by Cassie Cross
“You have to tell me where you got that fabulous dress.”
“Oh, I made it.”
Her eyes widen ever so slightly as she gives me a once-over. “It’s exquisite.”
“Thank you so much. I worked pretty hard on this one. Not that I don’t work hard on my other clothes, but this one…this one is special.”
She smiles warmly, looking impressed. “I can tell.” She reaches out and offers me her hand. “I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Alexandra Van Owen.”
I reach out and shake her hand. “I’m Felicity Williams.” I catch myself right at the end there, realizing that she already knows my name. “Obviously. It’s nice to meet you.”
“You as well.”
“Do you live here in Portland?”
She shakes her head. “No, I’m from here, though. I live in New York now, but I’m just visiting. I’m friends with Janine and wanted to come offer my support, I think her ideas are wonderful.”
I nod, not really having much to add to that.
Alexandra slides her hands across the railing, then turns and looks at the hotel. “Really I’m here because I love this property and I wanted to come see what’s been done to the place.”
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” I reply, turning to admire the view with her. “The rooms, the grounds. All of it is spectacular.”
Alexandra sighs, a look of longing coloring her face. “It certainly is.” She turns to me. “You’re not from Portland, are you?”
“No,” I tell her, leaning against the railing. “I wanted to come to the benefit to support a friend, but also because I found out that someone I really admire is here tonight, and I wanted the chance to talk to her. About this dress, actually, and maybe working with her to make more of them.”
“How did it go?” Alexandra asks.
“Uh…” I feel slightly caught out. “It hasn’t gone yet, actually. I’ve seen her a couple of times but I chickened out.” I don’t mention that one of those times I nearly broke her nose with a swinging door, because that’s not really important.
Alexandra straightens her back and squares her shoulders. “Don’t chicken out,” she says with conviction. “When you get the opportunity, you have to grab it.” It’s spoken with an air of regret, like she wants to pass her life’s lessons on to me. “Do your best, and what happens happens. It’s better than not trying at all; that only leads to regret.”
She’s right, I know she is. I feel like an idiot needing so many people’s encouragement to go out there and grab something that I want so desperately. The worst she could say is no, and when I’m completely honest with myself? That’s what I’m most scared of. And I’ve been putting off this conversation because I don’t want to hear it, and don’t know what I’ll do if that’s her answer.
I push off the railing and square my shoulders. “You’re right. I’m being ridiculous. I’m going to go in there and get ‘em. Or…her. You know what I mean.”
Alexandra laughs. “That’s the spirit.”
“Thank you,” I say with a smile. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”
I slip back inside the ballroom and the first person I see is Poppy Argyle, standing alone near the piano.
I square my shoulders and breathe deep as I make a beeline for her.
It’s now or never.
Chapter Ten
My heart is pounding in my throat and I’m having difficulty breathing like a normal person. I feel like I’m sucking in air through a straw, unable to get enough air in to fill my lungs.
Get yourself together, Williams.
Poppy is standing just a few feet away, cradling an empty champagne flute to her chest. Her red hair is piled up in a messy bun on top of her hair, showing off the light yellow gauzy chiffon ruffled halter dress she’s wearing. It’s an absolutely gorgeous dress that I haven’t seen before, similar to something she released in her spring collection.
I steel myself and go in.
“Hi, Poppy?”
She swings her body in my direction, her eyebrows knit together in annoyance.
“Do you know where to get another drink? I’ve been standing here forever waiting for someone to bring one by and nothing.”
Well, that catches me off guard.
“No, um…” I look around, seeing if there are any servers in our general vicinity. There’s an open bar at the back of the room, but something tells me she doesn’t want to make the trek. “I can probably find one for you?”
She rolls her eyes, looks totally put out. “Some benefit this is. Fifteen-hundred a plate and they can’t even keep you in booze.”
Something in me tells me to take this opportunity to get the hell out of here, but no. I’ve spent months dreaming of a situation just like this one, weeks planning it, and hours trying to work up the nerve to go through with it. I’m seeing this thing through til the end.
“What they save on liquor they can donate to the children’s center,” I supply stupidly. I mean, it’s true, but that’s definitely not what she wants to hear.
She drops her head back and laughs like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. I’m not sure if she’s drunk or just kind of an asshole. I’m not sure which option I’d prefer.
When she finishes laughing, she narrows her eyes at me. “I know you.” She points her empty champagne flute in my direction.
“I think you must be mistaking me for someone else.” She dropped by Marisa’s office once a little over a year ago when I was styling her clothes for a shoot for our site. She didn’t spare me more than a brief hello, although she was generally quiet that day and didn’t seem to have even half the attitude she’s showing tonight. I’d be really surprised if she remembered me from that day; she mostly chatted with Marisa. I was too in awe of her talent to engage her much.
“No,” she says, even though she’s nodding her head. She points her glass at me again. “What’s your name?”
“Felicity.”
“Felicity, Felicity, Felicity…” she says over and over again. “You work on that little blog, don’t you?”
