by Aster, Avery
The woman’s black almond eyes rounded. They were identical to Massimo’s.
His sister opened the door wide. “Massimo—is it you?”
“Sì.” Massimo attempted to overcome the moment’s awkwardness and kissed her on each cheek. “May I come in?” He’d never spoken more than a few words to his sister in his entire life.
“Of course, my sales girls are at lunch right now. It’s just us.” His sister locked the door behind them and flipped the sign over to say, Closed. Paloma discussed the hot weather for this early fall. Massimo half listened as he struggled with his conscience, with what he’d come to tell her. “What brings you by?”
“I flew in for a friend’s fashion show.”
“Yes, I read the New York Observer this morning.” She handed him the copy from the counter, and the headline read, “Expectations Run High for Easton Fashion Show”. Paloma continued, “Lex came home to such negative press. It’s nice to see the media writing nice things about her family today.” She motioned for him to sit down at a jewelry consulting counter.
He pulled out a small seat and sat across from her. “Sì, I’m here for Lex. I keep forgetting the world knows about us.”
Paloma laughed and replied, “Massimo, you live a public life. You always have.”
“I’m also here to see you.” I am such an ass.
“Me?”
“Sì.” He swallowed hard and tried to manage his guilty admission. “I am here to apologize and ask for your forgiveness.”
“What?”
“I am sorry, Paloma, that I shut you out. I am sorry I did not recognize you as my sister and as a Tittoni.” To not put any pressure on her, he added, “I hope one day you will accept my apology.”
She grabbed his hands, the first time she’d ever held them. “I understand, Massimo, I do. Your anger is directed at Dad and has nothing to do with me.” Massimo studied her fingers and noted a resemblance. He was always told as a child he should’ve played the piano with his long fingers. He wondered if his sister’s fingers hindered or helped with her ability to craft intricate jewelry. “And yes, I accept your apology, but under one condition.”
Old fears surfaced. He couldn’t imagine what her stipulation might be. He asked, “What is your condition?”
“You have to forgive Dad.” Her voice was throaty.
He sucked in air through his mouth and turned his face. “Paloma, you ask the impossible.”
“Dad made mistakes. Loving my mom, marrying your mother, Dad is misunderstood in life and in death.” He turned back to face her with a questioning squint. Giving his father forgiveness in death let alone in life made his eyes tense. She confirmed, “You fought over some girl?”
“Marcella. Dad and she—carried on an affair.”
Paloma dismissed his accusations with a laugh and argued, “Dad never slept with Marcella. He created a lie to protect you from her and he regretted doing so. He—”
“You, sister”—Massimo stood to leave—“do not know what you speak about.” He wasn’t going to listen to this. He’d come to make amends with Paloma. Not to receive some dissertation on how fabulous his demonic father was.
Her hand came at his wrist, the way a mother would grab a child in a store before he broke something. “Sit down, Prince Tittoni!” She yanked his wrist toward her.
Scolded, he sat.
In annoyance, Paloma’s face shadowed.
“Are all New York women this bossy?” he asked, trying to bring humor into the air.
“Wait, brother.” She tapped his wrist and motioned an apology for pulling on him. “Before Dad died, you and Marcella were all he talked about. Dad wrote you countless letters explaining everything. He sent them to the island and a second set to Milan via FedEx.”
“I threw them away without reading them.”
“Dad figured as much. I typed his letters to you into electronic communication and emailed them.”
“Unopened and deleted.”
“Without reading them?” She gaped at him as he nodded and she pulled on his little arm fuzz with her nails.
“Ouch!”
“You’re stubborn.” Paloma shook her head in disgust. “Well, if you’d read them, you would’ve learned Dad asked Marcella her intentions the day you announced your engagement.”
“Sì, he took her into the study to talk.” It was a lifetime ago. Nevertheless, he remembered the afternoon like it was a movie in his mind. Frame by frame, over and over again, playing in mind. A nightmare.
