Loving Grace Read Online Free PDF

called Seth’s hotel and told him she’d taken some of the
equipment to her place, to keep it safe, all the while knowing she
was about to do something completely irrational.
    A night’s sleep didn’t straighten her out.
After finding out Noel would be at his gallery, her entire day was
consumed by trying on clothing, painfully trying to pluck her brows
and spreading all the magazines out on the bed, hoping she could
sleek herself up enough to blend into a crowd of art lovers.
    This is nuts. She looked in the mirror and
saw herself as if viewing a stranger. She was no social butterfly.
What if someone asked her a question about art? What if she had to
make small talk? What if she looked like a plain accountant with
bad makeup-up and—what if—the damned gold streaks didn’t wash out
like they were supposed to?
    Her hair was mink brown, she liked brown. She
couldn’t go out as Grace Dean with gold streaks in her hair. Every
tenant in the building, the grocer on the corner, the coffee shop
owner, knew Grace the accountant.
    What was she doing anyway? What was she
turning into, some sort of obsessed fruitcake?
    Nonetheless, she had on a black velvet dress
with a split up the back skirt, black hose and velvet pumps. The
dress had long snug sleeves, and had a V-neck that was wide to the
shoulder. It took her hours with hot rollers and hair spray to get
her hair to curl, then another hour to put it up half way like the
image in the magazine. As finishing touches, she added her mother’s
simple diamond earrings and short teardrop necklace.
    Her hands kept sweating, and she wiped them
with tissue, feeling as if something had taken over her mind and
body. She stared at the face that wasn’t familiar. The silver and
charcoal eye shadow had been the easy part, the mascara, hell. And
lipstick, she’d gone through four shades and still grimaced seeing
it on her pale, wide mouth. She wasn’t brave enough to try blush,
but managed a subtle, sparkling flesh-tone powder that took the
winter blotch out of her skin.
    She retrieved a long cape, gloves, and a
clutch purse. The final extra touches that made her feel like a
sneak, a camera, which looked like a gold square that she could pin
to her bag. The case it came with had other covers to hide it,
cufflinks, buttons, snap on earrings, even a frog broach. She was
still amazed by the things her brother could and likely did use on
his job, it was enough to make a non-PI paranoid; he could observe
and record people and they’d never know it.
    Grace heard her nervous breaths scuttling in
and out while she rushed from the apartment before anyone could
notice, tossing the big, expensive camera in the seat next to her.
She clutched the wheel and wondered if she was having some sort of
breakdown.
    She didn’t do this, didn’t even like the idea
of it. So why was she heading four blocks to park a little away
from the gallery, only to sit another fifteen minutes and watch the
elegant couples file inside?
    “Turn around and go home, Grace,” she
muttered feeling her palms sweat again. Instead, a mere few seconds
later, she was out and walking up the street, having shoved the
camera under the seat before exiting the car. At the door, she came
face to face with the man, Bryce, and a woman, Elisa, who were
greeting people. The roar of her heart in her ears made her feel
dizzy.
    “Welcome,” the beautiful woman was saying, as
she shook her hand.
    “Thank you.” Grace smiled despite feeling
phony and stiff. The woman was stunning, and barely five-feet tall.
However, she was perfectly curved, and possessed sleek jet-black
hair, remarkable aqua eyes, and full lips. Seth was right; with
skin like polished ivory, she was impossibly perfect.
    Grace shook hands with Bryce and gave up her
cape to a man who wore a butler-ish uniform. It was surreal, even
the voices and tinkle of champagne glasses, one of which was handed
to her by a pretty young woman. Grace drank half of it down, before
she began