At last, Mark, in Armani, and Pietra in a stunning Valentino gown of crimson silk with a feathered train, entered the hallowed halls of fashion and, almost immediately, the crowd thinned. In a mixture of French, Italian and English, Kimi heard the verdicts. The English comments were mostly about the couple’s looks. He was so much shorter than he looked in the movies, she was too thin.
The French comments concerned the couture. Armani, how obvious. With her chicken-bone frame, the red was de trop. But the Italians were more forgiving. Such a body. Have you ever seen such gorgeous hair?
Now that the celebrities had made their entrances, Kimi thought it was safe to follow. As she walked the final few steps to the stairs, she allowed herself one last moment alone with her favorite city.
A glance up Rue de Rivoli showed a tree-lined boulevard so fashionable it couldn’t exist anywhere else. Lights twinkled and well-dressed pedestrians enjoyed the crisp evening air. If she tilted her head she could see the Louvre as elegant as a lady holding court. The Seine drifted by, never in a hurry, keeping time, it seemed, with the lovers strolling along its banks.
One of these nights she’d sneak off and enjoy Paris as a tourist, but tonight, she reminded herself, turning back to the fashion house, she had to work.
As she turned and took a step in the opposite direction she nearly collided with possibly the only unfashionable man in the whole street. She caught a glimpse of a tall, rangy build, hair that was thick and shaggy, a tweed coat that had to have belonged to this guy’s dad—if not his grandpa—worn over jeans that no designer would ever grace with his or her name.
“I’m sorry,” she said, stepping back from a surprisingly solid belly she’d bumped.
“You speak English?”
“Oh. Oui. Yes.” In the shock of the moment she’d forgotten to speak French and from the pleading note in the stranger’s tone, he didn’t understand the language anyway. “Can I help you with something?”
He pulled out from an inner pocket a white cardboard rectangle very similar to the one she held in her hand. “I’m looking for number 45.”
She blinked. “Why?”
Now it was his turn to show surprise. “There’s some party I have to go to. A fashion party.”
“A fashion party.” Calling Simone’s salon a fashion party was like calling the Mona Lisa a little picture.
He was looking down at her—and she was a tall woman, so it was an unusual experience—with eyes that twinkled a bit behind intellectual-looking round, steel framed glasses. He was American and if he wasn’t out of his element enough being an American in Paris, he’d shown up to fashion week looking like the American male’s greatest insult to fashion. And the American male excelled at that activity.
“Yeah. It’s for some fashion designer. You look pretty dressed up. I thought you might know about it.”
“I do. I’m attending the party myself. It’s right there,” she said, pointing the way.
He let out a breath. “Thanks. I showed the cabdriver the invitation and he let me out and drove off before showing me which house I wanted.”
“I don’t want to be rude, but what are you doing here?”
“I’m a photographer for the Minneapolis Daily Tribune.”
“I see.” She studied him a little more openly. “What happened to Harold Vine?”
“Who?”
How could he be a photographer at the Daily Tribune and not know the man who’d been shooting fashion for the paper for five years? “He’s the usual fashion photographer for the Trib.”
“Oh, right. Harold. I don’t know. I guess he’s sick or something. They called me in at the last minute. I’m freelance.”
On further inspection, his outfit didn’t improve. He was wearing a shirt that she dreaded would turn out to be flannel, and his boots looked as though they’d tramped the Himalayas. “You’ve never done this before, have you?”
“Sure I have,” he said, sounding kind of huffy. “I’ve taken thousands of photographs. Some very difficult to capture, I might add.”
“I meant you’ve never covered couture week, have you?”
“Not in Paris, no,” he said, still sounding defensive.
“I think I would have remembered you.” In fact, she definitely would have remembered him, not only for his total lack of fashion sense, but also for the steamy expression he got when he looked at her, which had her guessing that he would be in the minority of straight guys here this week.
While she’d been giving him the once over, he’d been doing the same. “Do you live here in Paris?”
She shook her head. “I’d love to, but no. I live in Manhattan.”
