Chapter 22: The Terrible Inconvenience of Being Pampered by a Billionaire

An uncomfortably silent twenty-minute car ride later, one of the company SUVs pulled up to a large sandstone building with “Helena’s Spa and Beauty Haven” displayed above the entrance in elegant, curvy letters.

Octavia followed Adelaide into the cool interior, stopping at the foyer that was a cocoon of marble floors and walls with potted artificial rose bushes lined around its perimeter. A harp played softly in the background.

A smiling young woman dressed in a white button-up shirt and impossibly clean pants, with golden hair and the widest smile Octavia had ever seen, stepped out from the front desk.

She eagerly shook hands with Adelaide.

“Welcome back, Ms. Weston,” she said enthusiastically. “Does Mr. Kentworth have someone in need of our services today?”

“Obviously,” Adelaide said.

Though her words were cold enough to cut through the young woman’s cheeriness, she did not seem to notice.

“Wonderful!” she responded brightly. “I’ll go tell Helena. She’ll want to handle this one personally.” She turned swiftly and bounced off.

“I’ve never been to a spa before,” Octavia said. “This is the kind of place where you get seaweed masks and that kind of shit, right?”

Adelaide only acknowledged Octavia’s words with a bitter sideways glance.

Octavia continued. “I suppose I should be grateful. Then again, what exactly does that man mean by sending me to a spa? Why would he concern himself with my—”

She paused as she squinted at the words on one of the brochures sitting on the front desk. “‘Rejuvenation and whole-body wellness’?” she quoted.

“Mr. Kentworth has all his dates”—Adelaide stopped to correct herself—“that is, acquaintances who accompany him to events, come here. If you’re going to be around high-class society, you need to look like you’re one of them.”

She put on a mild grimace. “Or at least try to.”

Octavia did not seem affected by Adelaide’s words. “I’m only his assistant. I don’t see why I have to go through this shit,” she grumbled.

Before Adelaide could deliver the cutting response that had jumped to her tongue, a dramatic voice erupted into the air as a middle-aged woman in flowing, colorful clothes swept into the room.

“H-e-l-l-l-o-o-o!” she said loudly, drawing out her words as if she were the star of a bad performance.

She walked straight to Adelaide and leaned forward to kiss her on both cheeks. “It is S-O-O-O wonderful to S-E-E you again, Adelaide.” Octavia silently marveled at the woman’s odd intonations.

She took in the billowing sheet of red, fuchsia, and orange colors that was draped around her body in a way that suggested it was supposed to be a dress.

The woman’s hair was an adamant chestnut and cut short, her red nails were kept long, and her five-foot frame was elevated on black high heels with scarlet undersides.

“Hello, Helena,” Adelaide said, returning the woman’s kisses.

“Oh, it has been T-O-O l-o-o-o-n-n-g since dear Raemon required my service,” Helena drawled.

“Yes, well…he’s been rather busy,” Adelaide said, “hasn’t had much of a need for any…feminine company.”

“And who is the al-L-U-R-uring woman fortunate enough to capture H-I-S attention?” Helena asked.

“This is his assistant,” Adelaide said with emphasis, “Octavia.”

Helena looked around, her eyes falling on Octavia and immediately darting away to continue scanning the room as if she expected someone else to materialize from the pearl-white walls.

Octavia let a smile escape her lips.

“Has she not arrived yet?” Helena asked Adelaide innocently.

“No, this is her,” Adelaide said, pointing at Octavia. “It’s his assistant. She’s supposed to go through the treatment.”

When Helena’s eyes fell on Octavia the second time and remained there, a noticeable look of surprise—maybe even dread—flooded her pupils.

“Oh,” Helena said. “Well, uh, you’re…different.”

Octavia could not help breaking out into a grin. “Really? How so?”

Helena’s face grew red. “That is to say…you’re not exactly…like the others.”

“Others?”

“Well, yes, most of the women who Mr. Kentworth…uh…courts… are…um…well…of a certain variety…” Helena said.

“That makes sense,” Octavia replied with a wise nod. “Anyway, I’m only his employee. Not his court-ee.”

“But then why are you here?” Helena said bluntly.

“I’d like to know the answer to that myself,” Octavia said.

“She’s going with him to the city gala tonight,” Adelaide cut in hastily. “She just needs to look decent. Nothing fancy.”

Adelaide paused to give Octavia a look of disdain. “Don’t worry about putting her in a dress sexy enough to make him want to take it off her.”

Octavia’s grin widened. “Is that a specific service you offer here?” she asked Helena.

Helena eventually led Octavia away, leaving Adelaide in the exquisitely furnished waiting room. She walked Octavia to different areas in the building.

