Page 53 of Our Chaotic Love Affair

“Cleo, you look nice in it.”

Her lips curled back. “Nice? No thanks. I don’t do nice.”

“Pretty?”

“I look like I’m attending a state funeral for someone I barely knew. Very respectful. Very appropriate. Completely not me.”

“That’s the point.”

She fixed me with a look. “The point is for me to be convincing as your fiancée. A woman who looks nothing like herself the entire evening is not convincing. She’s suspicious. If I’m using this as my brand launch, I have to be me.”

I had to concede, privately, that this was not entirely wrong.

The third and fourth dresses produced the same result. Each one beautiful. Each one met with that particular expression that managed to be polite to the stylists and completely unambiguous to me.

Giulia was conferring quietly with one of her team members in Italian. I caught enough of it to understand that they were running low on options within the brief I’d given them. Cleo had wandered to the rack and was sorting through the remaining options with the focused attention of someone who already knew what they were looking for and hadn’t found it yet.

Cleo talked to Giulia’s assistant. A young woman that seemed to have similar fashion choices as Cleo. I watched the exchange. The young woman’s face went through caution, consideration, and finally a small smile.

“I’m not sure the signore would approve,” she said with a glance in my direction.

“The signore doesn’t need to know yet,” Cleo said pleasantly. “Go get it.”

“Get what?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Cleo said at the same moment the young stylist disappeared through the door.

“What did you just send her to get?”

“We had a conversation. It was private.”

She sat down in a chair, crossed her ankles, and smiled at me. “Have some more cheese. You look tense.”

If I had more cheese, I wasn’t just going to be tense. I was going to be very constipated. Not a great combination.

“I liked the first gown,” I said. “You could accessorize it to make it feel more like you.”

“No thanks.”

The young stylist returned eight minutes later with a garment bag over her arm and an expression of someone who’d run to the van and back and felt it was worth it. Her cheeks were flushed and she was smiling.

Giulia said something in rapid-fire Italian. The girl shrugged and replied in a much quieter tone. She kept looking at Cleo. I really hoped Cleo didn’t just get the woman fired. She presented the bag to Cleo with a small, conspiratorial air. Cleo unzipped it.

I saw a flash of black fabric. She didn’t let me get a good look at the gown before she swept toward the bathroom with the satisfaction of someone who’d found exactly what they’d been looking for. And I had a feeling it was nothing that I was going to find appropriate for the event.

“That’s not what I asked for,” I told Giulia.

Giulia spread her hands in a gesture that was entirely Italian when I knew she spoke English just fine. The young assistant was grinning. Something was definitely happening.

Cleo called out for help. The young stylist disappeared into the bathroom. I could hear them talking excitedly. The young woman emerged to retrieve something from the jewelry case, then went back.

More conferring. Something about the hair.

“I specified timeless,” I started.

“I know what you specified,” Giulia said diplomatically. “But perhaps you should wait and see before you assume they’re wrong.”

Cleo stepped out and I closed my mouth. The dress was black silk, draped in a way that accentuated her body. I had nothing to compare it to. It fell off one shoulder and bunched around her waist to disguise anything extra a woman may not want to show off. It highlighted her ample breasts and the flare of her hips. It was the perfect hourglass shape. Not like a size two hourglass but a real one. Like Marilyn Monroe curves.