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CHAPTER ONE
Rome, Italy
LIGHTSFLASHEDAStechno music pulsed through Anna Vega’s veins. She stopped on the catwalk, bestowed a shaky Mona Lisa smile to the nearest camera and then cursed inwardly. Hadn’t someone told hernotto smile, to look mysterious and aloof?
Too late now.Besides, she needed to concentrate on walking. One foot in front of the other on sky-high heels that were a feat of engineering. The shoes, a silver creation covered in sapphires, clicked on the glass walkway. The crystal-clear waters of the courtyard fountain bubbled behind her as she stopped for one last look before she disappeared behind the drapes and headed toward the room off the hotel courtyard that housed the rest of the models and their entourages.
Before she could suck in a breath, she walked through the double glass doors and into the waiting arms of half a dozen stylists.
“Brush out Anna’s hair!”
“No, no, the petal for her lips, not vixen!”
“Final dress is the tulle and organza!”
Anna closed her eyes, not letting the crowd pulsing around her witness her conflicting feelings of pride and pain. The final dress she would wear tonight, a gown with a full skirt and a deep neckline, was in honor of her mother. The skirt, a nod to the first formal dress her mother had bought her for family Christmas photos when she was four years old. The top, a nod to the countless times her mother had mentioned that one day she would get the confidence to wear something “just a little more daring.” A day that had never come thanks to a reckless driver on a Louisiana bayou backroad.
Yet her mother would be proud, too. The first design she’d created that was truly her own. No replicating, no playing it safe. No, this one washers.
Although, Anna contended as she opened her eyes, she wouldn’t have made the plunge neckline quite so deep if she’d known she would be the one to wear it. But when Kess had called her up and told her that she needed Anna and would she please fly to Rome immediately with a suitcase of her designs, she’d put the dress and a few of her old passable works into a case and gone.
Except now she’d been catapulted from slow to light speed. What had started off as filling in some holes in Kess’s first fashion show after a designer had pulled out had turned into her debut as a model when one of the girls had come down with food poisoning.
In classic Kess style, aside from a slight tightening of her lips, she hadn’t shown how much each blow had stressed her out. No, she’d just sighed and plowed forward, determined to make her first show a success. When she’d approached Anna with the modeling request, it had terrified her. But Kess had always been there for her. It had been time for Anna to step up.
The gold of her dress shimmered beneath the lights backstage. A departure from the pastels she normally favored. She used to love the airiness, the crisp feeling, when she slid on something white. But after that damned article, all she saw was bland. Boring.
Virginal.
Even now she cringed at the picture of her that had been selected, the sensationalized text beneath. Although, she acknowledged with a slight smile, that article had at least done some good. In a moment of blazingI’ll show themanger, she’d ordered the fabric that had turned into this dress.
“You okay?”
Anna opened her eyes to see Kess standing in front of her. Violet silk clung to the newest producer of Hampton Events’s statuesque frame, stopping just short of her ankles. A seductive drape gave the audience a glimpse of the sparkles a makeup artist had dusted across Kess’s ebony chest. She looked stunning.
Anna tried to give her friend a confident smile as someone tugged the fluffy layers of the skirt down over her legs. “A little different than T-shirts and sweatpants for late-night studying?”
Kess smiled as the concern disappeared. “A little. We’re definitely not in Granada anymore.”
“Kess!”
The stage manager’s bellow cut through the cacophony of voices, hair dryers and music blaring over the crowd. Kess squeezed Anna’s hand and hurried away. Two seconds later, the manager yelled for Anna to get in place.
She tapped the toe of her matching gold heel on the ground as butterflies danced in her chest.
One last walk.One last walk and then you’re done and you never have to do this again.
Getting outside of her comfort zone was one thing. Being the center of attention was something else entirely.
“Last walk,” she muttered to herself. “You can do it, you can do it.”
The assistant in charge of the curtain glanced at her and then looked away, a small smile on his face. Compared to the legions of models he’d most likely seen over his career, she probably seemed ridiculous. Inexperienced.
Imposter syndrome reared its vicious head. What was she doing here? She wasn’t a model. She was a barely there fashion designer who had only recently gotten noticed because of a magazine article that had focused more on her personal choices than her art. Even then, the interest had been fleeting, the majority of the requests related to her very loose relationship with one of the wealthiest families in Europe. The couple of inquiries on her actual work hadn’t gone past portfolio requests.
She bit down on her lower lip. A nervous habit she’d developed as a child, one she’d mostly overcome. But moments like these brought it back; when she felt out of her depth and was thrust into the body of a frightened little girl who’d just lost her parents and heard over and over again that she would be protected, shielded from the cruelties of the world. Who, every time she had tried to venture out on her own, was faced with more restrictions, more rules, more questions about whether she was capable of doing this or that on her own. Over time, hearing how much her aunt and uncle didn’t think she was strong had sunk into her bones. Her parents’ deaths had changed her, zapped so much of who’d she been and left her hollowed out by grief, that she’d accepted their overbearing coddling, allowed herself to eventually believe that she was weak and needed others to depend on.
Except for one. She shook her head. No, he’d always encouraged her, told her she could do anything, be anyone.