Okay, that pisses me off. There was a very brief period of time when Marisa was an upstart that her site could’ve been considered a little blog, but that time is long gone now, and it certainly was by the time Poppy had been invited on for a spotlight. That she’s acting like Marisa wasn’t one of the first people to give her a platform infuriates me.
“It’s not a little blog anymore,” I argue. “Marisa’s written for Vogue. We have a line of housewares coming out soon.” I regret that last comment the second it comes out of my mouth.
“Housewares?” she says with a snide laugh. “How quaint.”
She’s distracted by a server who walks by with a fresh tray of drinks. She plucks one off the tray and says, “Finally. Don’t take so long to come back around next time.”
Poppy knocks her drink back in two long gulps.
She’s steady on her feet, not slurring her words, and pretty coherent. Seems like the answer to my earlier question is: not drunk, just an asshole.
My stomach drops. I couldn’t possibly be more disappointed. None of my dreams featured me toiling away under the mentorship of someone who lacks basic decency toward strangers.
Poppy takes a long look at me. “Your dress is fabulous,” she says. “Who’s the designer?” She reaches out and takes the fabric of the skirt between her fingers.
I’ve always thought I’d be willing to pay whatever price I had to in order to make my dreams come true. Now I’m beginning to realize just how wrong I was.
“I don’t know,” I lie. “I bought it off the rack.”
With a shrug, I walk away.
Chapter Eleven
Back in the room, I stand in my bathroom looking at my reflection. I still look good, even if tonight was an utter disaster. I consider taking off my makeup, but I just feel like plopping down on the sofa and sulking for a little while. I slip off my dress and hang it up, then put on a pair
of yoga pants and the hoodie Oliver loaned me this morning.
In the closet, I slide my fingers along the fabric of the pieces I’d brought with me. Part of me wishes I could go back in time to last week and tell that Felicity to dial down the hope a couple notches. I kind of don’t want to look at these clothes anymore, but I want them to have a good home. Maybe I should find out what Alexandra Van Owen’s room number is and have the concierge make a special delivery. We look like we’re about the same size.
All the times I lay in bed at night running through tonight’s scenario, mostly I just thought of how Poppy and I would hit it off. She’d love my style and take me under her wing. Sometimes I would plan for the possibility of her not liking what I had to offer. I never considered the possibility that she could be a walking nightmare.
I thought if tonight didn’t end the way I’d hoped I’d curl up for a good cry. But I don’t feel like crying, I just feel…achingly disappointed.
I shuffle out into the living room and drop down onto the couch, folding my legs under me and grabbing a pillow. Then I pick up my phone and text Corinne.
Poppy is a no-go, I write.
She starts responding a few seconds later. Oh no! I’m so sorry, sweetie. Did she not like the dress? No, how could she not love that dress?
She loved the dress. If only her personality was as amazing as her style.
Want to talk about it?
I don’t think I’m at the point where I’m ready to rehash the whole thing with the level of detail that I know Corinne will require. Not right now. Can I call you when I get back to the city? Is that okay?
Of course that’s okay. I’m here whenever you need me. <3
I put my phone onto the end table and relax back into the cushions, looking up at the ceiling. I’m not sure what’s next for me. Maybe I can send out some samples. Maybe I just go back to work on the site and keep designing on the side, lick my wounds, and try again with someone else.
In the middle of my racing thoughts, the suite’s door opens. Oliver walks in holding a plate and a fork.
“Hey,” he says.
I roll my head to the side and give him a half-hearted smile. “Hey.”
“I brought you something.”
He hands me the plate, which holds a giant piece of carrot cake. I sit up, my heart feeling a little less heavy already.
“I’m gonna go change really quick, okay?”
I nod, then Oliver disappears into his bedroom. I put the plate on the table beside me, then hug my pillow tighter. A minute later, Oliver comes out wearing a pair of black sweatpants and a form-fitting white tee. He walks into the kitchen, plucks a bottle of champagne out of the fridge and uncorks it, then comes over and sits beside me, propping his feet up on the coffee table.
He passes me the bottle. “Not exactly the celebratory drink I had planned, but maybe it’ll help soften the blow.”
“How do you know there’s a blow that needs softening?”
“Because I saw you talking to Poppy, and I watched you leave the room. If it’d been a good talk you would’ve been smiling and you definitely would’ve come to find me. We’d be celebrating downstairs right now.”
I take a giant gulp, then look at the bottle. Wow, Oliver certainly doesn’t skimp on his champagne. “This is good.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
One look at Oliver’s sympathetic face makes me want to spill my guts to him. No one will understand or shoulder my disappointment like he will, I know it. He drapes his arm along the back of the sofa and says, “C’mere.”
It doesn’t take any convincing. I curl myself into his side and rest my head on his chest. He slides his fingertips up and down my arm in a soothing circuit, making me feel safe and at home here in his arms.
“What happened?”
“She loved my dress,” I say, deciding to start with the good news. Oliver’s hand stills for a few seconds.
“Then why is this blow-softening champagne instead of celebratory champagne?”
