Taint Me More ☑️

Chapter Nine

"Green cocktail dress or red evening gown?" I asked Gabby as I placed each dress in front of me while staring in the mirror. I was having a hard time choosing what to wear to the fundraiser and I was really running out of time. The fifteen minutes late mark didn't apply for employees, so I had to be there as early as possible.

"It depends. How do you feel like wearing your hair?" She asked, coming to stand behind me in front of the mirror.

"I don't know, how do you think I should wear it?" my mind flickered immediately to Aaron and how he loves the color of my hair. I knew he'd attend the event and me thinking of ways to impress him was starting to sound strange, even to me.

"Oh boy. Why do you have that look on your face?" Her brows knitted in a frown.

"What look?" I asked, letting my eyes flicker to her face.

"Like you really want to impress someone tonight. You're never bothered about your outfit, Ilaria Denise Vitale" she judged, using my full name whilst squinting at me.

"I don't know what you're talking about" I scoffed, moving to my bed to drop the dresses, "plus, I have a date, so what bad is it if I decide that I want to impress him, huh? I owe it to Brian to look date-worthy tonight" I shrugged.

She gave me a look like she wasn't buying it and I rolled my eyes at her.

"The green cocktail dress it is" I announced, going to my closet to pick a pair of shoes. I ended up coming out with half of three pairs instead. "This? This or this?" I asked her and she shook her head at me.

"Oh my God. The painter is gonna be there, isn't he?" She asked, "this isn't just about Brian."

"What painter?"

"You can lie to yourself, young lady but you can't lie to me" she challenged and went to lie on my bed as she watched me. "You should totally wear the beige fuck-me stilettos though" she pointed to one of the shoes I brought, picking her favorite heels.

"Of course you'd pick that one" I smiled and went back to return the other shoes. "I'll totally wear my hair wavy, give me your curling iron" I padded out of my bedroom to hers to go get the curling iron.

"Alright, that's it. My best friend is officially whipped" she stated, throwing her arms up as I returned to my room.

"Shut up and come help me with my hair."

I knew I was putting too much effort in this night and I didn't want to lie to myself that it was because Aaron was going to be there. I hadn't seen him in weeks and it made me nervous to be finally seeing him. Even though I was going there with Brian as my date and he was going as Andrea's—well, everything.

I tried not to think about all that as I went to answer the door. Brian stood on the other side. He looked completely gorgeous in his tuxedo. Of course he did. I'd seen him many times on tv, dressed in tuxedos.

He let out a breath as he stared at me, from my shoes, up to my hair, never faltering as he took me in. "Wow" he whispered and I became flushed.

My dress was an emerald green neoprene cocktail dress, with a deep V-neck line, it was sleeveless all the way down to the band of the waist and the flared skirt went down to knee level. The color of the dress was the 'perfect shade' according to Gabby, she said it went well with my eyes. Whatever that meant. As for accessories, I went with simple diamond studs—since I wore my hair down— with a black one-stoned pendant necklace.

"Not sure I or any other guy would be able to keep eyes off you tonight" he stated and took my hand in his. "Let's go, it's going to be a long night."