Some Like It Haute: A Humorous Fashion Mystery (Style & Error Book 4) Read Online Free PDF

pandemonium, Dante took his keys from the valet booth. He scooped me up, one arm behind my head, the other under my knees, carried me to his car, and set me in the passenger seat. I closed my eyes while he drove us away from the scene. It wasn’t until I heard the engine turn off that I opened them and saw that he hadn’t taken me home.
    We were parked in a vacant lot that overlooked a spectacular view of Ribbon. Lights from the streetlamps that illuminated the grid of downtown created a dense glow that slowly expanded into less and less, until it became the nothingness of the neighboring towns. We called this Makeout Point in high school.
    “You want to tell me why your ex-boyfriend said you shouldn’t have gone to the show?”
    “He was worried about me, that’s all.”
    “Does he have a reason to worry?”
    I played with the gold bracelets on my wrist. “I had an incident yesterday.”
    “Samantha, don’t beat around the bush with me.”
    “I’ve been helping Amanda with her show. Yesterday there was a fire outside of Warehouse Five. I don’t know how it started. It came right to me across the parking lot to where I was standing and I caught on fire. I dropped and rolled to put out the fire, and while I was down someone approached me. They were bundled up in an oversized coat, and from my spot on the ground, they looked humungous. Whoever it was told me to stay out of it, but I don’t know what ‘it” is. And then they beat me with a sack of fruit and set me on fire.”
    “What kind of fruit?”
    “Oranges, tangelos, and clementines. When Amanda found me curled up in the parking lot, they were scattered around me.”
    “What happened after that?”
    “I spent the night in the hospital.”
    “Why did you call me?”
    I looked down at my hands. I didn’t want to make eye contact when I said this part. “Everybody else told me to stay home. They thought it was too dangerous for me to come here tonight.”
    He sat quietly. I snuck a peek at his face but couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
    “Do you know who attacked you?” he asked.
    “No.”
    “Someone involved with the show?”
    “Maybe. I don’t know.”
    “Are you in pain right now?”
    “Not really.” It was the first lie I’d told him.
    He started up the car. “I’m taking you home.”
    “No. My car is still at the warehouse,” I said. “Take me back there. Please.” It had been too much activity for one day. My ribs ached, and I couldn’t breathe. I needed to sit down, lay down, rest, sleep. My internal injuries throbbed, and even if the hospital had determined that none of them were serious, they hurt. Badly.
    Dante reached for my handbag and found my pain medication inside. He shook one into his palm and handed it to me.
    “You’re in pain. Take this.” He handed me a bottle of water from the cup holder.
    I swallowed the pill and sank back against his bucket seats, trying to keep the seatbelt from digging into my midsection. The tension from the runway show, the medication for the pain, and the overall exhaustion of my life combined, and the world went dark as I fell asleep in the car.
    * * *
    Breakup Rule #3: Don’t wake up in another man’s bed.
    The bed was comfortable enough, but it wasn’t mine. It took me a second to recognize whose bed it was. Dante’s.
    Dante lived in a studio apartment on Duryea Drive, on the side of a mountain off the beaten path of Ribbon. He’d once explained it as the place he kept here when not living in Philadelphia. I’d been here before, but never on a sleepover.
    Being a studio apartment, the interior wasn’t divided up into separate rooms. It was one large room that split off to the right into a modest kitchen, and to the left into a modest bathroom and makeshift closet. The bed that I currently occupied was of the futon variety. Which meant there wasn’t any place else to sleep, which meant even though I was alone now, I probably hadn’t been last night.
    Not sure how I felt