by Hyland, Tara
“Thanks,” she mumbled, blowing her nose.
“I followed you,” Cole explained unnecessarily. “I saw you leaving the house. Thought I’d make sure you were okay.”
“Thanks. But I’m fine.” She just wished he’d go away.
He didn’t. “You were close to your grandmother,” he said.
It was more of a statement than a question, but she nodded anyway. “Yes. Yes, I was.” She cleared her throat, fighting to regain her composure. “But, like I said, I’m fine, honestly. You should go back to the house. I’ll be in soon.”
She expected him to take the easy way out and leave then. But instead he sat down on the step beside her and took her hand. They sat like that, not speaking, not moving, but perfectly at peace, for a very long time.
The week after his mother’s funeral, when everything had finally started getting back to normal, William made an appointment to see Gus Fellows, his mother’s lawyer and the executor of her estate. Afterward, William often thought that he wouldn’t have reacted quite so badly to the contents of her will if he’d had some prior warning; if she’d come to him and said, “This is what I intend to do with my shares in Melville.” Instead, he had no inkling that anything had changed since that time a decade earlier, when she had made provisions for her entire 10 percent shareholding to pass to him.
As he sat opposite Gus in the Chancery Lane offices of Fellows & Sons, the last thing he was expecting to hear was that she had made a new will.
“When did she do that?” William asked, already suspecting that any change he hadn’t been involved in couldn’t be good.
Gus Fellows had the decency to look embarrassed. He pretended to check the date. “A little over five years ago.”
Five years ago. When Caitlin had come to live with them. The significance wasn’t lost on William. And he wasn’t surprised, although he was still hurt, to learn moments later that Rosalind had elected to leave her shares to her two legitimate granddaughters—7.5 percent to Elizabeth, and 2.5 percent to Amber.
And William, already feeling aged by the death of his mother, and trying to ignore the niggling awareness of his own mortality, became sharply aware in that moment of the next generation on his tail. Smart, confident Elizabeth, of whom he had felt so proud in the church, whose strength had seemed like such a compliment to him, now looked more like a threat. He knew his eldest daughter well enough to appreciate that she was young, hungry, and determined—and that her sights were set firmly on his job. That had always been the case, but at least over the past few years he had been able to control her movements within the company. Now Rosalind had given her the tools to increase her influence within Melville.
It wasn’t exactly the legacy William had hoped for.
32
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Piers jerked awake from the nightmare, covered in a cold sweat. Alone in the darkness, he felt terrified. He reached out for the bedside lamp, fumbling until he finally found the switch. Light flooded the room, and he began to feel a little better.
He lay in bed for a minute longer, waiting for his breathing to slow. Then he disentangled himself from the sheets, stood up, and padded over to the bathroom. Under the harsh fluorescent lights, he saw just how bad he looked. His eyes were bloodshot, the skin underneath loose and puffy. It was hardly surprising. He hadn’t slept properly for nearly eight weeks now. Not since his mother had passed away. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her: gasping, choking, dying . . . Whatever he did, he couldn’t get that image out of his mind.
The lack of sleep was beginning to take its toll. He’d been walking around in a permanent daze. Eventually, after making a couple of mistakes at work, he’d gone to see a doctor. “It’s perfectly normal, of course,” he’d said, giving Piers a sympathetic smile, “after the death of a loved one. But I can understand why you might be feeling a bit desperate. Insomnia is a terrible thing.”
That was an understatement, Piers had thought, as the doctor wrote out a prescription. Lying awake night after night, desperate to lose himself in the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness only to find that, whatever he did, he still could not sleep. Sometimes, he felt as though he was going completely crazy.
He’d hoped the sleeping pills were going to solve all that. Earlier that night, he had taken two tablets, as instructed, and after thirty minutes he’d felt himself nodding off . . . only to wake now, three hours later, with that same image in his mind: of his mother reaching out for him, only for him to fail her. If possible he felt even worse than before. The pills, which he’d imagined were going to be a miracle cure, now seemed more like a curse.
