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She rubbed her eyes and tried to sound unconcerned. “That’s old news. Isn’t there anything better to gossip about?”
“It’s lousy PR for a woman trying to start a business based on client trust.”
He didn’t need to spell it out for her. The implication was clear. If she’d broken contracts before, she’d do it again. She could think of only one reason for those stories to resurface now. Alexi had made his next move.
The young singer didn’t show up for lunch, a message Fleur had no trouble interpreting. She got back to the office in time to take a call from Olivia Creighton.
“I’ve been hearing some terrible stories about you, Fleur. I’m sure none of them are true, and you know how I adore you, but after what happened with poor Doris Day and all her money, a woman can’t be too careful. I’m not comfortable with instability.”
“Of course not.” Fleur thought of the six antique Baccarat goblets and case of Pouilly Fuissé Olivia had sent her just the week before to celebrate her contract for Dragon’s Bay. Now the celebration was over. She made a lunch date for Olivia to meet David Bennis With his leather elbow patches and his smelly pipe, he radiated stability better than anyone, and Fleur hoped he could reassure Olivia, but as she headed for David’s office, she didn’t like the feeling that she was once again using someone else to solve her problems.
Later that day, she found Michel in the second floor of a converted factory in Astoria, where weary seamstresses were working on the garments for his collection. H
e had less than seven weeks left, and he was exhausted from the strain of trying to get everything together so quickly. She wished she didn’t have to add to his worries, but she couldn’t postpone telling him what was happening any longer. By now, Alexi understood exactly how important the success of Michel’s collection was to her, and she didn’t need a crystal ball to figure out where he’d try to strike next.
Michel straightened the scarf she’d tied at the neck of her white cashmere sheath. He had to reach up to do it because she was wearing the stiletto heels that were a standard part of her business wardrobe ever since she’d realized her height sometimes worked to her advantage. She told him about the missing invitations and the fire. Michel listened in silence. When she got to the end, she squeezed his arm. “As of tonight, I’m putting this workroom under twenty-four-hour guard.”
He looked physically ill. “Do you really think he’ll go after the samples?”
“I’m sure of it. Destroying the samples before you can show them is the way he can do the most damage.”
He gazed around the workroom. “If we make it through this, there’ll be something else.”
“I know.” She rubbed her cheek. “Let’s hope he gets bored. There’s not much else we can do.”
Jake settled into the attic a few days after the party, but he didn’t spend much time there the first week, opting instead to stay in his townhouse in the Village and attend rehearsals of a revival of one of his older plays. Once Fleur heard his footsteps late at night as she fell asleep. Two days later, she heard the sound of water running, but she never heard a typewriter.
To her consternation, word immediately got out that she’d be representing Jake’s so far nonexistent future literary endeavors. The last thing anyone in his West Coast office wanted was for her to succeed at what they hadn’t been able to accomplish, and she suspected they were responsible for the leak. That, coupled with continued stories about her broken modeling contracts, was chipping away at the small amount of credibility she’d been able to build up. A well-established actor and rising young writer she’d been close to signing both backed off, and Olivia was getting increasingly skittish.
As the second week of October arrived, Jake began spending more nights in the attic apartment, but Fleur never saw him and never once heard the sound of a typewriter. Acting on the theory that exercise improves creativity and would, at the least, get him out of bed in the morning, she started pushing notes under his door inviting him to join her on her daily run. One crisp fall morning, three weeks after they’d sealed their deal, she came outside to find him sitting on the front step waiting for her.
He wore a gray UCLA sweatshirt, navy sweatpants, and beat-up Adidas. As he spotted her, his pouty bottom lip curled in a smile, and her heart gave an alarming hiccup. When she was a kid, just the sight of him had made her melt, but all he meant to her now was a business deal, and she’d never let him get to her like that again. She took the three front steps in one leap and ran past him.
“You never heard of warming up?” he called out from behind her.
“Don’t need it. I’m already hot.” She looked back over her shoulder. “Think you can keep up with me, cowboy?”
“Ain’t met a woman yet who could outrun me,” he replied, all full of sagebrush and buffalo chips.
“I don’t know about that. Seems to me you’ve been living a pretty indolent life.”
He drew up next to her. “Playing basketball three afternoons a week with a bunch of inner city teenagers who call me ‘mister’ isn’t exactly taking it easy.”
She sidestepped a muddy puddle and headed west, toward Central Park. “I’m surprised you can keep up at your advanced age.”
“I can’t. My knees are shot, and I can’t jump anymore, so I usually get pulled from the game before the third quarter is over. They only put up with me because I bought the uniforms.”
As they slipped around a delivery truck blocking the sidewalk, Fleur thought about how much she liked Jake’s self-deprecating sense of humor. Next to his body, it was the best thing about him. His body and his no-nonsense masculinity. And his face. She loved his face. What she didn’t love was his manipulative behavior and two-bit morality. He’d taken her to the mountaintop, then shoved her off. But she couldn’t keep rehashing the past. She had a job to do, and she’d left him alone long enough. “I haven’t noticed a typewriter banging away over my head since you moved in.”
“Don’t push me, okay?” His face closed up.
She thought for a moment and decided to take a risk. “I’m having a dinner party on Saturday night. Why don’t you come?” She’d was just getting around to throwing the party she and Kissy had discussed at the open house, the one that would allow Michel and Simon to get to know each other. Being among congenial people might be a good first step toward loosening Jake up. And the others would entertain him so she wouldn’t have to.
“Sorry, Flower, but formal dinner parties aren’t my thing.”
“It’s not exactly formal. The guests cook. It’ll just be Michel, Simon Kale, and Kissy. I invited Charlie Kincannon, but he’s going to be out of town.”
“Do you really know somebody named Kissy?”
