The Blonde Identity: A Novel

Mrs. Michaelson had taste. Mrs. Michaelson had money. Mrs. Michaelson had . . .

Teeny. Tiny. Boobs.

Seriously. Zoe had never—in all eighteen hours of her memory—considered herself especially voluptuous, but as she stood in the bathroom, looking at the mirror, she couldn’t help but wish she could take three inches off the hem of this little black dress and add them to the chest. Luckily, the dress was A-lined, so it fit pretty much everywhere else. Unluckily, it didn’t have pockets, which was a pity. Always.

Maybe I’m a hotshot political operative running on the platform of Pockets for All, she speculated absentmindedly. She would win reelection in a landslide every time. It was something to consider as soon as her life went back to normal. Whatever normal looked like.

But right then she had a growly tummy and squished boobs, and she was finally clean and rested and wearing something that didn’t smell like gunpowder. So she was going to look on the bright side. And no one would notice that the built-in bra was two sizes too small. Right?

Wrong.

“It’s a little tight in . . . er . . . places?” she had to admit as soon as she stepped out of the bathroom. Sawyer, bless his covert heart, tried to act like nothing was wrong, but he choked when he saw her. And he wasn’t even drinking anything!

“It looks”—he swallowed hard around the stuff he wasn’t even drinking—“fine.” He gulped again.

“It’s not zipped yet.”

“It’s not?” His voice actually went up an octave. Because of all the choking, evidently.

“No!” She sounded upset. She was upset. All she wanted was to wear a pretty dress and eat a nice meal and have random strangers congratulate her on her nonexistent marriage while not shooting at her! Was that too much to ask?

“I couldn’t twist that . . .” She pantomimed twisting and stretching and reaching for the zipper she couldn’t, well, reach, and he just stood there being no help at all because, again, no one was shooting at her, which was really Sawyer’s time to shine. Dress zipping, not so much, evidently. He was looking at her like he’d never even seen a woman’s back before.

“Do you mind?” She tried not to sound too terribly impatient, but those tiny cheeses had been hours ago and Melanie had told them that dinner was served at eight and she didn’t want to miss it.

So she pulled her hair over her shoulder and turned her back to him, hoping that a hot guy who probably had a lot of experience unzipping dresses could figure out how to do it in reverse. But for a long time he just stared at . . . something, and she remembered the scar she’d seen in the mirror.

“That’s fine.” She turned back quickly. “I’ll . . .”

But then she felt a touch, whisper soft down the line of her spine. Her whole back tingled. “No. I’ll do it. It’s just . . . You don’t appear to be wearing a . . . uh . . .”

“Bra?” she finished for him because even though he seemed fluent in several languages “girl” obviously wasn’t one of them. “No. It’s built in. There are these little cups that hold—”

“Great,” he blurted a little too quickly. “Here. I’ll . . .” He tried the zipper, but it barely budged. “I can’t . . .”

“What if I suck real hard—”

“Please don’t say that,” he ground out.

“What?” She glanced over her shoulder. “I’ll—” She drew in a deep breath.

“That’s not help—”

“Here. Let me try . . .” She leaned over and stuck a hand down the dress and wriggled. “Maybe if there’s less boob inside the dress . . .” She started, then went to work on the other side.

“That’s”—he swallowed hard one more time—“a plan.”

And when she stood, sure enough, her cleavage was spilling out and Sawyer was choking . . . again.

“Do you need some water or something?”

“What?” His eyes came back to hers in one of the mirrors. “No. Here.”

That time, the zipper slid smoothly into place, but the room must have been way too cold because, when she felt his knuckle run between her shoulder blades, she shivered. And when she turned, he was looking at her oddly—like there was something on her lips.

“Just tell me the truth.”

For a moment, she thought he hadn’t heard her because it seemed to take forever for Sawyer to shake himself free of some thought and say, “I’m sorry. What?”

“Can you see my nipples?”