Page 99 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
I don’t know, but whatever it is, if that woman thinks she’s going to blackmail me with the ghosts of my past, she’s got another think coming.
Because turnabout is fair play, and I’m not above getting my hands dirty if it means getting what I want. And what I want is her.
No matter what it might cost me.
THIRTY
~ Victoria ~
The sound of thunderous applause jerks me back into the present. I smile, nodding and waving to the crowd, relieved the seminar is finally over.
It’s been a hellish few days, but Tabby pulled off a miracle by not only securing a new venue but also communicating the location to all the ticket holders. Once again, it’s a standing-room-only crowd.
Too bad I’m too distracted to enjoy it.
I haven’t heard from Parker in days. I can’t get our conversation from Wednesday night out of my mind, and I’m not talking about the cat innuendos.
I’m talking about the mysterious “place of no secrets.” The more I thought about that, the more ominous it sounded. At this point I’ve almost convinced myself he’s going to take me to a basement somewhere, tie me to a chair, and inject truth serum into my arm.
Wouldn’t that be inconvenient.
“OK, before we wrap up, I have time for a few quick questions from the audience—”
Hands shoot up before I can finish my sentence. I point to a heavyset woman in the fourth row wearing a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. She has an unfortunate haircut that looks like someone plopped a soup bowl on her head and hacked around the edges.
“Yes—the lovely lady in the Disneyworld sweat shirt. Please hand her the mic.”
An assistant trots over to the woman and hands her a wireless microphone. She holds it tightly in both hands as if it might try to escape.
“Hi, um, I’m Barbara. Um, Victoria, you said earlier that confidence is the sexiest thing a woman can wear. But what about, um, the women who don’t have any confidence? How do we get it?”
Flushed, she hands the mic back to the waiting assistant and sits down. Many heads are nodding in the crowd; she’s asked a popular question.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret, ladies; you don’t actually have to have confidence for other people to think you do. That might sound nonsensical, but in the same way studies have shown that forcing a smile will actually make you feel better when you’re unhappy, pretending you have confidence and rock-solid self-esteem will cause others to treat you better, which then makes you feel more confident, which then starts a feedback loop wherein you end up gaining confidence simply because you acted like you already had it. So the next time you’re in a situation where you’re feeling insecure, just ask yourself, ‘What would Victoria Price do?’ Then pretend you’re me, and do it.”
I pause, smiling at the crowd. “Unless it’s chopping off your husband’s pecker. Please don’t blame that on me.”
Laughter. I point to another woman standing on the far side of the ballroom, jumping up and down and waving her arms enthusiastically in the air.
“Yes, the woman in the red polka-dot dress.”
Another assistant holds out a wireless microphone to her. She doesn’t take it from him but leans over his outstretched hands to speak into it.
“Victoria, I’m Claire from Kearney, and before I get to my question I just wanted to say you are such an inspiration to so many women. I saw you on Good Morning America last year and you said something that stuck with me. You said, ‘I’m fighting for all the girls who never thought they could win.’ And I just thought that was so amazing. So thank you for being such a champion for women.”
Massive applause erupts from the audience. Touched, I put my hand over my heart. “Thank you, Claire. That’s so wonderful to hear.”
Claire beams. Then she says, “OK, so my question is about men.”
The audience hoots, and Claire laughs along with them. “Whenever I ask my husband to do something around the house, taking out the trash just as an example, he says he will but then doesn’t. Or he says he’ll do it later. There’s always some excuse. The shelf in my laundry room has been broken for six months and my husband has promised about ten times he’s going to fix it. How can I get him to do it without acting like a nag, which doesn’t work anyway?”
The sound of two thousand women nodding as a collective is depressing. For about the forty-millionth time in my life, I wonder why men are such stubborn mules.
“OK, here’s the answer. Are you ready?”
I wait for their shouts and clapping to die down, and then say, “Sometimes you have to play the role of a fool to fool the fool who thinks he’s fooling you.”
Crickets. Obviously an explanation is in order.
