by Nancy Warren
There was another pause. She ran her hand over his belly, strong and six-packed from all that mountaineering or whatever it was he did. Obviously he realized that simply telling her Rebecca’s name wasn’t going to cut it.
“She’s a wildlife biologist in Oregon. We met protesting habitat destruction of the spotted owl, and one thing led to another.”
She’d left her hand on his stomach and she liked the way it vibrated as he talked. She wondered if he’d ever describe how they’d met. A woman in a flirty skirt and killer heels bumping into him in the Rue de Rivoli wasn’t exactly in the same ballpark as meeting over endangered wildlife.
Oh, well. So she was no wilderness woman. She’d fought her battles. She’d been vocal about designer knockoffs damaging the industry and exploiting the world’s poorest, and she’d written several articles about the importance of healthy body weight in models. And—
“I’m completely opposed to using real fur, you know,” she blurted out.
He gazed down at her blankly, his mind obviously wandering in the Cascade Mountains with the spotty owl and Rebecca the warrior woman.
“In fashion. I also belong to PETA. Just so you know.”
A glint of humor warmed his eyes. “Duly noted.”
She doubted he’d ever have a reason to tell the story of them meeting. She wondered if this affair would even last the whole of couture week. Tracing her hand up to his chest, she had to admit to herself that she hoped it would. “Go on. About Rebecca.”
“I thought she was the one. We have the same interests, got on well, and I figured in a couple of years we’d go to the next level.”
“You mean, get married?”
He lifted a hand and scratched his chest. “Yeah, I guess.”
“What happened?”
“I hate talking about this stuff.”
“Just answer this last question and I promise you can go.”
“I wasn’t the one for her. That’s what happened. She met somebody else.” She could hear a raw note in his voice. It still hurt.
“When did it happen?”
“Couple of months back.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “Being single has its compensations.”
“It does at that.”
“Okay, your turn.”
She reviewed her dating history as though it were a slide show. “I’m single in Manhattan. Lots of parties, openings, plenty of up-and-coming young lawyers, bankers, some cool artists and writers. Nothing too serious. I guess I haven’t met the right guy yet.”
“I’m guessing none of those guys are like me.”
She chuckled, thinking of the designer suits, wafer-thin platinum watches. She knew men who spent more money and time on their hair than she did. “None of them are anything like you.” She turned to her side and kissed him softly. “As the French say, Vive la différence.”
“You know what else the French say?”
She shook her head.
“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi? It’s the only French I know. Do you want to sleep with me?”
She laughed. “Oui.”
He kissed her, and then rolled over so she was underneath him. It was almost light when he left the hotel.
THE NEXT DAY Kimi hit four fashion shows, interviewed two up-and-coming designers and went to a luncheon sponsored by a jeweler. Holden was off on mysterious errands that no doubt involved secret handshakes and code words. They met up at a gala reception that evening to honor a retiring designer.
“I like your Kate Spade clutch,” he said when he caught sight of her.
Her lips twitched. “Very good. Shoes?”
“Jimmy Choo.”
“Impressive. As are you in Valentino.”
“Thanks. Couldn’t get the second cuff link on, though.” He held out his palm and she picked up the simple gold piece and swiftly fixed his cuff.
“So, who is this dude?”
He’d learned all about present and future fashion but had no idea about what had gone before. She patted Holden’s cheek. “There’s so much I have to teach you.”
His eyes smoldered as he leaned closer. “You taught me a thing or two last night. There’s a thing you do with your tongue…”
Even though she knew he was being deliberately provocative, she couldn’t help the sweep of heat or the satisfaction of knowing he was thinking about last night as often as she was. They might have nothing at all in common, but once they were naked and in bed, their bodies were perfectly matched.
“I had a good time,” she said softly. Then realizing they needed to turn their attention back to work, she said, “How did you make out today?”
“Got more details of the last three thefts. I’m convinced there’s a connection. Same MO. Always during a big show. A dress gets pulled because of damage or a mix-up or something, then disappears.”
“During the show?” That sounded preposterous.
“Sometime between the show and the next time anybody checks on the items. Usually a twenty-four-hour window.”
“It sounds crazy.”
“I know.” He was scanning the crowd, a glittering collection of fashion-industry professionals, celebrities, minor royalty, the rich and the usual hangers-on.
“Do you have a twin?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m an only child.” She always felt sort of weird saying that, since she did in fact have half brothers and sisters, but the fact that her father refused to acknowledge her to his second family made them forever strangers to her.
“Then your doppelgänger is right over there.”
She glanced over the crowded salon and drew a sharp breath when she saw a young woman around her own age glancing around the room like a kid in a toy store. The woman did look like her. Quite a bit like her. Same eyes and hair, which they’d both inherited from their father who right this moment was walking over to her.
“Oh my God,” she gasped.
“You okay?” Holden spoke soothingly, running a warm hand up her back.
