9 HE MAY AS WELL have slapped her. Shannon stared at him for a long moment before she grabbed one of the overstuffed black bags and started pulling it toward his bedroom door. The same old issues followed her wherever she went, it seemed. I swear to God I’m going to get a prescription for Rogaine and use it to grow a mustache. I’m going to eat fried food and chocolate until nobody sees me under the fat. She sighed. Who was she kidding? She was just as much caught in the trap as anybody else, trained from birth to cultivate her looks for attention. “Hey,” Hal called after her. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. And let me take that, it’s too heavy for you.” She ignored him and continued to drag the bag, pulling it along his hardwood floors with a whoosh. She was upset enough about his comment that she dropped all pretense of professional demeanor. “A lot of people assume that I can’t be a nice person, and I hate it. Do you know how few close friends I have? Two.
