Free Dolce (Love at Center Court #2) by Rachel Blaufeld Page B

graduating future female leaders, not love-struck temptresses who date jocks.”
    “Um . . .” Stunned, I lost my words. I couldn’t make a sentence if I tried.
    “Besides, according to my son, Steele is off the market.”
    “Yes, he certainly is. Thank you for the warning, but I’m all good.”
    “You can go now, but know I’m watching, Caterina.”
    And like that, I was dismissed.
    I ran back to my room as fast as my short legs would allow, tore off my leggings and sweatshirt, pulled up my hair in a messy bun, wrapped myself in a towel, and hit the shower across the hall.
    After a quick rinse off, I padded back to my room and dressed to go to the music fest. I put on jeans and ankle boots, hoisted my boobs into a navy racer-back bra, and slipped on a layered shirt—the bottom was a black camisole covered by red lace.
    In front of my small mirror, I ran my fingers through my curls with a little bed-head solution. There was no way it was going to cooperate and lay flat, so I went for the opposite look. I dipped my finger into a few pots of eye shadow and made my eyes look smoky and sensual, and then lined them in black liner before adding a healthy dose of mascara.
    Hey, I was from New Jersey, not Kansas.
    I grew up on my mom blaring Springsteen and Bon Jovi, and I might be all about equality for women, but in my world . . . this was how women dressed. In fact, in high school, I’d secretly dreamed one of the Jonas Brothers picked me out of millions of girls who asked for any one of them to go to their prom. In reality, I went with Billy Reynolds as friends, but a girl can dream.
    Sonny might be forcing me to stay behind the scenes, but I didn’t go out much and this was the music fest. It was a big deal in the middle of central Ohio where there was nothing to do, and it was something I could legally go to and have fun. There would be a roped-off area for legal drinkers, but the main drag, College Avenue, would be closed for everyone else to enjoy the music and food.
    As a final touch, I spritzed myself with Marc Jacobs Water Perfume, a Christmas gift from Clara. Then I grabbed my backpack purse and went to meet Tess.
    As I approached her door, she stepped out in worn and ragged skinny jeans, a tight white long-sleeved T-shirt that emphasized her cleavage, an Army-green jacket left open, and high-topped Chucks. Her hair was a wild blond mane. She looked like Manhattan, which was where she came from, the Upper West Side. Her parents were new money, but she tried to look like sexy grunge.
    “Hey, girl! Look at you,” she said with pink-glossed lips.
    I touched my own lips and realized I forgot lipstick.
    “Wait! I have the perfect color for you,” Tess said without missing a beat. She opened her door and came back with a tube of fire-engine red lipstick.
    “No way!”
    “Way,” she said, grabbing my cheeks and swiping some on my mouth, coloring perfectly inside the lines.
    I peeked inside her door at the mirror and gave her a dirty look. “I look like a Robert Palmer girl from the nineties.”
    “No, you look hot. Marlboro, New Jersey, hot.”
    “That’s not the look I’m going for. I need Sonny to take me seriously, and I don’t want to be thought of as some sex symbol.” Did I?
    “You’re perfect. Let’s go.” Tess grabbed my arm and dragged me to the stairs and out the building.
    We hit the chilled air, and I considered a jacket but ditched the idea. I would warm up from moving around and dancing. And maybe I would have a drink. Surely someone would sneak me one.
    Tess rambled on about Ryan and his food-truck entrepreneurial spirit, and wasn’t he so hot?
    But I was only listening with half an ear, worried that I was having a schizophrenic break, which I knew happened to people in their late teens and early twenties. I couldn’t stop myself from exploring the possibility that I was cracking up.
    My life goal was to be the voice of women’s angst everywhere, yet here I was trotting to a