Chapter 9 - The Transformation
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That Wednesday afternoon, while Vanessa was out shopping with money she didn't have and Michael was supposedly meeting with a "consultant," I slipped out through the side door. I climbed into my car, which was covered in a thin layer of frost, and drove directly to the upscale downtown salon Daniel once took me to on our twenty-fifth anniversary.
When I walked through the glass doors and untied the silk scarf, the head stylist, an old friend named Marco, literally gasped.
Tears welled in Marco's eyes as he gently touched the jagged, brutalized chunks of my silver hair. “Eleanor, my god… what happened to you? Who did this?”
“Someone who thought they could take away my dignity,” I said softly, meeting his gaze in the mirror. “Can you fix it, Marco? I don't care how short it has to be. Just make me look like myself again.”
Marco nodded fiercely, his scissors flashing with professional precision. For an hour, he worked meticulously, washing, treating, and cutting away the damage. He didn't just salvage the mess Vanessa had made; he transformed it.
When he finally spun the leather chair around and handed me a hand-mirror, my breath hitched.
Gone was the long, flowing mane of the grieving widow. In its place was a sharp, sleek, incredibly chic silver bob that framed my cheekbones perfectly. It was modern, aggressive, and undeniably powerful. It made me look less like a frail victim and entirely like the ruthless executive I had once been.
“You look like a CEO ready for war,” Marco whispered, squeezing my shoulders.
“That’s exactly what I am,” I replied.
May you like
I paid him generously in cash, put on my dark sunglasses, and walked out of the salon. When I caught my reflection in the glass window of a storefront, I didn't see the woman who had cried on her pillow. I saw Eleanor Vale, the founder of Hawthorne Capital.
I was ready.
