught on the highway with the top down.”

“That’s okay,” Hal said.

He refrained from mentioning that there was a little button in her car that would have taken care of the problem. He wished he had a little button to take care of his.

Hal looked at the bizarre object in the corner again and pointed to it. “What is that?”

Shannon laughed. “That is a work of art by up-and-coming sculptor Gilbey O’Toole.”

“Ah.”

“Do you like it?”

Hal nodded slowly. “Yes, I do. I was just a little mystified.”

“It reminds me of something Dr. Seuss would build. I love it. And Gilbey is the brother of a good friend of mine.”

Hal sat silent, unable to think of much to say, besides “Take me now!” which even he knew was socially unacceptable.

“He had a big show in Boston,” she continued.

Hal looked at her.

“And he sold every piece. He’s got another coming up in New York.”

She gazed at Hal expectantly.

“Uh. Great,” he said. God, those long, leather-clad legs…

They sat for another long moment. Shannon spun in her chair and pulled a legal pad from a drawer in her credenza. She made a note on it.

Hal read it upside down. Small talk, she’d written. Wonderful. She was noting down his failings while he drooled over her.

“I don’t like small talk,” he said. “It’s a waste of time.”

Shannon caught her top lip between her teeth. “Okay. Then why don’t we get straight to the point of why you’re here. Various people have ganged up on you—your mom, your sister… Why do you think they’re doing that? And why now?”

“I’m in the process of taking my company public. The underwriters are in full swing right now. I can’t really talk about it. But my legal advisor is on this tangent about how I’m the face of the company, and the future rests upon me…blah, blah, blah.”

“And what about Mom and Sis?”

“Yeah.” Hal looked down. “My mother wants me to produce hairless microhumans.” All I want to do is practice. With you.

“Excuse me?”

“Babies. Mom wants grandchildren. My sister just wants me to have a social life.” God, I sound like such a dweeb. Again, he was back in high school, being picked on by the Beautiful People. Except this was worse. He was now (figuratively) on his knees before a Beautiful Person, offering to pay her to de-dork him. Painful. This is just painful. Inside, Hal cringed. Outside, he just blinked at her.

“What do you want, Hal?”

Amazing. She didn’t seem to be laughing at him at all. Probably because there was a fat check involved. “What do I want? Well, primarily I want my company to succeed. And I want them all off my back.”

And I want to find out who’s leaking information to my competition. No way did Greer Conover develop a prototype, on his own, that’s just like ours. Conover had always been a sneak and a slime, and he’d frequently cheated off Hal’s tests in college.

“Okay,” said Shannon. “Then we’re looking at a multistage process. First we need to work on some surface stuff like a haircut, a shave and some new clothes.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“Painless, I promise.”

“Uh-huh.” She had a beautiful smile and because of it, he didn’t trust a word she said. The smile was a tool.

“And by the way, underneath all that hair, I think you’re much better-looking than Saddam.”

Lay it on thick, baby, so I’ll write you a check. He flashed her a sardonic glance. “That’s not saying much.”

She laughed. “Okay, during stage two we’ll work on things like small talk and posture and media training. And during stage three, I’ll teach you how to become irresistible to women.”

“Irresistible, huh?”

“Absolutely.” Her voice was firm. Again, no trace of amusement. A damn good actress, was Shannon Shane.

“All this in the next thirty days?”

She nodded.

Hal sighed. “When do we start and how much is all this going to cost me?”

She looked at her watch, a platinum number that had probably cost some sucker boyfriend more than Hal paid Tina, his receptionist, in a year. “We start now. I made a tentative appointment with a stylist for you. He’s a good friend of mine, so he held a slot open.”