“Marcella suggested the House of Tittoni’s estate would see to her needs. And she intended to marry you and start a family.”
“Marriage, sì,” Massimo confirmed and realized at nineteen he may’ve been too young to be making such an enormous decision. Marcella, though, had come up with the idea and persuaded him to ask for her hand in marriage.
“Dad asked Marcella if she loved you. Quote unquote, Marcella responded with a no.”
“Lies,” he argued in a nasty tone.
“Massimo, Dad gave her money to go away to college to remove her from your life. When you went after her, he invented a horrible lie. He concocted the story, including the affair with her, knowing you wouldn’t touch her afterward.”
“Why would he invent his affair?”
“Granddad made your father marry your mother. He didn’t want you to be in a loveless marriage as he was. My mother and our father loved one another. And our grandfather made him marry your mother. They never loved one another. I’m sorry, Massimo.”
His parents’ hatred for one another became public knowledge. “Let us say this is true. I still take issue with Papà cutting me from the estate. He left me with nothing.” Massimo had rebuilt Girasoli Garments sale by sale by himself.
Paloma’s face didn’t waver on her determination for her brother to forgive their father. “Massimo, there was nothing to give.”
“Papà took money from the casinos.”
“Those casinos are a money pit. You know as well as I do our grandfather ate through the family money to build up those beaches.”
“Sì.”
“The House of Tittoni never recovered. Always in the red, Dad tried for years to get caught up. When he couldn’t and your fight with him started, he folded his cards and came to New York to live with my mother. He died penniless. My mother paid for his expenses to live here.”
“What about the money he left you?”
Paloma laughed. “There isn’t any money. The press whipped it up at Mom’s request to make Dad go out in good standing. Mom retired from the jewelry industry and I took over this store. We never once received a penny from Dad.”
“I need uno minute.” Massimo stood and walked around the boutique. Whiplash numbed him from speaking, as if struck by a fast-moving car. He couldn’t believe it. But he did. Paloma’s insight made sense to him against his father’s actions, which remained nonsensical throughout his life. King Umberto remained secretive about the House of Tittoni’s finances for as long as he could remember. Now it seemed logical why he never brought Massimo into the picture to manage the estate or the properties as the dealings reduced to debts and an empty portfolio. But how could Massimo recover from being harsh to his father now? King Umberto had died two years ago.
“I will have the Milano news run an editorial in the paper on Papà. Grazie for telling me. I am sick over this, as you can imagine.”
“Massimo, it’s in the past.” Paloma didn’t scorn him. In fact, she gave the impression she wanted her brother to move on.
Taking his mind off the news, he looked around at the jewelry in the cases, getting his bearings and his breath and complimented, “Such a beautiful store. I have seen your work in Town & Country and Vanity Fair over the years.”
“Never did I figure you paid much attention to my life.” Paloma’s face reddened. She was a year older than him, and her boutique was deemed by Manhattan society as the go-to place for important jewelry. Her trademark was mounting large gem
s.
“I have and will continue to do so.” He remembered reading Paloma announced plans to open a boutique on the Champs-Elysées in Paris and Grafton Street in Dublin. “Congratulations on your expanding abroad. Why nothing in Milano?”
“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“My apology isn’t the sole reason I came to see you.”
“Oh no?”
“I’d appreciate for my sister to help me select an engagement ring.” He rambled for a minute trying to describe Lex’s taste as American conservative but edgy.
Paloma’s eyes glazed over in tears. “I’m speechless.”
“Say you’ll help me, per favore.”
“I’d be honored.” She stood and walked around the counter. “Let me go to the safe in the back. I’ll be right back.”
“Sì.” Massimo continued to look around. Nothing caught his eye for Lex. The ring should embody her taste for quality, but he desired flashy. It came from him, though he understood Lex to be modest.
Paloma emerged from the back and walked to the counter with a box in her hand. “For the last three months I’ve worked on a setting for a rare sixteen-carat diamond. It’s from the Diavik Diamond Mines. They supply to Harry Winston.” She opened the black leather box. Inside there was a glimmer fastened to velvet. Paloma unhooked the ring and slid it over her finger to model it for him.
