I earned a lot of hateful looks from the waiting women, when I finally unlocked the bathroom door and exited. I walked back to my desk, game face on, pretending to be excited. Well, that wasn't pretend, I was excited, but terrified at the same time, but I wasn't excited for the reasons my colleagues might think. I was pretending to be over the moon with the attention this mystery man was giving me. No one could know my true intentions. I also wasn't going to tell anyone who LC was, because frankly, it wasn't any of their business who I dated, especially not if that someone was famous. I put on my biggest smile and walked back to Sophia, giving her an apologetic look.

"Sorry, I believe I was a bit overwhelmed. I don't get flowers like these on a daily basis."

She instantly believed me, probably because I hadn't lied to her before. I felt a pinge of guilt, as Sophia had always been very supportive, she had never backstabbed me and now I was going to lie to her and use her to my advantage.

"It's okay, Amelia, I understand."

I smiled at her, fighting an inner battle to push the guilt down.

"Could you help me with a different outfit for tonight?"

I bit down on my lip as I waited for an answer, hoping she would be keen to help me.

"Sure! We can start after you give your okay for the accessories, I picked them out myself!"

I shot her a grateful look, to be honest, I had almost forgotten about that and I valued her loyalty even more now.

"Yes, of course."

I wasn't going to admit I had forgotten about the photoshoot, because loyalties shifted easily and if she ever found out about my plan, or the way I was pretty much using her as an accomplice without telling her, I wasn't so sure she would still be as supportive. I didn't want her to think I was losing the reins. Like I said, I didn't trust anyone anymore. Leonard and his friends had done a lot of damage. She stood from her desk and walked around it, linking her arm through mine.

"So what kind of outfit were you thinking of?"
I didn't have to think about my answer, because I had spent the last ten minutes of the phone call conversing about the type of outfit that would be perfect for the plan, but I still managed to make it sound as if I was doubtful and had made it up on the walk towards the Closet.

"I want to look interested, flirty, but very sophisticated. Nothing that screams how expensive the clothing is, because I don't want it to look like I have done too much of an effort.

She giggled and nodded.

"Sounds perfect. No designer bag then, maybe you should just keep your own bag, because you don't know where he's taking you. I have the perfect dress for you though, it's bold and definitely flirty and I'm sure it will hug your body perfectly."

I smiled at her and watched her as she stopped at one of the desks we were passing.

"Hey Annabel, could you be a dear and give Patrick a ring and tell him Amelia is coming for some hair and make-up in about fifteen minutes? She has a date with a mystery man and she has to look fantastic!"

I didn't know how I felt about her telling everyone this, but Leonard would probably be smart enough not to wait outside the building, he would probably wait in a car or something. At least, I hoped. I didn't want it to turn into a public affair, as that would make my plan ten times more difficult. As soon as the magazine got wind of me dating Leonard, they would want all the details and in case this date went well and he really wanted to see me more often, it would mean they would start trying to find more about my history, in which case they would find out that Amelia Ray had only existed for about five years. But I couldn't worry about that now, it would draw suspicion, so I smiled and pretended to be super excited for tonight, almost like a teenager all over again. Which was funny, because I had never experienced that first excitement as a teenager, preparing for a first date. Instead, my heart had been trampled upon.

Annabel nodded eagerly, almost getting as excited as I was pretending to be and dialed the internal number for Patrick's division. Soon, Sophia and I were on our way to the Closet again.

Once we arrived here, I noticed several accessories were laid onto the tables, almost perfectly in sync with my moodboard hat stood at one of the sides. I smiled approvingly at Sophia but changed a few of the accessories I thought were a little too much and then signed of on it.

"You did really well, Sophia, thanks for doing this, you really saved me a lot of time."

"Any time, Amelia, especially when you let me use you as a dress-up Barbie after it."

I couldn't help the giggle that escaped my mouth. What was it with these girls and playing dress up with me?

"So, which dress were you talking about earlier?"

I walked over to the dress part of the Closet, it was always so neatly organised, which surprised me. People were always walking in and taking stuff and bringing it back, but it was never a mess. I wouldn't want to be the person to keep it like this all the time, folding and stacking away clothes all day. Although, it were probably interns that were tasked with this and they were still motivated enough to do this, because it would mean they had a head start if a room in the columns opened up.

I watched Sopie sift through the racks of clothing until she found the dress she had been looking for. She added a few more onto her arms for good measure, probably in case I couldn't fit into the one she had in mind, or if it didn't look as good as she had hoped. God, I hoped I could fit this size. Like I said, I was slender, but I was nowhere near the model height, so some of these girls would look weird no me. I was quite the tiny girl, standing at 5'3'', which is why I tried to wear heels most of the time. It made me look older and more sophisticated. Whenever I wasn't in heels, people would think I was much younger than I was. It might sound like fun, but it's not so fun when you have to take out your ID-card for the sixth time in one night to prove you are over the legal drinking age.

"This will do." she said, joining me again and I warily eyed the dozens of dresses hung over her arm. How could she even carry that?!

"You know an intern is going to have to put all of those back to where they belong, right? It's practically exploitation."

"So? It's not every day you ask to borrow stuff from the Closet, so I'm going to make the most of it."

She was right, I didn't have the habit of asking to borrow clothes. I had never had any reason to, because I rarely dated. For the past few years I had been to focused on my career to think about dating, and I had been too damaged to let any guy come moderately close to me. Sure, I had had some flings here and there, because I was a healthy girl after all, but no one had ever come emotionally close to me since Leonard.

So I smiled at her and tried on the dress she wanted me to try. She made me try them all on, just to make sure I had the best one for my body. She said something along the lines of: 'how do you know it's the best one if you've only sampled one'. I wondered if that was her take on guys as well. So here I was, being a human barbie doll for almost a full hour until she settled on the first dress she had picked up. A blue knitted dress with silver linings. It was elegant and utterly stunning, but not too much, because I had no idea what we were going to tonight. It was definitely close to perfect for my mystery date. And it wasn't too out there, in case he had recognized me after all, and still wanted to try and pull one over me.

She threw in a pair of Kate heels from Louboutin and I already knew I was going to have sore feet all night, but she said they would make me look more sexy, the red heel made men go woo, or something like that. It would be a little wink to whatever the night could bring. Ugh, no way was I going to get close to doing that, with him. Ugh, just Ugh.

After that, she dragged me to Patrick, at which point I was starting to have trouble to stay excited. It was all taking too long for my liking and I feared all the effort would be in vain anyway. Sure, I had my plan and I was going to stick to it, given the chance, but I had no guarantees that his pursuit was genuine. I would have to be careful and wary of every second I spent with him and I would have to remember not to get comfortable. It would be tiring for sure. And he had to show up of course, there was always a chance he had played me again and that he wouldn't even be there this evening, that there was no date and that I had spent all this time dressing up, only to be stood up.

Throughout these thoughts and fears, I hadn't noticed I had started to bite my nails again, until I heart he nauseating sound of chewing on them. I looked down at my fingers, horrified that this anxiety had been enough for all my hard work to start to crumble. I made a fist and swore to not let him get to me. I was stronger now, what he had done to me, no longer mattered. This was simply about getting even.

So when we arrived at Patrick's department, I let go of the anxiety, plopped myself down on the salon chair and told him to have his way with me.