“I need to get some air,” she said, thinking only of escape. She dropped her head, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. In fact, invisible would be about right. She crept around the edges of the crowd and slipped out the back door to a deserted courtyard. There were a few wrought-iron tables and chairs, but the weather wasn’t warm enough yet for sitting outside. In summer, this would be beautiful. Now it was a quiet, dark refuge.
Holden had followed her. She felt his puzzlement, but he didn’t ask questions, for which she was fervently grateful. He stood to the side and let her pace the garden once, trying to regain her balance.
Finally she returned to his side to find him looking down at her with concern. She laughed, only mildly hysterically. “You must think I’m completely nuts.”
“No. I think you had a shock.”
“Pretty smart guy. That girl you noticed? I think she’s probably my half sister.”
“Which would make the older dude who went over to her…?”
“My father.”
“I’m guessing this family reunion was unplanned?”
“Correct again. I’ve never met my father or his second family. I only recognize him because I’ve kept up with him on the Internet. He and his, um, wife, are often in the society pages of the Italian press.”
“Big shots.”
“Minor royalty.”
He looked unimpressed. “How could he never want to meet his own child?”
“Oh, don’t be too hard on him.” Sighing, she rested against a cold, iron table. “He did want to marry my mother when she told him she was pregnant, but she turned him down. She said they didn’t love each other and she could manage a baby perfectly well by herself. Truthfully, I doubt he was brokenhearted. He’d offered to do the right thing and was refused. As far as he was concerned, honor was satisfied.”
“But what about the kid? What about you?”
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��He set me up with a nice trust fund.” She shrugged. “What more could I possibly want?”
“A real father?” he guessed, his voice soft.
“Well, you don’t always get what you want in life. I knew he had other kids, but I’ve never seen any of them.” She put a hand to her heart. “I certainly never expected to bump into them here at fashion week. What do I do?”
“I could ram my fist down his minor-royal throat. That would get his attention.”
She laughed. “But so violent. And Brewster would be sure to write about it and it would be a horrible scandal. Do you have a Plan B?”
“Do you?”
“Honestly, no. If I introduce myself, he might refuse to recognize me. And how awkward for everyone, including that poor girl who doesn’t even know I exist. No, the best thing to do is to ignore him. Unless he follows me on the Internet too, he won’t have a clue who I am. What do you think?”
“I think that’s a terrible idea. Kimi, you have a right to know him, and your half sibs. Maybe they’ll throw their arms around you and everybody will cry and you’ll all go off to Lake Como for the summer.”
“Right now I just want to go back to the hotel and hide,” she admitted. “I know it’s cowardly, and I won’t do it, but that’s my instinct.”
“Get over it. You’ve got a job to do, a job you’re damn good at, by the way.”
She opened her eyes at him.
“I read some of your stuff last night.” He grinned at her. “On the Internet.”
“You don’t know anything about fashion.”
“I know good writing when I see it. You’re good.”
“Thank you.” She clutched his hand. “And thanks for being here while I had my little meltdown. I’m okay now.”
“Your hand’s trembling.”
“Is it? I guess it’s quite a shock to finally see him in person after…all these years.”
“You should go talk to him.”
She shook her head. “It’s an unspoken agreement. He doesn’t want me in his life. I accept that.”
“His loss.”
“Thank you, Holden. I think so too. Now, you can take me back inside and let’s go to work.”
HOLDEN KEPT HIS EYE on Kimi when they got back inside the town house, which seemed to have become even more crowded in the time they’d been outside. He watched her eyes dart around the room, locating her father. He knew when she’d spotted him from the look of pure yearning that crossed her face, before she turned and started talking to somebody standing near her.
He felt his fists cramp in his pockets. He wasn’t a violent guy, but to even think of a man refusing to know his own daughter made him sick with anger. She was such a great person that he’d been sincere when he stated that not knowing her was Mr. Minor Royalty’s loss, but what really angered him was that it was Kimi’s loss too.
He’d grown up as one of a dying breed, a happy, well-adjusted kid in a two-parent household where his mom had stayed home to raise three rowdy boys and an even rowdier girl. He couldn’t imagine growing up without the sibs or one of his parents. Even most of the kids of divorced parents had seen the noncustodial parent regularly, and if there’d been a remarriage, they were part of the new family.
It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than being shut out.
Kimi was busy with her notebook, so he strolled closer to the father-and-daughter pair. There didn’t seem to be anyone else with them. He wondered what they were doing here?
So, he’d take on a little investigation side job and find out.
He’d been struck when he first saw her by how much the young woman looked like Kimi. As he grew closer, he thought the resemblance was even stronger than he’d thought. Clearly, both girls took after their father. The hair was part of it, but lots of Italians had that lustrous dark hair. No, he thought what made them more unusual than most people, and therefore so obviously alike, was the striking blue eyes in the sun-tinged complexion.
All three of them had those eyes.
He’d have slipped closer to eavesdrop, but he could tell from here that they were speaking Italian. He was about to go back and join Kimi, when he felt someone’s gaze on him. He looked up to find Brewster Peacock eyeing him. The man glanced first to where Kimi was busy pretending her world hadn’t turned inside out on her, and then deliberately turned to where the father and sister were. Glancing back at Holden, he raised his brows in a silent question.