“Wow!” It sparkled. “Paloma, it’s beautiful.” The stone glittered in an emerald cut, flawless, colorless and flanked by two pear-shaped diamonds.
“This ring combines the four C’s best. It’s impeccable and yours. I’ll give it to you at cost. Your princess will love it.”
“How much?”
“One million.”
“Such a bargain.” He laughed and offered, “Will you come tonight to meet your future sister-in-law? And watch me ask for her hand in marriage with this treasure you’ve created?”
“I would love to.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lights! Models! Guest list!
I’m gonna throw up. Lex stood backstage with Vive, Taddy and Blake. The monitors behind the runway flashed into static fuzz then to a time. It read nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds until show time. Monitor one captured an audience view facing the runway’s far end. Screen two was set to film the models as they came down the runway. And television three gave a pan shot with specific focus on the fashion editors on the left and right sides who sat among the department store buyers, stylists, socialites and celebrities. Lex could see guests taking their seats. Everything was shaping up to be perfect, except for one thing. He hadn’t come.
“Eight minutes!” Birdie shouted as she ran backstage to hug her daughter.
Vive smacked Lex’s hand. “Let go. I need to go take my seat. Debauchery magazine brought their camera crew. We’ll do some footage after the show. How many looks did you and Birdie select?”
Lex had held Vive’s hand for the last few minutes to calm her nerves. Vive swore she wouldn’t talk, and she didn’t. She helped Lex breathe. “We have forty-two looks. Each model will change three times.”
Blake handed Lex an earpiece. “Slip this in your right ear. I’ll talk you through the whole show and let you know how we’re doing in the front. Remember we play your vocal recording at the beginning welcoming the crowd. The second you hear your voice come on, you know to send out the first model.”
“Understood, Blake, thank you.”
“I’m heading out to work with the lighting guys.” Blake walked off confident as ever with Vive.
Taddy came up with her clipboard and said, “Honey, every celebrity is checked in, the one no-show is Britney. We figured as much. Vogue, Harper’s, Elle, W, Glamour, WWD, Saks Barneys—everyone’s here. I’m going to sit with my peeps at Marie Claire. Remember your show runs for twenty minutes. Then this circus picks it up and moves down the hall to the BCBG Max Azria show. This is it, Lex.” Taddy marched out the door with her head high.
Birdie came up behind her and put her arms around her. “This is a million times bigger than last season.” Lex looked out at the crowd.
“We have the stage at Lincoln Center.”
“You’re the one who insisted we do so many looks this year.”
“Well…”
“We’re not Christian Dior, Mother.”
“Not yet, my baby, but soon. This attendance is from the rumors Girasoli is acquiring Easton.”
“I thought the same thing.”
“The possible merger has created an unexpected demand in Easton. And your new Milan nightlife created an interest in you,” Birdie teased. “There are four fashion houses here today offering to outbid your prince.”
“The prince will never be beaten. He hates to lose.”
Birdie turned to face her as Lex tried to hide the sadness she knew her mother could see all too well. “He’ll come for you, baby. It’ll all work out for you both, I’m certain.” Lex hugged her mother one last time as the front of house lights went dim and the room became quiet. “Your father would be proud.”
“Thank—” Lex tried to muster her gratitude, but choked on her own words. She closed her eyes and inhaled to secure balance. To excuse herself, she offered, “I’m going to go check the model lineup one last time.” She couldn’t remember if this may be the one hundredth time or one hundred and first time she’d checked her models.
“Okay, bitches, let’s go,” Blake ordered into the earpiece.
Lex walked up to her first model, Taddy’s reality TV star client. “Neve, you ready?”
“Easton’s dress in my signature color. I love lilac.” Neve winked at Lex in a Marilyn Monroe way, which almost made her laugh.