At each stop, Octavia underwent some form of beauty treatment or, in her honest opinion, torture with oils and fragrances.

First was a body scrub, which left Octavia feeling itchy.

Next she went through the sauna, which she could only tolerate for ten minutes before she burst out of the heavily scented steam house gasping for breath.

Then there was a full-body mud bath, which she grimaced through and whined, “Why couldn’t it just be seaweed?”

Next she was given a massage, which she squirmed through, much to the annoyance of Esteban, the muscular, dark-haired man cursed with the task of kneading the tension out of Octavia’s body.

When Esteban finally stormed out of the massage parlor cursing in Spanish, Helena declared the massage session prematurely over and led Octavia to the next station.

Octavia was lying on her back across a comfy, elevated surface, a towel wrapped around her body and drifting off to the sound of flutes when she heard someone enter the room.

She remained as she was, wondering what form of torture they would put her through this time. Then she felt a cold sensation on the shin of her left leg; a gooey substance was being spread over her skin.

~Great. I wonder what it is this time,~ Octavia thought. ~Probably something weird like elephant mucus.~

Something dry and stiff was layered over the gooey stuff, and a small hand smoothed the stiff material down over her leg.

R-I-I-I-I-I-PPPPPPPP!!!

Pain seared over Octavia’s skin as the sensation of what felt like her skin being ripped off her own body made her jerk upward with a piercing yowl.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!?” she yelled. She scrambled off the platform and scuttled into the far corner of the room, staring at the startled spa attendant.

The woman was in shock. She stood motionless holding a stick covered in a thick, golden liquid in one hand and what looked like a speckled sheet of paper in the other.

Octavia’s murderous eyes shot from the woman’s innocent-looking face to the sheet in her hand.

She realized what the specks on the sheet were and stared in horror at the sight of hair that had been attached to her body seconds ago lying limp and captured on a sticky sheet of paper.

“Fucking hell!” she screamed. “What kind of madness IS this?”

“Please, madam,” the attendant said timidly, “if you just lie back down…I can finish with the rest of your body.”

“THE REST OF MY BODY?!” Octavia shrieked. “OH, HELL NO!”

Helena came in after hearing the commotion.

She looked at Octavia, who was crouched in the corner with her hands gripping the towel wrapped around her body as if it were for protection and a mad, defensive glare in her eyes.

“The body wax is part of the spa treatment,” Helena said after her attendant tried to explain what had happened. “Why don’t you let Nina finish it up for you? It will be done in a trice!”

“I said, HELL NO,” Octavia repeated. “I’m fucking serious, if anyone comes near me with that stuff, I will rip their head off!”

Helena held a hand out to calm her down.

“Now, now,” she cooed as if Octavia were a three-year old, “all the OTHER girls had to get the wax and came out j-u-u-u-us-t FI-ne. Wouldn’t you like to look nice for Mr. Raemon?”

“No,” Octavia said with an expression that let Helena know what she thought of her logic. “Why the fuck would I want to do that?”

“But I’m sure Mr. Raemon would appreciate it if you were—”

“I DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT MR. RAEMON!” Octavia shouted. “IF HE WANTS DOLPHIN-LIKE SKIN SO BADLY, THEN HE CAN GET HIMSELF WAXED!!!”

After twenty more minutes of failed negotiations, the two of them reached a compromise. Instead of being waxed, Octavia had her legs, arms, and face shaved clean.

When the attendant moved the razor above the top of Octavia’s thighs, Octavia quickly reached out a hand and batted her away.

Helena was standing by to oversee the process. “But what about your …um…er…womanhood? At least let her reach there,” Helena said.

“Absolutely not,” Octavia said resolutely.

“But what if Mr. Raemon—”

“I don’t know what Mr. Raemon usually does with the women he sends through this torture factory masquerading as a spa,” Octavia said.

“But he sure as hell isn’t going to be doing anything with ME that would need you to groom my ‘womanhood.’”

Helena resigned herself to losing that battle.

After the whole shaving escapade, Octavia still had to have a number of moisturizers and creams rubbed onto different parts of her body before she was finally ushered out of the spa section in a snow-white robe.

She was taken to another section of the building, this one lined with mirrors, and a counter covered with hundreds of tubes of multicolored liquids, tins of brushes, and other makeup-related materials.

On one side of the large room were rolling clothes racks piled with clothes and next to them lower racks with hundreds of high-heeled shoes.

A long-legged woman in a plum-colored dress suit came through a door on the other side of the room, followed by two nondescript persons dressed in black.

One had a headset on and was carrying a clipboard, and the other was holding several bags in one hand and a miniature, fluffy poodle in the other.

“Darling!” the woman exclaimed to Helena, kissing her on both cheeks as Helena had done to Adelaide.

