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“You do not.” Crossing the room, I lifted her feet and sat next to her. “We’re good, Gen. We’re actually ahead of schedule. Two of my junior designers have designed for you guys for years, so they already know what you like. I’ve been approving their designs as fast as they’re sketching them. As for my third junior designer, Lyla has to show me up in every way, so she’s already pulled fabric for Bane.”
Genny scoffed. “I still can’t believe she snitched to Vance about you assigning her our staff. That bitch is truly shameless.”
“Ugh. She said if anyone’s making the housekeeper’s mom jeans, it’s going to be Intern Rylee. Vance is torn between keeping Sunny happy and keeping Caddell House out of the headlines. He was popping Xanax while asking me if we’d work together without a problem. In the end, I gave her Bane to shut her up. The man only dresses up when he deigns to leave the woods, so whatever profile she’s trying to raise by dressing him, it’s not going to work.”
“Do you think she’s the one bugging us?”
I started at the question. “Lyla? What? No.”
Gen tipped her head. “Why? She’s cruel, devious, and manipulative. Her games ruined your life and she laughed in your face when she saw how badly. If the Brotherhood promised her wealth or fame to betray some people she doesn’t even know, why wouldn’t she hop on the chance?”
“For one, Lyla has wealth. Her dad is the owner of an import/export company. Her favorite pastime in college was reminding me she had a seven-figure trust fund, and I have a family tree of felons.”
“Rich people never have enough money, Feisty.”
“True, but unless the Brotherhood promised to make her creative director of Caddell House, I don’t see what they’d have to offer her. She’s got money, status, and a career. The only thing left for her is to climb the ladder, and she can do that by doing exactly what she’s doing now: undermining me and making a play for my job.”
“Huh. Can’t say you don’t know your enemy.”
“I do know her,” I confessed. “But I don’t know who’s running the Brotherhood. Maybe they are powerful enough to catapult her to the top of the fashion industry.”
Genny flashed me another rare serious look. “We can’t rule anyone out. And we can’t wait another five days for these stitch bitches to pump out clothes. That leaves a four-day window for the guy we’re looking for to make a move. He, or she, sits on their ass those four days we’ve got nothing.”
“I thought of that. I assigned myself Sunny’s wardrobe,” I said. “I’ve been making clothes for him for weeks. Liam, Bane, and you too. It was going to be a gift, but—”
“—but you’ve got the rest of your life to shower me in gifts,” Genny finished. “Bring them in tomorrow. Stuff them in the Closet but put the word out that they ship in three days. The surviving trackers are giving the Brotherhood nothing. They’ll be desperate to get one on Sunny.”
I held out my hands. “Exactly what I was going to say.”
Genny smacked my thigh. “How fucking lucky are we that Sunny brought you home? This is why the Merchants will never die. Fate is ours.”
“I brought Sunny home,” I corrected. “I also brought Shonda’s basil chicken sandwiches for lunch. Let’s go up to the roof. I’m starved.”
Genny and I grabbed our things and went upstairs. She let out a low whistle.
“If this is what it’s like living the nine-to-five life, I’m thinking all the people I made fun of were secretly laughing at me.”
“This is not the norm.” I gazed around the rooftop garden. Tables butted up against the roses, petunias, and lavender, gifting the lunchers air perfumed with flowers over the rusty city smell. On our left, two guys worked the café stand. And on our right was the best view of Cinco for miles. “This is the nine-to-five life everyone dreams of. Minus the pressure, constant competition, and backstabbing.”
“Quit while you’re ahead, Feisty. I’m already jealous.”
Genny claimed a table farthest from everyone, tucked within the white rose bushes. I joined her and she claimed one of my sandwiches too.
“Did you ever want something different?” I pulled out two bags of baked chips and a couple of water bottles. Genny had been stealing my lunch for five days. I wised up. “When you were little and your mom was telling you she’d support any dream you had. Did something other than”—I gestured to the tatted biker chick before me—“cross your mind?”
Humming, she tipped her chair back on two legs. “Good question. I guess like every kid I had a different dream each week. One day I wanted to be a singer. The next week Liam brought home a dog and I wanted to be a vet, but I was never serious about any of them. Trying to picture myself in another kind of life just didn’t... fit.”
