Page 49 of Auctioned To Be Mine

“Yeah.”

“Callum.” She turned to look at me. “This is gorgeous.”

I was embarrassingly pleased by that. “It’s getting there.”

She walked around, her sneakers squeaking on the marble. She ran her hand along the back of one of the velvet couches. She moved toward the menswear section and looked at the dark wood paneling on the walls, then back across the open floor to where the wedding section would be.

“How big is the square footage?” she asked.

“It’s huge. The open second floor is where the office is and we’ll have other stuff to buy up there. The event space is all down here. That’s a false wall over there. We’ll open it up once we get ideas finalized.”

She was already moving through the store, hands in her back pockets as she took it all in. I could see her calculating and observing.

“This is nothing like I’ve seen before,” she said. “I love that it’s not cluttered. It feels calm.”

“Exactly.” I grinned. “That’s the vision. High end, relaxing. A place you want to spend some time and spend some money.”

She nodded. “I like it.”

I laughed. “I hope it’s not a disaster.”

“Walk me through the event you want to host,” she said. “What were you thinking for the runway?”

“That’s sort of the question.” I followed her to the center of the room. “My cousin Adrian wants to do a runway show for the launch. Not the traditional kind. Real couples instead of models. Tell a story with the clothes.” I gestured down the length of the room. “I was thinking the runway could run right through here. Start near the back wall, come down through the main floor. The audience would line both sides.”

She stood where I was pointing and looked in both directions. “How many people can you fit if you do it that way?”

“Probably a couple hundred. It’s intimate.”

“Intimate is good,” she said immediately. “Intimate means exclusive. You’re not trying to fill a convention center. You want the right people in the room, not the most people.” She turned back to me. “And you said you wanted to tie in Mimi’s foundation.”

“Right. That’s where I’m stuck. A runway show is a runway show. I couldn’t figure out how to combine that with a charity fundraiser.”

She looked at me like the answer was obvious. “Auction the clothes.”

I stared at her. “What?”

“The dresses and stuff the models wear down the runway,” she said. “Each one gets a number. You print a catalog, you give it to guests when they come in, and at the end of the show, you hold a live auction. Every piece that sells, a portion of the proceeds goes directly to the foundation. Or all the proceeds. I’m not sure what the profit margin is there.” She spread her hands out like it was nothing. “It’s simple. It’s elegant. It doesn’t interrupt the show. The guests are already emotionally invested in what they just watched. The clothes mean something because they’ve seen them in motion, on real people, in the context of a story. That’s when you ask them to open their wallets. They’re going to be really looking at the clothes and picturing themselves in the moment instead of just seeing another dress.”

I looked at her. “That’s so obvious.”

“Most good ideas are,” she said with a laugh.

“Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you’re busy,” she said simply. “And you don’t work with this kind of stuff every day.”

I turned away from her and walked the length of the proposed runway. It worked. The space was big for a store, allowing Blackwell to hold small events here. Adrian and his brothers had thought ahead. Still, every guest would be close to the action. They’d be able to see the fabric and the details that made Blackwell Couture worth the price tag.

“We’d need an auctioneer,” I said, turning back. “Someone with personality. Not the charity auction type with the rapid-fire voice. Someone that’s going to make the attendees laugh and maybe shed a tear.”

“I know a guy,” she said. “He does charity galas, very good, very funny, knows how to read a room. I’ll get you his number.”

I nodded. I was already mentally planning the runway in my head. “The window wall is going to be the problem.”

“Why?”

“The natural light is incredible during the day but by evening it goes dark and you lose the whole effect. We’d need to backlight it somehow.”