He flushed the rest of the tablets down the toilet. Then he went back to bed, but not to sleep. For Piers, it was a long time until the sun finally came up.
PART 3
JUNE 2001–FEBRUARY 2002
33
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Caitlin O’Dwyer was nervous, excited, and late. Late for the most important night of my life, she thought despairingly, as the limousine inched along Fifth Avenue. Midtown traffic was always a bitch, but this evening it seemed worse than usual. Car horns sounded in an angry symphony. Tempers were rising with the temperature, everyone desperate to escape the claustrophobic heat of the New York summer. Thank God for air-conditioning, at least. It was the one advantage of the rock-star car. Tinted windows, TV, and fully stocked bar . . . Caitlin found the bling a little excessive, but her publicist had insisted on it, saying there was “no way in hell” she could turn up at the CFDA’s annual award ceremony in a cab.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America awards—the fashion industry’s equivalent of the Oscars. A shiver ran through her. Even now, she couldn’t believe she’d been nominated.
She had arrived in New York six years earlier with little money but a big dream—to make it as a designer. Sure, she could easily have gotten a job at one of the big fashion houses on Madison Avenue, but she’d already decided that she didn’t want to spend the next two years doing grunt work—making up patterns of another designer’s ideas, overseeing the sample makers. She wanted to work for herself.
So she rented a dingy set of rooms in a drab tenement on the Lower East Side and started trying to sell the clothes she’d made for her year-end show. Confidently, she booked appointments with buyers at every major department store: Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf . . . but while the buyers liked her garments, no one was prepared to go out on a limb and stock any.
“Sorry,” she was told time and again. “We don’t take risks on unknowns.”
With funds running low, she invested in a sewing machine and got to work making alterations for half a dozen luxury boutiques. It was low-paid and technically far beneath her abilities, but at least it gave her time to work on her own designs.
It was a lonely six months. She knew no one in New York, and it wasn’t the friendliest city. She also had few opportunities to meet new people. She only went into the boutiques once a week to pick up the alterations, then worked on them alone in her basement. She missed Alain and her friends back in Belleville. She missed Lucien more than she’d thought possible.
But in some ways the loneliness worked to her advantage. She had nothing to do apart from work. And slowly, surely, life got better. She gradually built a reputation for being an excellent seamstress—quick, careful, and reliable. That meant she could pick and choose who she worked for. She particularly liked White Heat, a hip boutique on West 14th Street in the Meatpacking District. The clothes were daring, cutting edge, more her style. Every few weeks she would bring in a selection of her garments and try to persuade the owner to start stocking them on a trial basis.
“Soon,” he kept saying. “Once I’ve moved some of the stock I’ve already got.”
But soon wasn’t soon enough for Caitlin.
White Heat was popular with the young, rich, party crowd. One of its biggest customers was Lena Chapman, a Park Avenue princess and budding style icon. With her forthcoming debut at th
e Viennese Opera Ball, she was looking for something other than the traditional frilly dress.
“Something I can make a splash in,” she said.
Two of the salesclerks, Janice and Marie, were ordered to bring out every white dress in the store for her perusal. Caitlin, there picking up the latest garments for alteration, watched as Lena rejected them all.
“There’s nothing special enough, you know?” she complained to Janice, before sweeping out of the store.
“What a pain in the butt,” the girl remarked to Caitlin after Lena had gone.
But Caitlin was thinking something quite different. She had gotten to know Lena a little over the past few months—knew that she would rather wear something daring and artistically challenging than look just plain pretty. She was Caitlin’s ideal client.
Dumping the alterations on the counter, Caitlin ran out after her. She caught up with Lena just as she was about to get into a cab, quickly explained that she was a designer and had a dress that she was sure Lena would love.
“Really?” The girl looked sceptical. “I thought I’d been shown all the white dresses in the store.”