“Thank you for being in my show. It means the world to me.” She smiled and watched America’s biggest television star leave for the runway.
Lex’s voice played over the sound system,
It’s time to let go and unwind
Let your mind surprise you
Let your body take you
Enjoy the Sunset
Hope you’ll stay with us ’til dawn
The music’s tempo increased.
Cameras flashed. Lex chewed the nails off her right hand.
“Stop biting.” Birdie grabbed her hands as they watched Neve go down the runway on the monitors.
The Saks buyer smiled.
“Second model please, Lex. Keep up,” Blake bitched over the earpiece.
She tapped the next model on the shoulder.
Overwhelmed with glee, Birdie sang, “We’re a hit, look at Rihanna’s face. She loves the dress. Lex—look at the audience’s faces. They love us! They love you!”
The sunset theme became hypnotic, and the backdrop glowed warm orange in spiraling amber hues. The air kissed vanilla essences. Taddy had hired a scent machine company to pump the aroma into the room before guests arrived, claiming in her lighthearted way it would make everyone happy and help sell clothing. The music jammed with an atmospheric invigorating quality.
The next eighteen minutes passed as mere seconds. Lex couldn’t believe the end came near.
Look forty-two changed into her third gown, a chiffon bodice and tulle skirt. “My darling, this is the best show—better than Milano, better than Paris, grazie for including me.” Jemma squeezed her hand and straightened her gown’s shoulder straps.
“You helped me and Birdie with sewing everything. Thank you. I wish—”
Jemma covered Lex’s mouth with her palm, “Shush, don’t say it. Focus on good things. I’ll do one full walk and come back and get you.”
“I’m taking a quick bow mid stage, period.”
“No, my darling, you’re going to do the whole catwalk. You’re wearing one of my dresses. Per favore.”
“It’s my show, Jemma.” Her friend gave her a pout. “Okay, okay, I’ll walk the whole way out. See you in two minutes.”
“Grazie, darling.” Jemma strutted away. At age thirty-four, she gave the other models all under ag
e twenty a better face.
The audience clapped as Lex stepped out onto the runway.
She could see hands, feet, but no faces as the spotlight beamed down on her. Lex put her hand up to wave then took a bow. Jemma, the last model, came up and grabbed her arm. “Walk with me, work it—work it—work it.” Jemma giggled. The other models came out and around for one final walk.
As they walked the runway behind the other models, who catwalked one final round, Jemma slowed down.
About four feet from the edge, Jemma dropped her hand and let Lex walk the final stretch alone. The houselights came up…
This isn’t in the program.
Lex eye’s caught a sparkle. The brilliance blinded her as the crystal bounced off the lights. She sidestepped from the reflection, when she caught his face. Masi?
Massimo lowered himself down on one knee. He took command on the runway—such a showman. Lex realized the sparkling reflection came from an engagement ring. The rock glimmered as the largest stone she’d ever seen.
The music cut off as silence filled the room.
“My bella, my Lex Easton!” Massimo announced. “You ran away from me once.”
“I didn’t run. I flew.” Lex grabbed his free hand while he stayed kneeling.
He lowered his voice. “I would give this up, House of Tittoni, Girasoli Garments, and Isola di Girasoli, my Milano life—anything and everything. I’ll be faithful, and I’ll be yours—forever.” Massimo’s eyes glistened in happiness. “Please let me prove this to you, my principessa.”
“Oh Masi,” she cried. Lex realized Massimo wouldn’t need to give anything up to be with her. He was as perfect as ever the way he was. To hell with what people thought, she wasn’t tabloid phobic any longer.
“Sì, bella. Will you marry me? Will you be my wife?” he asked in his loud baritone voice.
“Yes, yes, I’ll marry you,” Lex encouraged, “and Masi, we’ll find a balance to make this work.”
Massimo stood holding her hand, and he placed the sparkle on her ring finger. The engagement ring fit. He kissed her as she melted in his arms to the point they forgot the hundreds of onlookers.