MISTAKEN - The Complete First Season (3 page)

"
Y
ou can't wear that
. You'll look like a school girl." Melissa took the dress from my hand and threw it on the ground in the pile of other clothes from my closet. "Wait, I think I have something." She went to her closet and came back with something that she thought passed for a dress and handed it to me.

I held up the thin piece of fabric. "You call this a dress?" I held it up in front of me and went to look in the mirror. "I don't think this will even cover my ass."

She walked up behind me and looked into the mirror over my shoulder. "That's the point, Jenna. He's already seen you naked. You have to make him want to see you naked
again
."

I groaned. Just because he had already seen everything didn't mean I had to dress like it. I gave the dress back to her and went back to my closet. I pulled out a gray dress with a V-neck. "I'm just going to wear this. I’ll wear it with a belt."

"Didn't you wear that like two years ago to your dad's last election night thing?" She pulled it out of my hand. "It's like three sizes too big for you now and a belt isn't going to cover
that
up. It looks like a tent." She tossed the too-large gray dress to the floor. She pointed at a garment bag at the back of my closet. “What's in there?”

“Nothing.” I pulled out another gray work dress. I had just worn it last week, so I knew it still fit.

“You still have the wedding dress? God, Jenna, you have to get rid of that thing.” She reached for the bag.

I grabbed her wrist to stop her. “Leave it.”

She let out a long, slow sigh. “Jenna. You have to let him go.”

“I'm trying, Mel. I'm just not ready to let go of that. Not yet.” I nodded my head toward the back of the closet. “It still means something. I can't just let it go.”

“Jenna, it isn't him in that garment bag. You know that right? He isn't in any
thing
. He's in here.” She tapped a finger over my heart. “He always will be. He wouldn't want you to hang on like this.” She let out an exasperated sigh.

I shook my head. “I'm not ready to let it go. Not yet.”

She shook her head again and pulled out a navy blue, short-sleeved dress. "This one. This is the one."

I frowned. "Too low cut. I can't even wear that one to work. I don't even know why I bought that."

She shoved it in my hand and nodded. "This is the one. Low cut is good. Show off those perfect girls." She winked at me and tapped the dress. "Put it on."

I let out a long sigh, knowing I wasn't going to win this argument. I pulled the dress over my head and smoothed it down. The neckline plunged almost to the front closure of my bra. I pulled up at the V-neck and tried to cover myself up a little.

Mel grabbed my hand. "Stop, Jenna. It's perfect. Look at yourself." She pushed me toward the mirror and looked at me again over my shoulder. "You're frickin' gorgeous."

I blushed a little and I shook my head. "I just wish I didn't feel so guilty about what I already did." I pulled my long brown hair into a bun at the nape of my neck and twisted it through so it wouldn't come free. Plain. That was how I looked. Plain and a little slutty with my breasts about to pop out of my dress.

She held onto my shoulders and looked at me in the mirror. "Jenna, you have no idea how amazing you are. How gorgeous. You're young and you're beautiful and you have your whole life waiting for you out there. This guy likes you. I mean
likes
you, likes you. He could barely talk around you." She gave my shoulders a little shake. "And you have nothing to feel guilty about. You deserve this and I've never seen a guy so into a girl he barely knows before."

I made an indignant sound. "So not true. He's so far out of my league, Mel. I don't even know what I'm doing." I turned back to face her. "I'm not going. This is another mistake."

Her eyes widened as big as I'd ever seen them. She looked like she might kill me. "You are
so
going." She put her hands on my shoulders again and tilted her head to look me in the eyes. "You don't have to sleep with him, right?”

I shrugged. “I guess not.”

“Of course you don't. You look amazing and he's taking you to frickin' Lotus, for God's sake. Who gets a table at a restaurant that's booked out nine months? You are going to dinner with him tonight if I have to drag you there myself." She dropped her hands from my shoulders and pulled out a pair of shoes from her closet. It was her favorite pair of black Manolos with the straps around the ankles. "Here." She put the shoes in my hands. "For good luck."

I looked down at them. She had spent half of her first check on those shoes. I handed them back to her. "I can't take your shoes. Not these."

She shook her head and pushed them back at me. "I want you to. You're going to Lotus—you have to at least look the part. You can't wear your gross flats." Her face broke into a wide grin. "You definitely need to wear these tonight, even if they are my 'fuck me' heels. It doesn't mean you have to fuck
him
, okay?"