Okay, so Kimi was right. Mr. Peacock didn’t miss much. However, this wasn’t any of pretty boy’s business, so Holden simply shrugged as though he had no idea what the gold-jacketed dirt-shifter could mean, and turned to rejoin Kimi. He didn’t know what was going on here, but he had a feeling she might need him.
9
KIMI’S TEMPLES pounded with the beginnings of a killer headache but she ignored it and carried on. Maybe her father didn’t know who she was or that she was here, but that didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to chase her away from doing her job. This was her turf, damn it. She didn’t go showing up on the polo grounds in Rome. He should keep away from fashion week in Paris. Except, she thought with a depressed sigh, he probably didn’t even know she worked in fashion.
To him, she was no more than the unfortunate consequence of a brief affair.
She knew he was at the other side of the room, so she went over to the lavish buffet—very little of the food would be eaten—and bar. An entire table of the most amazing desserts was laid out—an anorexic’s hell. And beside them, coffee and tea. All she wanted was a cup of tea.
She asked for tea in French and then turned when a soft voice said in French, “The same for me, please.” It was her half sister standing there. What rotten luck. She turned away again but not before the young woman said, “Excuse me, but you look so familiar. Have we met?”
Try looking in the mirror.
“No. I don’t think so.”
She tried to step away, but the sister who didn’t know she existed said, “It’s my first time at the couture shows. It’s very exciting.”
Kimi was twenty-eight and she calculated that this woman was in her mid-twenties. She’d also inherited the fashion gene. She wore a dress Kimi loved that she recognized was by a hot young Italian designer. She was also wearing a substantial engagement ring. No wedding ring.
“It is exciting. I come here every year. I work for a fashion magazine in the States.”
“Oh, but your French is excellent for an American.”
“Thank you.”
Once more she tried to leave, and once more the woman had more to say. “I’m getting married. I’m here to pick out my wedding dress.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. My mother was supposed to come with me, but one of my sisters broke her leg right before we were to leave. So Mama couldn’t come. My father brought me instead.”
“Couldn’t you have come by yourself?”
The woman trilled with laughter. “Of course I could, but we’re a very close family. My mother and father hate to have us out of their sight. You know how it is.” She shrugged, obviously used to her life as she knew it, and Kimi gulped down hot tea to drown the shaft of pure, vicious envy that had surged up. “My fiancé is meeting me here in a couple of days and Papa was very definite that he didn’t want us here alone. He’s very strict.” Preaching what he didn’t practice himself.
Over the woman’s shoulder Kimi caught sight of their father walking briskly forward. He glanced at her and a puzzled expression crossed his face. She held his gaze and saw the moment he made the connection. A look of barely suppressed panic appeared as he looked at Kimi then at the chatty girl beside her. And Kimi had a second to realize that he was trying to protect his “real” daughter from any upset. She’d deal with the pain later. Right now pride took over. If her father didn’t want anything to do with her, she was not going to beg.
“Well, I’d better get back to work.”
“Oh, wait. You’re the first nice person I
’ve spoken to here. I’m Claudia Ferrarro.”
The man who’d fathered her was now at his daughter’s side. The look he sent Kimi was pure pleading. Please, don’t hurt my baby, he was saying silently. It wasn’t Claudia’s fault. None of it was, so Kimi did something she hated to do. She showed poor manners. “Nice to meet you,” she said, shaking hands and never giving her own name.
“I hope I’ll see you again?”
She ignored the father. “I’m afraid I have to work. I’m so sorry. Enjoy your time in Paris.”
And she moved away.
Blindly, she brushed past someone, two or three people.
Holden. She had to find Holden.
Fortunately, he found her. One glance at her face had him taking her hand and leading her to a quiet corner.
“I need to get out of here,” she whispered.
“I’ll get your coat.”
“Thank you. I’ll wait outside.”
She made it outside and wished she’d followed her mother’s advice and gone to law school. She could at this moment be fighting for fair wages for female workers, or better day care, anything to have avoided this misery.
The door opened again behind her and she kept herself turned toward the road, knowing it couldn’t be Holden and hoping it wasn’t anyone she knew.
“Mademoiselle.” The low voice made her entire body stiffen.
She closed her eyes briefly, then turned slowly.
He looked as lost for words as she was. He stared at her, and she thought for a moment he was perhaps sorry he didn’t know her at all, except as the woman he didn’t want his child talking to. “I’m so sorry to inconvenience you. I did not know you would be here.”
“You made that very obvious. And that you don’t want me to be here. But this is where I do my job, monsieur. If my…presence makes you uncomfortable, I suggest you leave Paris.”
He rubbed his temple as though he too was getting a headache. “I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said almost to himself. “You had your life in America with your mother. And I had my life here. With my family. I never told my wife, you see.” He shook his head. “She is a very devout woman. I did not want her to know I had done something so foolish—” He caught himself.