Page 863 of One More Kiss

Chapter2

Lu tuckedone last pin into her tight up-do, a helmet holding her propriety in place, and swiped another coat of Max Factor Blue-Red No. 1 lipstick across her lips—a stain of impropriety if ever there was one. Satisfied with the mask of artifice she’d donned for the party, Lu turned from the mirror and spied Dorie peeking around the doorframe into her room.

“I’m sorry.” Her friend’s voice barely registered above a whisper.

Lu smiled broadly, wanting to convey to Dorie she didn’t blame her friend for what transpired yesterday—or for not warning her.

As the dean’s secretary, Dorie had to maintain a level of confidentiality. Lu understood.

And despite Dean Clark and his “best person for the job” mantra, Lu had a hard time forgiving him for not picking her.

For a decade, she’d worked so hard, so much harder than probably anyone at the college. It was highly unlikely anyone else on staff had sat for their high school equivalency less than one week before giving birth. And from her graduating class at Asheville College, Lu was the sole member who’d stayed on as faculty.

“He is handsome, don’t you think?” Dorie’s tone brightened. Who was she on the prowl for now? It had been five years since she’d lost her husband in Korea, and Lu was pleased to see her looking for happiness. Even if she’d mostly neglected her own for the last ten years in pursuit of her singular goal: respectability.

“Who’s handsome? Are you looking for a new beau?”

“Max Fischer.” Dorie practically sang his name.

Lu’s shoulders tightened in response. “Him? No! I don’t think so.”

A line from Hamlet echoed in Lu’s head, arguing with her spoken words. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

That’s simply impossible. She didn’t find Max attractive at all.

“Then you must be going blind. And you’re what, five years younger than me? He is…” Dorie twirled in her silver brocade, full-skirted party dress, “absolutely dreamy!”

Lu sighed. “Then have a go, sweetkins. You know my rule. I—”

“Never get involved with anyone you work with,” Dorie said, interrupting. “You should be saying ‘I never get involved with anyone,’ because it’s been so long I can’t even remember.”

Lu tensed again. It had been too long. Especially too long since she’d enjoyed the sexual company of a man, and there had been no one serious since she started her studies.

When she met Max outside, he’d seemed a perfect candidate with whom to spend intimate time. After she’d discovered he was a colleague—and he’d been hired for the professorship instead of her, her plans had been thwarted.

It was a sign to not even bother with intimacy or with men. Both were trouble, and she had no room for them.

All she thought of now was finding Max’s weakness, exploiting it hoping to force him out of the college. Even if he’d just started.

The job was hers and she still meant to have it, especially given one like it had opened only twice in the last six years.

Dorie glanced away, and to the clock on Lu’s wall. “Chop-chop. We better hurry. If I’m not there thirty minutes before the first guest is due, Dean Clark will have my head.”

Dorie rushed down the hall and reappeared moments later, the clip-clop of shoes on the hardwood floor telling Lu that Dorie had invested in new footwear for this occasion. She stuck out a foot for Lu’s inspection.

“Gorgeous! You should wear more red!” Lu gushed. She loved all things scarlet, but her more practical friend would be back in her black, crepe-soled shoes the next morning.

Lu opened her own closet and slipped on her champagne stilettos, admiring in the mirror the way the shoes added instant height and also gave her calf a turn that flat shoes did not. She picked up her matching handbag, complete with her silver flask, popped in her tube of lipstick, and turned to her friend. “Let’s go, shall we?”

“Ohhhhh, Max is gonna get a look at you and go ape!”

Lu could not care less about such a thing, but she would talk to him tonight. Keep your enemies closer and all.

And that’s exactly what Lu intended to do, even if the sight of him made her ill.

Lu hopped into the passenger seat of Dorie’s Buick, and though it was less than a ten-minute walk to the Burnsville Arts Building, Dorie insisted on driving because she struggled with walking in heeled shoes.

Lu didn’t argue, because while the walk over would have been fine, halfway through the mixer she would be dying to get off her feet and remove her shoes anyway. If they’d walked, she might have lasted twenty minutes before wanting to sit.

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