I rolled my eyes, but I knew she wasn't going to take no for an answer. I just prayed that I wouldn't do something stupid and break a heel or something. "I don't know if I can even walk in these." I slipped the shoes with the narrowest heels I'd ever seen on my feet and bent down to buckle the straps. At least they wouldn't be falling off. I hoped they wouldn't, anyway. It was a definite possibility that I could be breaking an ankle, though.

"Perfect. You're perfect." She smiled and I could have sworn I saw a tear in her eye. "You're beautiful, Jenna." She nodded her head. "This is the right thing. You're
so
doing the right thing." She nodded again.

I rolled my eyes at her again and I couldn't help but grin. "You act like you're my proud mama. It's not like it's my first date or anything."

She sighed and tilted her head to the side. "Honey, have you even thought about this? It is your first date. Your first date since...”

My breath caught in my throat. She was right. What had happened with Brandon before had been a lust-filled night, for sure, but it hadn't been a date. The tears that stung my eyes surprised me. "I hadn't thought about it that way. Shit." I grabbed a tissue from the dresser and dabbed at the corner of my eyes. I tried to be careful not to mess up the makeup that Mel had applied to my eyes earlier.

"You're ready. You're ready and I'm so happy for you. So excited for you." She gave me a quick hug and let me go. "Go knock him dead."

I twisted my mouth into a small smile. "I'll try not to. Not on the first date. The first real date, anyway." I picked up my purse from my bed and went toward the door.

She winced. "Sorry. Poor choice of words. That cleavage could give him a heart attack, though."

I gave her a fake glare and pulled up again at the bottom of the V-neck of the dress. "Very funny."

She walked over and slapped my hand away from my neckline. She pecked a kiss on my cheek. "You're going to do great. Have fun. I won't wait up." She gave me a wink and pushed me toward the front door. "Go."

I turned back toward her and pecked her on her cheek. "Thanks, Mel. Thanks for everything."

C
onfidence
. That was what Mel had told me would keep me from killing myself in these shoes. It was something that I lacked on a grand scale, but it might have been the only thing that kept me from breaking both of my legs that night. I had to at least fake it long enough to hobble to where I was going in those damned stilettos.

I found a parking spot only a block or so from the restaurant. It was the closest I'd ever been able to park anywhere I'd ever gone in San Francisco. I hobbled down the sidewalk, whispering
confidence
to myself the entire way.

I made it in one piece and went into the packed restaurant. I glanced around at the people in the lobby, but I didn't see him waiting there. Maybe he wasn't there yet. I walked up to the woman standing at the podium.

She glared up at me, as though I was interrupting something important. "Yes?"

I managed a weak smile. "I'm supposed to be meeting someone. I'm not sure if he's here yet."

She rolled her eyes and gave a loud sigh. "Name?"

"Brandon Richardson."

Her eyes widened and I heard her gulp. She gave me the biggest, sappiest smile I had ever seen. "I'm so sorry ma'am. Right this way." She motioned for me to follow her into the dining area.

I saw him as soon as we rounded the corner. His presence was like a magnet to me—I couldn't look anywhere but right at him. He was sitting near the back of the restaurant, facing the entrance. I still couldn't believe how gorgeous he was. He couldn't have looked more perfect in his tailored suit. Something about his perfectly tousled black curls raised goosebumps on my arms. The power he seemed to have over me couldn't have been healthy. Something had to be wrong with me to be so taken with him. I didn't even know him.

I could see he was reading something on his phone and he rubbed at his stubble-covered jaw before resting his thumb on this bottom lip. The hostess delivered me to the table and he looked up at me with a smile. His eyes roamed from my face down to my legs and back up, like he was drinking me in. He stood up and held out the chair next to him. "You're stunning." His smile widened. "I wasn't sure if you were going to show up."

I felt myself blush and couldn't do anything but force a little smile and nod in acknowledgment. We both sat down and I folded the cloth napkin in my lap. My stomach felt like it was going to twist out of my body. "I was kind of forced. Threatened with bodily harm, anyway." I took a sip of water and could hear the ice clinking in the glass from my shaky hands. I set the water down and folded my hands in my lap to try to hide my trembling. My nerves were going to kill me. And he was sitting so close to me that the electricity he was sending off was threatening to electrocute me.

He looked down at his phone again. "Remind me to thank Melissa next time I see her." He looked back up at me with a small smile and then put the phone in his front pocket. "I'm expecting a call or I wouldn't even have it on. I hope you don't think I'm being rude."

