Heart Conditions (The Breakup Doctor Series Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

Ben. I’d given some thought to what I wore—while Ben and I had met face-to-face sporadically since we’d renewed contact a month ago, I was still conscious of wanting to make a good impression. I didn’t just throw on shorts and a ratty t-shirt—but I also didn’t want to look like I was going overboard, knowing he was seeing someone else…and that she’d be there too. But then again, that someone was Perfect Pamela, so I’d spent a little time on my makeup and with my hair. I thought the effect was just about right—I looked nice without seeming to have tried too hard. At least before my crying jag.
    But Sasha was still assessing me with a troubled look on her face. “This”—she waved a hand up and down my body—“does not say, ‘Eat your heart out.’”
    I threw up my hands. “Fine. You win. Come on—you can pick something out of my closet.” I stood and Jake scrambled to my side, thrusting his skull under my hand so I could put it to good use.
    “Oh, no. This requires a bit more than that.”
    “You mean—”
    “Get your purse. We’re going shopping.”

      
    Sasha was a wizard.
    Four hours later, I had shopping bags dripping from my arms—the whole shebang: new clothes, shoes, even underwear (she insisted that confidence came from the inside out, and by “inside” she apparently meant “the crack of my ass.” The lacy little thongs she’d insisted I buy bisected my buttocks, but I had to admit they made me feel sexier than the bikini briefs I usually wore). She’d also engineered a stop at the MAC counter, where she bustled her usual makeup artist over to me—a gorgeous transgendered woman named Trixie—with instructions to give me a “fierce daytime look that will make her ex’s tongue fall out but look totally natural.”
    “Oh, sugar, I’ve been there,” Trixie said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “Sit yourself down, honey, and let Trixie fix you up.”
    Trixie was a bit of a magician herself—when she was finished I looked like I’d stepped out of the pages of Glamour magazine, but no matter how closely I examined my face, I couldn’t quite detect what product had given me such an elegant, polished look. I didn’t look made up so much as I looked like the best possible me.
    I bought everything she’d used on me, reflecting that a year ago I wouldn’t have been able to swing even a lipstick. My Breakup Doctor practice had changed my life in more ways than one.
    “You come back and see Trixie if you need a little refresher on how to paint all that on, sugar,” the woman said, blowing us a kiss as we left the counter.
    Back at my house we did a test run of the whole thing: makeup, hair (Sasha trimmed my bangs and smoothed them into a side part that skimmed my right eye in a really sexy little swoop I wouldn’t have thought my usual frizzy waves could pull off), and the outfit: faded skinny jeans with some fraying here and there that actually looked worn-in, instead of intentional; a royal blue knit tank over my new professionally fitted Freya bra that made my modest boobs look truly impressive; and a fitted hot-pink jacket that nipped my waist into nothing. “Bold colors indicate confidence, and they really make your complexion glow,” was Sasha’s verdict.
    She had insisted on nude five-inch pumps, which I’d tried to veto, but they were surprisingly comfortable with their one-inch platform, and I had to admit they took the whole ensemble up a few notches. “Plus they’ll make you an inch or two taller than he is, and that will make him feel literally and metaphorically small,” she said with a satisfied smirk. She finished the whole thing with a plain silver chain that dipped below the tank top’s neckline, a chunky pink watch, and a wide blue leather bracelet.
    I would never have put any of it together, but it looked…spectacular. I literally felt like a Hollywood star, effortlessly stylish while out picking up my kids from daycare and trying to