“I was just thinking that!” I exclaim. “It’s risky, sending out free products, but I feel like, the minute they use the lipsticks, they’ll be convinced.”

“I know I was,” Tara laughs. “Speaking of… Any more of that glossy pink?” she bats her eyelashes at me.

“Soon,” I promise. I started donating my test shades here, and before I knew it, the patrons became my best, most honest focus group. “How was the texture on the last batch?”

Tara pauses. “I love the color, but to tell the truth, it was kind of sticky,” she says.

“Right,” someone else agrees. “My hair kept getting stuck.”

I grab my phone to take notes. “OK, so the base needs work. What about the color, did it last long enough… ?”

After a page of feedback plus some more impromptu makeovers, I head out, back to my apartment to collapse for the night. I live in a gorgeous Art Deco building on the Upper West Side, brimming with character, just like my apartment: Built-in bookcases, intricately-scrolled crown molding, and a massive brick fireplace that’s perfect on frigid winter nights.

And if you’re wondering how I can afford an amazing place like that working retail, well… That’s kind of a long story.

I enter the immaculate lobby, and immediately hunch my shoulders, slinking toward the elevator, almost rounding the corner, when—

“There’s a package here for you, Miss Delgado.”

I quickly spin around. “Thanks, Henry!” I beam at the doorman. “You’re the best.”

“How’s your aunt getting along?” Henry asks, friendly, as he hands the package to me. “Where is she now, Europe?”

“I think so, it’s hard to keep track!” I blurt. “Goodnight!”

I bolt to the elevator, and it’s not until the doors slide shut behind me that I can relax. See, everything about my apartment is great, except for one teensy-tiny little catch.

It doesn’t actually belong to me.

See, the name on the rental agreement is still Celia Delgado—my aunt. She passed away earlier this year, and I drew the short straw to come box up her things. And when I say short straw, I mean my entire family actually drew straws because nobody wanted to go out of their way to lift a finger for that witch, alive or otherwise.

Because Aunt Celia was… Thorny. She’d basically alienated half my family and feuded with the rest, thanks to her delightful mix of stubbornness, ego, cruelty, and some rather outdated opinions on, well, everything. In the end, it fell to me to go clear out her place and get it cleaned up, and that’s only because my mom said I could take her mint-condition collection of Harlequin romance novels as a reward.

The woman had been living here since the Seventies, so it was no small job, let me tell you. But while I was up to my elbows in lavender potpourri and back issues of Reader’s Digest magazine, there was a knock at the door. A fresh-faced kid from the building management company was doing the rounds introducing himself. Apparently, the building had just changed hands, and he wanted to remind Celia to re-sign her lease.