“Huh. You sound American, but you look European.”
“The clothes are French. I’m half-Italian, but born and brought up in New York.”
“Lucky New York.” And she thought, he might dress like a color-blind tramp, but there was something smooth and sexy about him.
“Shall we?” He pointed to the red-carpeted stairway.
“You don’t have to change or anything first?” she asked, pointing to the small backpack slung over his shoulders.
“That’s my camera equipment.”
“Right.” She shrugged. He wasn’t her photographer and if nothing else, he’d add some interest to the evening.
They walked up the red-carpeted steps together and she heard her companion murmur, “Fancy.” If he thought red-carpeted stone steps were fancy she couldn’t wait to see his reaction to some of the sights he was going to encounter inside.
She presented her invitation and was waved through with a polite, “Bonsoir, mademoiselle.” Her companion showed his card and began following her inside.
“Un moment, monsieur. S’il vous plaît.”
“Huh?”
“He wants you to stop.”
He let out a sigh of annoyance. “What are these, the fashion police?”
She smiled. “That’s exactly what they are. And if you don’t do what they say you’ll be thrown out on your American ass.”
She listened to the stream of quick French, picking up enough of it to say, “It’s your backpack. You can’t take it in.”
He hauled the pack off his shoulder and unzipped it. “Go ahead and search it. It’s camera equipment. I’m a photographer.”
“They’re French. Not deaf,” she reminded him.
The head security guy shook his head and addressed his comments to her. “Pas de sacs dans le salon.” He held out an imperious hand.
“You can’t take the bag in with you.”
The photographer tightened his hold.
Inside, she could see the party was in full swing and she needed to get her butt in there and mingle. Besides, this little drama was getting tedious.
“Hope you work it out,” she said, and with a wave, stepped into the sea of couture.
The elegant rooms were crowded, and waiters in formal wear cruised through carrying silver trays packed with flutes of champagne.
Here we go, Kimi thought, sucking in her stomach in one of the few places in the world where a woman five feet eight inches tall and weighing one hundred and thirty pounds could feel fat.
Everyone here, celebrities, models, designers and fashion lovers was beautiful and thin, or rich enough to fake it. The clothing alone was worth millions and the value of the jewels displayed on famous necks, ears, wrists and fingers was beyond her calculation.
She took a breath and caught the mingled scents of expensive perfumes. She loved the glitter and shine, the over-the-top glamour.
Voices spoke in French, Italian, English, Farsi, Japanese and a dozen more languages. She was comfortable in French and Italian, especially here where the conversation remained superficial and about fashion, so she took a glass of champagne that a waiter offered her and stepped forward.
She began working the crowd, greeting the journalists she knew, the designers’ assistants who were invaluable to her and some of the models.
Simone,
their hostess, was holding court from a chair that appeared just a little too much like a throne for Kimi’s taste. Simone was gaunt and her eyes shadowed. She was wearing one of her own gowns, in black, of course. She never wore color.
She spoke in rapid French, her hands never still. The crowd around her hung on every word. Even Nicola Pietra and Mark Apple were, for once, relegated to the background of the scene. This act was all Simone’s.
Realizing she’d never get near the designer, Kimi glanced around the room wondering who else she should talk to, and her eye was drawn to the photographer she’d met outside. He’d made it inside, though his backpack had not.
He stuck out in this crowd like a—like a what? She observed him for a moment and it seemed that he was also observing. There was a vigilance about him. He held a glass of champagne as though that would help him blend in, when it only made him more an outsider. Champagne was clearly not this guy’s drink.
His gaze seemed to be absorbing the brightly colored, chattering beautiful people—and then it hit her, the end of her analogy. He looked like a lone wolf who’d slipped into an exotic-bird aviary. There was something predatory and slightly dangerous about him. His fur might be ragged and dull, but she thought, if the mood struck him, he could cut a swath through this crowd, leaving nothing but a few feathers in his wake.