“It’s not in there. It’s at my apartment.” Caitlin crossed her fingers, hoping Lena didn’t ask why it wasn’t in the shop. She didn’t want to reveal that she was only a seamstress. “You’d have to come there to see it.”
Fortunately Lena’s interest had been piqued. Always up for finding something quirky and unusual, she agreed to come by that evening at seven. At worst, it would be a waste of twenty minutes of her time.
Lena pirouetted in front of the mirror. “I love it.”
The elegant Art Deco gown was perfect. She had been sceptical about what the softly spoken, somewhat offbeat young woman was going to show her, but it was as though Caitlin had read her mind. Made of white crêpe, the dress was a deceptively simple shift-style garment, given an exotic, opulent look by the handsewn beads that covered it.
A month later, Lena turned up at the Waldorf Astoria looking coolly sophisticated in her Roaring Twenties–inspired cocktail dress. The other debutantes, in far more traditional gowns, were forced to look on as she effortlessly stole the show.
The following week, Lena’s name and picture appeared in the New York Times “Sunday Styles” section. Alongside, there was mention of the young, up-and-coming designer responsible for her exquisite dress—Caitlin O’Dwyer.
The formula for success is one that never changes: hard work, passion, and perseverance. But the occasional lucky break never hurts. And Lena Chapman was Caitlin’s.
After the success of her debs’ ball, Lena became Caitlin’s first client. More importantly, she passed Caitlin’s name on to her friends. Like Lena, they were all young, rich, beautiful, and often photographed. And they all loved the idea of having their clothes designed specifically for them.
Soon Caitlin was running her own couture business.
It was perfect for her, allowing her to create the kind of dramatic, extravagant pieces that were her forte. The young socialites adored the timeless nostalgia of Caitlin’s designs: the sweeping strapless evening gowns and delicate cocktail dresses. She would take the time to talk to her clients, find out what they liked, their personal style, and what look they wanted to portray at the event they were attending. It was this attention to detail that kept them coming back.
For the first year, Caitlin sketched, cut, and stitched every item herself, working eighteen-hour days in her cloth-strewn basement. But as her client list grew, she started employing freelancers to help make the clothes. She only used the best. With a service where quality was everything, she couldn’t afford for anything to be shoddy. She personally checked every item before it went out—making sure the hand stitching was perfect.
By year two, although Caitlin was doing well, she was all too aware that couture was time-consuming and badly paid proportionate to the effort involved. She wanted to start designing her own ready-to-wear line, something she could sell to department stores. But to fund a whole collection—with fees for models, showrooms, and runway shows—she would need much more cash than she had access to.
Help came in the form of Alexis Reid, a pushy young publicist from Queens. Intrigued by the coverage that the mysterious Caitlin O’Dwyer’s work was getting, Alexis made an appointment to see her. She turned up early at Caitlin’s dingy walk-up, sat in the corner, and watched her conducting a fitting. By the time the customer left, Alexis had made up her mind.
Over a cheap noodle lunch in nearby Chinatown, she laid out the facts. “Talent is one thing, honey; success quite another. You’ve got the potential to be huge—but you need my help.” She offered her services in exchange for a share of Caitlin’s future earnings.
“You’re taking quite a risk,” Caitlin observed, as they shook on it.
The other woman’s eyes glinted. “Believe me, I’m totally screwing you over.”
Joining forces with Alexis turned out to be the right call. With her power suits and carefully set bright red hair, she was all eighties aggression—exactly what Caitlin needed. Lena and her friends were regulars at every New York party and hip club—and they were attending them in Caitlin’s designs. It was fabulous free publicity and exposure, if used properly. Alexis knew how to do that. She kept a list of Caitlin’s clients and where they were wearing her designs, and then she called in whatever favors she could to ensure that a photo of the dress ended up in the papers the next day.
