Free Unsticky by Sarah Manning

see you tomorrow then.’
     
    Half an hour later when she was enjoying her enforced exile to the dressing room and silently contemplating the chipped polish on her big toe, she realised he hadn’t even waited for her to say yes.
     
     
    Yesterday, the cut on Grace’s cheek had simply been an angry red mark, but during the night it had scabbed over nicely. The thing that made it the best wound in the history of work-related accidents was the look of horror on Kiki’s face the next morning as she stared at it in all its crusty glory.
     
    ‘I just wanted to thank you for all your hard work this week,’ she said carefully, both eyes fixed firmly on Grace as if she expected her to bolt at any loud noises. ‘You’ve really been a star.’
     
    Kiki was never going to apologise - she just didn’t roll that way - but this was the closest she’d ever come and Grace was going to savour every last sweet second of it.
     
    ‘Just doing my job.’ Grace absent-mindedly reached up to prod at the cut with the tip of one finger and allowed herself one tiny, ouchladen shudder. Anything else would have been overkill. ‘So, what dresses do you want for the first shot?’
     
    ‘Why don’t we get Posy to do all the prep work and you can help me with the styling?’ Kiki suggested, as she patted Grace’s shoulder without visibly wincing. ‘And I want you out of here no later than five tonight. You deserve some time off.’
     
    Grace had had many hours to whip herself into a state of near-hysteria about spending the evening with Vaughn. The sheer giddy thrill of wining and fine dining had slowly ebbed away to be replaced with white-knuckled terror at the thought of Vaughn staring at her and making sarcastic remark after sarcastic remark while she babbled and burbled. Finally at dawn o’clock, Grace had come to the happy conclusion that Kiki would have her slaving over a warm iron all day and most of the night too, and she’d have no choice but to leave Vaughn an apologetic message and bail on him. Because assignations with arrogant older men were one thing when they led to Marc Jacobs bags, but a dinner date was something else entirely - and who knew where that would lead. Nowhere good.
     
    However, Kiki was as good as her word and as the studio clock edged towards five, Grace was frog-marched out of the door by an indignant Posy.
     
    ‘Kiki says you have to go now,’ she informed Grace sourly. ‘And I have to pack up all the returns. God, I wish she’d inflict GBH on me occasionally!’
     
    Grace tried to keep the fear at bay as she swiped at her legs with a razor, while she lay up to her neck in Malin+Goetz’s Bergamot-scented bubbles. At least she was getting a night out in New York instead of returning clothes to designers’ ateliers until the only place that was open and that she could afford was the Duane Reade on Broadway where she’d buy a bag of Doritos and a jar of salsa dip for dinner. So why not get gussied up and have her first square meal in six days and get to see the bright lights of the big city in the company of an enigmatic and not-so-bad-looking man who probably didn’t even look at the prices on the menu? Why the hell not? And just like that, she was excited all over again.
     
    Half an hour later, Grace stepped back to stare down her reflection in the mirror. Her dress for that evening was a raspberry chiffon number from Moschino Cheap & Chic, which she’d ‘borrowed’ from the rail of shoot clothes in her room. It was a demure, polite frock in theory. But there was something special about designer dresses that could silk purse even the most pig-like of ears. It rippled down Grace’s body, which hadn’t seen the inside of a gym for several months, skimmed politely over her tummy and clung gently to the curve of her hips in a way that was suggestive and promising. But not, repeat not, slutty.
     
    Even the colour did wonders for her skin, transforming it from bedsheet white to the creamiest