🥊 Hate or Fate 💕 {Enemies to Lovers}

.62.

I glanced up in time to see the orange and black carpet that had been specially laid out for the agency's Halloween party as well as several of our coworkers freezing their butts off outside the building. Our costumes caused quite a stir and we wound up posing for lots of group photos in the sub-zero temperatures.

Inside, the lobby was blanketed in gauzy spiderwebs and faux gravestones as if we'd arrived at a high-end cemetery for Hollywood ghouls. Every one of the hotel's marble and gold fixtures had been camouflaged to feel campy and extravagant in the best possible ways. 

My favorite touch was the zombie bellhops styled to look like they had just crawled out of a fresh grave while limping around to help the guests.

The impressive decorations and lavish costumes were really fun, but I was too preoccupied to really care.

Gray hadn't texted me back.

So, I shoved my phone into the stylish leather fanny pack that Rebecca lent me to keep myself from checking it over and over. 

Classic Halloween hits were getting a remix from inside the hotel's main ballroom, where we found an open bar decorated to look like an old-timey saloon in a ghost town. 

Rebecca introduced Bart to everyone as her boyfriend and proudly paraded him around the room while I peeled off to grab myself a ginger ale.

I halfheartedly greeted my coworkers and tried to stick to the outskirts of the room so no one would hear the terrible squeak of my scuba suit. 

Technically I was covered head to toe, but I'd never felt so exposed. Or more alone. 

As soon as I secured my beverage I found a quiet corner near the bathrooms where I could hide out and avoid talking to people. The only person I wanted to hear from hadn't texted me back, and I was stuck in a sweaty room full of loud partygoers and cheap dry ice.

"Look at you," a low feminine voice purred inauspiciously. "Me-ow. Aren't you a pretty kitty?"

I turned on my heel to face Cruella Deville, in the flesh

"Maleficent, wow! You look," I exclaimed. "Like you missed a huge opportunity with your choice of Disney villain."

Her artfully cropped hair was hidden under a binary wig while her lithe frame was sheathed in a red satin flapper dress that was dripping in (fake?) rubies. Her bony shoulders and angular collarbone were swathed in a massive white mink coat, so real and so rich that I wanted to reach out and pet it.

As much as I wanted to believe that she was giving me a compliment, I had the sinking suspicion that she wanted to talk about the walking venereal disease she called her husband.  

Her cold eyes wandered up and down my body, pausing on my breasts in a way that made me want to squirm. 

"Quite the costume, yourself," Maleficent sneered. 

"I, uh, it's a group costume," my excuse fell flat as a blush heated my cheeks.

"I noticed," she nodded, her body language and unlined face revealing nothing but faint revulsion. "That Rebecca girl certainly has found her voice in the last few weeks, hasn't she? I can't help but wonder if some of that is your influence?"

I couldn't work out her angle, but every word sounded like she was loading ammo into the barrel of a shotgun, one that was about to be aimed in my direction.

"She's a brilliant designer," I agreed carefully, "One of our best, in my opinion."

"Yes, you've got a lot of opinions, don't you, Isla?"