I shrugged and pulled at my fingers under the table. His leg bumped into mine and a shock of energy shot through my body. This wasn't healthy at all.

He must have noticed my fidgeting because he pulled my hand from my lap and wrapped it with both of his. "You're so nervous." He looked into my eyes. "What can I do to make you more comfortable?" He looked away and scanned the dining room. "I should have ordered wine."

I pulled my hand back onto my lap and forced a smile. "No. No wine tonight." I felt his leg touch the side of my own again and I almost died. The heat was rising in me where it should not have been. Not in a restaurant, anyway.

A slow smile spread across his lips. "Ah, yes. Alcohol may have played a part in our hasty decisions when we first met."

I raised my eyebrows and reached again for my water glass. "Just a little."

He chuckled. "No Long Islands tonight, I promise." He reached again for my hand and I let him take it. "Speaking of that night, how is painting going?"

"Painting?"

"Well, I'm assuming you've taken up a new medium. Oils?"

I furrowed my brow. "What are you talking about?"

He touched a fingertip to the back of my hand. "I think you've given up watercolor painting." His touch set my skin on fire. It was setting other things on fire, too. I was going to need a hose if it didn't stop.

I did my best to cover up my overheating body and I looked over at him with a little grin. "What makes you say that?"

He drew a little circle with the tip of his finger and traced up my arm. Little shocks of lightning came with it. "I've taken four more classes in the last month and I haven't seen you at any of them." His finger traced back down my forearm to my hand. "I do believe there is an eighty-year-old woman in that class who thinks I have a crush on her, though." The goofy smile from the yoga studio returned to his face. "When the truth is, I've been hoping to run into someone else."

My breath stuck in my throat and I felt the goosebumps rise again on my arms. I took in a deep breath and tried to let it out through my nose, the only relaxation technique I had ever found helpful. I couldn't let myself lose control with him, not again. "I've been playing the piano. At the, you know...” I stopped. I didn't want to remind him if it was too painful for him.

His gaze didn't even flicker from mine. He just continued with the touching that was creating a hazy fog inside my brain, making it difficult to form coherent sentences.

I gulped and continued. “And pottery. I... I started pottery, too. And yoga, like today. I've never been very good at painting, anyway." I tried to smile, but I'm sure it looked more like my lips were twitching. I picked up my water glass with my free hand and took another sip.

"I don't believe that. I have a gorgeous watercolor that you painted still sitting on my dresser." He looked down to his lap and pulled his phone out of his pocket. His other hand wouldn't let mine go. He looked down at the phone and his forehead wrinkled, his brows knitting together. "I'm sorry—I need to take this." He forced a smile before standing up and walking toward the kitchen.

I couldn't hear him on his call, and I didn't care. I couldn't believe he had kept my horrible painting from the first time we had met. I rubbed the goose bumps down from my arms and watched him talking. Whatever it was he was discussing, it was obvious he was unhappy.

He was on the phone for what seemed like a long time. I looked around the restaurant—no one was eating. No one. I could see people were starting to get upset and the waiters were nowhere to be found. The air was thick with discontent. I was starting to get uncomfortable, too, and not just from my nerves.

He moved closer to our table and I thought maybe his call was almost over. "This is a huge mistake. Even if you get what you're after you can't go back." He paused and looked at me with a weak smile. He held up a single finger. "I'm done talking about it. I'll be there--just know I'm not doing it willingly." He pushed at the screen on his phone and held down the button on top to turn it off. He slipped the phone back into his pocket and came back to the table. He sat down and ran a hand through his hair. He finally looked at me. "Now, where were we? Your new pottery career, right?" He pulled my hand back into his. "And I was definitely holding onto this."

I smiled. "Yes, my pottery career. I've made some beautiful bowls. Of course, they look more like plates..." I rolled my eyes and grinned.

He chuckled and rubbed at his chin. He didn't even mention the piano or that day he had seen me playing. I could see he was still distracted by his call. He looked around the restaurant. "Why isn't anyone eating?"

"I noticed that, too." I shrugged. It had been quite a while since I had even seen a waiter.

He looked at the watch on his wrist and I saw him wince a little. "I don't really have time for this. Do you want to go somewhere else?"

I nodded and we both stood up. He held out his elbow for me to hold. I took it, knowing I might kill myself on Mel's heels without something to hold onto.