“Those girls bought armloads of fashions,” Jeanette said. “They could hardly carry them all to the checkout lines.”
I dumped the gift bag out. Something sparkly caught my eye.
“Of course, it would have been better if they’d used a Holt’s credit account to pay for everything,” Jeanette said.
My doorbell rang.
“The interest the store would have earned from those purchases would have been a real boost,” she said.
I dug down through the gift items and found—oh my God, the Enchantress evening bag.
Tiberia had told me Sheridan wanted me to have something special. She must have remembered how much I wanted an Enchantress and gotten it for me.
My doorbell rang again.
This was so awesome. I couldn’t wait to tell Marcie.
“But I’m delighted all those girls bought our fashions,” Jeanette said. “Even if they all used gift cards.”
Gift cards?
A knock sounded on my door.
Hadn’t Amber mentioned something about gift cards?
I opened my front door. Shuman waited outside.
“Hi,” I mumbled, and stepped back.
He walked inside.
Then it hit me—Amber had told me that Ty had her buy zillions of Holt’s gift cards for him.
“I’ll personally handle your schedule so you can report to the Holt’s corporate office immediately,” Jeanette said. “You can work with you-know-who right away.”
Several things clicked into place—but could they really be true?
“Haley, I need to talk to you,” Shuman said.
Had Ty engineered this entire fashion show contest to get me to the corporate office? He’d changed the grand prize at the last minute so the fashion show coordinator would work there. Jeanette had given me that position, but was it at Ty’s suggestion?
Shuman pushed the door shut.
“You’re on the schedule for tonight,” Jeanette said, “but don’t come in. You deserve some time off.”
Had Ty hired all those actresses and bought them gift cards with instructions to buy everything in our fashion show—so I’d win?
“I’ll get back with you on your transfer to the corporate office,” Jeanette said, and hung up.
I stood there holding my cell phone, my thoughts in chaos.
Had Ty really done that?
And, if he had, what did it mean?
“Haley, I—I really need to talk to you,” Shuman said.
Did it mean Ty wanted us to get back together? Was this his way of having me near him?
Shuman moved closer.
Did it mean that Ty missed me? Or did he want me there so I could see that he was perfectly all right without me?
“Haley?” Shuman said.
Then something else hit me—had Ty been spying on me in my parking lot? Was it him who’d warned Cody to step off?
“Oh, Haley.” Shuman sighed.
Hang on a minute.
“I’ve—I’ve done something . . . something terrible,” he said.
Oh my God, what was going on?
Shuman pressed his palm against my cheek and leaned in.
“I don’t think anybody could ever . . . ever love me again,” he said softly.
I froze.
Shuman leaned down until his lips hovered over mine.
“What about you, Haley? Could—could you love me?” he whispered.
Oh, crap.