Shopping for an Heir by Julia Kent Read Free Book Online Page A

started giggling.
    Aha. Suzanne was starting to understand.
    “What else? What’s next?”
    “Sexual dialing.”
    “Like a booty call?”
    “No, no. He’ll just dial it up. Start touching you on the belly, the breast, and so forth. Making it clear he wants sex.”
    “Eww.”
    “You know how cross-examination works in a courtroom, right?”
    “What does that have to do with my awkward date?”
    “Think about it, Suz. Use his techniques against him.”
    Epiphany. Lightbulb.
    “Got it.”
    “Next, he’ll argue with you about some stupid thing.”
    “He’s already done that. Who cares if I drink white wine with beef? He got really weird about that one.”
    “It’s called ‘qualification.’ They do it to be all alpha and prove they’re not boring. He’ll do it again.”
    “Too late.”
    “And the final move is to get you into bed or get your number, but he’ll do it in a way that makes you think he’s rejecting you.”
    “He already has my number.”
    “Then he’s going for the pink hole.”
    “Kari!”
    “Well...he is.”
    “KINO, dialing, qualification, pick-up.” Suzanne memorized it like she was studying for the bar.
    “You’ll do fine. I kind of pity the guy.”
    “I hate this.”
    “I’m so sorry.”
    Suzanne just sighed.
    Kari began to giggle. “Suz? How much makeup do you have in your purse?”
    “Makeup? I’m not wasting one more second on looking nice for that loser!”
    “No, no. I have an idea. Shake out all your makeup.”
    Thirty seconds later, Suzanne stared at two lipsticks, a mascara tube, some rouge, and a metallic-blue eyeliner left over from the last time she saw her teen niece.
    She recited the items to Kari.
    “Unbutton the top two buttons of your blouse.”
    “My nipples will show!”
    “That’s the point.”
    “What?”
    “Can you picture an online mail order bride? The kind on those dating sites where—”
    “The kind that men who use PUA techniques frequent?”
    “Exactly. Whore yourself up. With makeup, I mean. Go for it. Go overboard. He wants a hot woman? Give him one. Scare him off.”
    Suzanne looked at her phone with an increasingly dubious expression. “You’re not punking me, are you?”
    “I swear. Trust me.”
    She picked up the mascara wand and applied three coats, until her eyelashes tangled in her eyebrow hairs. “Mascara done.”
    “Now run the mascara wand through your eyebrows.”
    “WHAT?”
    “Really go for it. Trust me. He’s going to be the one on edge when you walk back out, all confident and done to the nines.”
    “I’ll be done to the ninety-nines if I mascara-tint my eyebrows.”
    “You know those Facetuning apps we make fun of? When people from our high schools use the makeup apps on their selfies and think no one will notice that their nose now looks like an eraser crashed into it and their eyes have the glow of an Avatar character?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You’re aiming for a real-life version of that, Suzanne.”
    Two minutes later and she stared at a grotesque version of herself, hair pulled up in a rough updo, eyes like raccoon claws, eyebrows darker than Elvira’s, and lipstick so red she might as well join the pageant circuit.
    “I look like a woman Donald Trump would date.”
    “SUCCESS!” Kari shouted. “Take a picture and text me.”
    Suzanne did.
    Ten seconds later, she heard a low whistle from Kari. “Oh, Suzanne. You’re...breathtaking.”
    “Yeah. I can’t breathe when I look in the mirror, either. Kari, what if a client comes here and sees me like this?”
    “When did you start caring what your clients think?”
    Good point.
    “Open your shirt more. Show a little lace.”
    Suzanne did.
    “And add one more layer of lipstick.”
    “I’ll need paint thinner to take it off if I do that.”
    “Yes.”
    Suzanne complied.
    “You did it. Now go out there like you’re on the prowl. And use all the PUA techniques against him.”
    Suzanne ended the call, shoved her phone in her purse, used the