Alexis got the job done any way she could. When it came to the Oscars, she leaked a story that Caitlin had received three commissions to make outfits for the evening. In fact, at that point, no one had asked her to make anything. But by the next morning she’d had four desperate calls requesting her to keep herself available.
Mostly Caitlin let Alexis have free rein. The only time she intervened was when the publicist wanted to capitalize on her links to the Melville family.
“But, honey, it’s a fabulous story,” Alexis cooed. “Like a modern-day Cinderella. And your not-so-ugly stepsister is making quite a name for herself as a model.” She reached into her newly acquired Hermès Birkin bag and pulled out several glossies, all with Amber’s face splashed across them. “It’d be a big boost to sales.”
“Sales are good enough,” Caitlin said.
“That’s true. But they’d be even better if you’d let me leak a little bit of info . . .”
“No, Alexis.” Caitlin’s voice was uncharacteristically firm. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring it up again.”
She didn’t. After all, it wasn’t like they needed the exposure. Caitlin was the darling of the Hollywood A-listers, and the big stores that had once rejected her were clamoring for her to supply them with a ready-to-wear line. Henri Bendel’s, known for its innovative women’s wear and encouragement to young designers, was the obvious choice to start with. Caitlin poured all her savings into producing a limited collection for the store. Stock was sold out in a week.
Now, as the limo finally pulled up outside the 42nd Street entrance of the New York Public Library, Caitlin felt a prickle of nerves run through her. With the CFDA nomination for Emerging Talent in Womenswear, it seemed all her hard work had finally been recognized. She was on her way to becoming a household name. As long as she won, that is . . .
* * *
Alexis Reid stood to one side, watching approvingly as Caitlin emerged from the car. She’d been a little worried that her laid-back client might turn up in a long peasant skirt, floaty tunic, and ethnic jewelry. But thankfully Caitlin had abandoned her usual breezy bohemian style and pulled out all the stops for the glittering occasion. And doesn’t she look glorious for it, Alexis thought, pride mixing with a dash of envy. In fact, in a floor-length gown of midnight blue—one of her own creations, naturally—Caitlin looked downright sensual, the dress showing off her perfect hourglass figure. She was going to steal the show, Alexis just knew it.
Already on the red carpet were Heidi Klum, resplendent in Cha
nel, and Heather Graham in Dior, with P. Diddy bringing up the rear. But as Caitlin glided toward the entrance, the photographers and camera crews homed in on her.
“Over here, Caitlin!” they called.
Flashbulbs popped. After they’d spent an hour snapping size two models and actresses, it was a relief to see a real woman. And those curves would give J.Lo a run for her money.
Alexis looked on as Caitlin smiled obligingly for the press. She was a real class act, all old-fashioned glamour. Her gown was cleverly designed to pour over her body, the raw silk clinging to her full breasts, her wasp waist, and the gentle flare of her hips, leaving just enough to the imagination. With those smoky eyes, red-lipped pout, and hair piled high on her head, just a few dark tendrils escaping to frame her face, she was every inch the fifties movie star. She had a rare talent for creating a story with her designs. That was why she was such a success.
Thankfully, though, that success hadn’t gone to her head. Four years on, Caitlin was still the same down-to-earth person Alexis had first met. Yes, she had matured in that time, turned from an endearingly earnest but somewhat clueless twenty-two-year-old girl into a confident young woman. But she hadn’t lost her passion along the way. Designing was still at her core; she made no compromises, refused to trade on her name as others would. That’s why she’d been nominated for this award tonight.
Finally, sensing her client needed rescuing, Alexis moved forward. “That’s enough for now, boys,” she said, taking Caitlin by the arm.
“Thanks,” Caitlin whispered, as she allowed Alexis to lead her inside. “My face was beginning to ache.”
“Well, get used to it,” Alexis retorted. “You’ll be doing a lot more once you’ve won.”
Protesting that winning wasn’t assured, Caitlin followed Alexis in to take their seats in the beautiful Celeste Bartos Forum—just in time, as the awards ceremony was about to start.