A string of pearls clattered against the woman’s bony chest as she did, and the wide-brimmed hat on her head tottered precariously.

“So, another one of Raemon’s groupies, is it?” she said in her gravelly voice. The woman drew a cigarette out of a gold-encrusted case in her hand and tossed the case over her shoulder.

One of the nondescript people behind her snatched it up just before it clattered to the ground. Octavia was impressed.

“Yes,” Helena said, not hiding her exhaustion. “Sorry to call you in on such short notice, Ambrosia.”

The woman’s lined face shook furiously as she waved away Helena’s words. “It is nothing. Who would not want to be of service to the Raemon Kentworth?”

Her bright-red lips pinched around the cigarette, and her thin, overly arched eyebrows drew together. “Now, where is the little gold digger of the week?”

“Oh, that would be me,” Octavia spoke up, stepping forward. She ignored Helena’s bright-red face and put a hand out to Ambrosia. “I’m this week’s gold digger.”

Ambrosia did not seem abashed. She eyed Octavia and pursed her lips.

“This is her?” she said. She looked from Octavia to Helena. “Are you sure?”

Helena gave a doleful nod.

Ambrosia cringed and looked back to Octavia. She looked her up and down, and her cringe deepened.

“But it will be impossible to dress this one,” Ambrosia said. “My clothes are sizes zero to four. This one here is size…” She stopped, seemingly unable to utter numbers over four.

“A lot more than that,” Octavia finished helpfully.

“Honestly,” Ambrosia said to Octavia, “you can see what a predicament I am in, of course.”

Octavia nodded in understanding. “Of course. How were you to know I wouldn’t be a size zero model?”

“Exactly!” Ambrosia rejoined. “I’ve been styling his dates for years. It has always been the same kind of woman. But now—NOW is when he decides to switch it up!”

Shades of flustered pink began to show under Ambrosia’s caked makeup. Eventually she recomposed herself and cleared her throat.

“Ugh, fine. We will do what we can,” she said defeatedly. Ambrosia then ordered her nondescript servants into action.

Octavia was directed to a chair before one of the counters where one of the nondescript servants began applying all kinds of substances to Octavia’s face.

Granted, the woman had to search among the tubes lining the counter for a few minutes in search of the few darker shades of makeup.

Octavia closed her eyes, and when she was allowed to open them forty minutes later, she stared at a stranger in the mirror before her.

Her face was primed, powdered, contoured, lined, and highlighted into an image of model-worthy beauty.

“Oh shit…,” she breathed, wincing at the sight of the thick, spidery-like eyelashes attached to her eyelids.

For the hair, Ambrosia gestured madly to her attendants, and they all bustled around for a good long while. The cornrows on Octavia’s head seemed to be a puzzle they couldn’t begin to fathom.

Eventually, one of them seemed to have an idea, and in the next twenty minutes, Octavia had a wig of thick, dark, wavy hair fixed on her head. The dark cascading locks fell to her shoulders.

Then the nondescript servants began rifling madly through the racks of clothing and shoes.

Every piece of clothing one of them held up for Ambrosia’s inspection was met with an explosion of curses before it was meekly returned to where it had been.

Finally, a dress was found. It wasn’t nearly as provocative as the other garments on the racks, but it was just as elegant.

And the only one, Ambrosia remarked with a sigh, that could be squeezed over “this girl’s large middle.”

It was a short black dress with short sleeves that was trimmed with ribbonlike fringe. It had an elastic waist covered in cinched fabric made of a series of velvety ribbons.

Subtle silver patterns were etched across the dress, sparkling into sight when the light hit the fabric at just the right angle.

With some interesting maneuvers, the dress was slid over Octavia’s body and zipped up at the back.

The dress was clearly meant to fit loosely around the body of whoever wore it, but Octavia only had a little wiggle room at her shoulders and hips. Her waist felt as if it were being strangled by the material.

A pair of glittery silver heels were forced onto Octavia’s feet, and she stood before Ambrosia and her crew and Helena for the final inspection.

“Hmm,” Ambrosia said, “it’s not bad. It’s not amazing…but”—she shrugged—“good enough.”

“Wow, thanks,” Octavia said dryly.

When she walked back out to the foyer, Adelaide couldn’t hide the surprise in her face or the look of reined-in fury that followed.

“Here she is,” Helena said brightly. “I hope Mr. Raemon will find everything to his liking.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Adelaide said stiffly. “She just needs to look presentable. I guess this will do.”

“We did what we could,” Helena said. She gripped Adelaide’s arm. “Mr. Raemon should understand that if anything isn’t up to his standards, it’s no fault of OURS.”

Adelaide shook off Helena’s hand in irritation and said to Octavia, “Let’s go.”