Beautiful Heist

24. When A Cute Guy Falls For Me...It's Because I Tripped Him

Twenty-Four

When A Cute Guy Falls For Me...It's Because I Tripped Him

I was officially going home.

Back to New York.

Back to my family.

Back in the same clothes I'd been wearing when John kidnapped me.

And, apparently, back with blonde hair.

That's right. We were dying it back to what it was before. I knew Elena would do a great job of coloring it again, but I didn't know how I felt about it.

"Do we really have to?" I asked, looking back at her in the mirror as she set the bag of supplies on the counter. "I mean, why can't it just stay like it is?"

"Because the picture of the brunette you is still floating around on the news," she smiled. "People will definitely put two and two together if we didn't, so we have to change it back. Sorry, but I'm not going to be able to make it all pretty like I did the first time. It's been two months since anyone's seen you. You've got to have some roots. I won't make them that bad, since you looked like you'd just had your hair done."

"Oh, come on!" I groaned.

That made her laugh. "Oh, Emmy, you crack me up," she smiled. "I would wait, but John wanted to surprise you with something, so I have to do it now. We wouldn't have enough time before you left."

I paused. "What do you mean, John has a surprise?" I asked, turning around to look at her.

She looked a little shocked when I asked, like she didn't mean to say it or something. "Oops."

"Oops? What do you mean, oops? Were you not supposed to tell me or something? What's John up to?"

"Oops, as in I wasn't supposed to tell you. He wanted me to get you dressed after I did your hair and then meet him downstairs before dinner. I already have an outfit picked..."

I wasn't having that, though. I needed more information. "Tell me what you know."

She reached up and pretended to zip her lips and throw away the key. "I'm not saying anything. He's just...doing something for dinner, I guess you could say. He's being quite adorable actually. He's down in the kitchen with Marta as we speak...and I'm supposed to keep you from seeing the backyard."

I tried to figure out if I had a chance to make a break for it and run to a window that overlooked the back of the house. With one look at Elena, she knew exactly what I was thinking.

A sly smile stretched across her lips. "Yeah, don't even think about it. You're not leaving this room until I'm finished with you."

I sighed, leaning back against the bathroom countertop. "You really enjoy torturing me with all of this, don't you?"

She grinned. "Of course, I do!"

Elena wasn't kidding when she said she wasn't letting me out of my room, which was the same one I'd stayed in my first few days at the Raymond house. Of course, the night before when we'd come back, I wasn't the only one to sleep in it, because John crept in after lying there for an hour, knowing what would happen if I fell asleep alone.

"Still awake, huh?" he'd asked, slipping under the covers behind me. He wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me back against him. "You okay?"

I'd sighed, twining my fingers with his. "I don't really want to sleep. Not when I..."