“What is that saying? Never meet your heroes?”
Oliver stiffens like his whole body’s on alert. “Was she nasty to you?”
“Not really?” I say, not sure if that’s how I’d describe the encounter. “She was a little bit of an asshole about the housewares line Marisa and I are working on, but mostly she didn’t seem like a very nice person. She’s been featured on our site and was acting like the whole thing was beneath her. It…it made me think that working with her probably wouldn’t have been the best thing even if she’d wanted to do it.”
“I’m sorry, Felicity,” Oliver says, pressing a gentle kiss on the top of my head.
“Thanks,” I sigh before taking another swig of champagne.
Oliver reaches for it and takes a drink himself.
“Are you going to lecture me about running a spread for myself on the website to drum up some interest in my designs?”
“I would never lecture you,” he teases.
“You don’t think it’s stupid that I’m so opposed to the idea?” Being a businessman, I assumed Oliver would have a similar opinion to Ben’s on the matter.
“I think you’re stubborn as hell, but I like that about you. And we all have our hang ups, right?”
I take the bottle and drink. “Right.”
“You didn’t lecture me about not wanting to go through a shell corp or doing some other tricky thing to buy the house. I think that when you really want something, how you get it can be almost as important as getting it. If making it completely independent of Marisa and the site is what will make you happy, then I’ll support it. Because I want you to be happy.”
I snuggle in a little deeper against Oliver’s side, and he holds me a little tighter.
“Ben thinks I’m being ridiculous. He came by my studio to tell me so.”
Oliver lets out a rumble of a laugh. “Well, Ben wasn’t always so easygoing when it came to his business. I remember him being pretty stubborn about things where your dad was concerned, too. It’s easy to forget once you move past it; a lot of our hangups seem silly when we look back on them.”
“Thanks for not making me feel like I’m being silly.”
“I would never,” he says in a mock serious tone. “Besides, tonight wasn’t a complete loss. You made a big fan.”
I take another sip of champagne. “Was it Dan the novice dancer?”
“I completely forgot about him,” Oliver replies.
Sure he did.
“So I guess you made two fans tonight.”
“Oh? Who’s the other one?”
A few seconds pass. “Alexandra Van Owen.”
That surprises the hell out of me. “You know her?” Not that I should be totally shocked—rich people generally have pretty tight circles and if you’ve been to one benefit, chances are you’ve seen at least a couple of the other attendees at another one.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
I can’t read his tone, so I pull away and look at him. He seems…reluctant. “What does that mean?”
He takes the champagne bottle from me, tilts it back and downs a few long, large gulps. “She’s the one who owns the house I want to buy.”
Well, that’s a shocker. “She was so nice, though?” I had it in my mind that anyone who hated Oliver that much must be an all-out jerk. Like a Poppy Argyle, for example.
Oliver lets out a bitter laugh. “Well, she doesn’t hate you.”
“What exactly could you have done to make her have such animosity toward you?” She was so nice and encouraging to me earlier; the level of anger that Oliver’s described seems like it could only come from Oliver doing something really terrible, and I can’t picture the Oliver that I know pushing someone that far. “Business is business, right?”
“Except when it’s personal.”
“Okay…what did you do to her?”
Oliver takes another drink. “Remember that I told you about a deal I screwed her over on?”
“Yes.
Vividly,” I reply, nodding. I steel myself for whatever terrible news is getting ready to come out of his mouth.
“That deal? It was for this hotel.”
Well, that doesn’t seem so awful. “Okay, so what’s the bad part? You said the property was mismanaged. Did you just undercut her offer?”
“It was her family that was mismanaging it,” he admits, eyes downcast. “It’d been in their family for years and was steadily declining. Nothing they did helped. Alexandra had worked out some financing and made a deal with some independent consultants, but I made a more lucrative offer.”
“Oh,” I breathe. The way she was admiring the property with a sense of longing and sadness earlier makes sense now. “No offense, but I’d probably hate you too.”
Oliver laughs uneasily.
“Not you you,” I add quickly. “The idea of you. I could never hate actual you.”
Oliver squeezes me against his side. “Thanks, glad to hear it.”
“So I take it she’s still not up to selling you the house?”
“That’s a nice way of putting it.”
I take the champagne bottle and take a drink. “I’m sorry, Oliver. Since she actually likes me, want me to put in a good word for you?”
He smiles at me. “I don’t think there are enough good words in existence that will make her change her mind about selling me that house.”
I relax back against him and pat his knee. “It’s been a tough night.”
Oliver hums his agreement. “This isn’t exactly how I pictured it ending.”
“How did you picture it ending?”
He thinks for a few seconds. “Happier.”
“If I had to deal with crushing disappointment, I’m glad it’s with you.”
“Me too.” The soft affection in his voice is enough to send a warm shiver through me. It’s so easy to think of how wonderful the two of us could be together. How nice it would be to come home every night and have support like this. I mean, Oliver’s always on my side, relationship or not, but…to have a relationship with him? My stupid heart longs for it, and tonight isn’t really making that any easier.