No one was talking to him, and if ever a man was out of his element it was him. She wondered if she should take pity on him and introduce him to a few people when she saw he was being approached by Brewster Peacock.
Uh-oh. In a business notorious for being bitchy, Peacock managed to stand out. His syndicated column was widely read because his wit was so waspishly cruel. He usually targeted the most defenseless: the model returning to her first season after rehab, the passé designer trying to stage a comeback, and former anythings. Peacock lived by the motto that the pen is mightier than the sword—in his case, the computer mightier than the lawsuit—and his column had slashed many a reputation and probably a few delicate psyches into ribbons.
Even though he always treated Kimi like a favored insider, and had actually nominated her as one of the best-dressed women in fashion in his column, she was as wary of him as she would be of a nest of rattlesnakes.
A smart woman would leave tall, dark and badly dressed to the rattler. But, she’d been brought up to consider the less fortunate. Thanks to her mother, she likely knew more about the plight of women in the third world than most women in the third world. The photographer wasn’t disadvantaged in any of the ways that always pricked her conscience and had her writing out her monthly donation to several of her favorite charities before she paid her phone bill, but he was clearly disadvantaged in a way that was liable to ruin his career in fashion before he’d snapped his first photo.
She edged her way closer to the odd pair. Brewster’s real name was Boris Pushkoski, but his self-chosen nom de plume suited him much better. He tended to go to the extreme ends of fashion and was, in fact, partial to the peacock’s colors. Today he wore a royal-blue velvet smoking jacket, a vintage piece from the twenties. Dior, at a guess. His hair was bleached blond and cropped short. He wore flawless two-carat diamonds in his earlobes, and claimed to have started the fashion in men. He probably had.
He was somewhere between forty and fifty, she thought, and suspected he’d look the same for several decades, thanks to a judicious nip here and a tuck there.
She came close enough to hear Brewster say, “And what do you think of the trend to navel-plunging décolletage?”
A tiny pause ensued while she held her breath and considered bolting.
“I don’t speak any French,” said the photographer.
Without stopping to think, she laughed as though the line was the richest joke she’d heard in months. “I couldn’t help overhearing. It’s so nice when someone can laugh at our industry. Brewster,” she said, leaning forward for the obligatory air kisses, “I’ve missed you.”
“Kimi, ma petite.” He turned his deceptively soft-blue eyes her way. “You are as fabulous as ever.” He held her away from him, looking her up and down. “And who did you have to sleep with to get that skirt?”
The photographer looked startled and dropped his gaze to her skirt. She smiled sweetly. “My secret.”
Brewster cut his gaze to the photographer. “Our friend here also has a secret source for his wardrobe.”
“I told you. His sense of humor is reprehensible.”
One black eyebrow rose. “You know him?”
What on earth was she doing? Practically throwing away her reputation in the fashion world for some dope who didn’t know couture from his elbow patch? She shrugged. “We’ve met.”
She knew she was being mysterious and that Brewster loved nothing more than a mystery. Mostly so he could solve it and tell the world whatever secrets one was attempting to hide.
In a desperate bid to move the conversation away from the scruffy photographer, Kimi said, “Simone is in fine form.”
Brewster glanced over his shoulder to where Simone was still gesturing extravagantly, her mouth moving quickly. From here it almost looked as if she was saying her rosary.
“Spilling her words of wisdom to her acolytes. As if she’d ever tell them anything worth hearing. And, darling, have you seen her latest boyfriend? Some mangy Czech who used to play hockey.” He fanned himself with a perfectly manicured hand. “Hockey.”
“I didn’t know she had a new boyfriend. What happened to her husband?”
“Oh, he’s off somewhere, trying to look up some anorexic’s skirt.”
“I see ApplePie’s here. Any idea what the dress is like?” she asked.
“Well, I haven’t actually seen the dress, of course,” he said, looking enormously pleased with himself. “But one hears things.”
As horrible as he was, she couldn’t help liking him a little. Especially when he always had the best gossip. “What things?”
He glanced around like a conspirator then dropped his voice. “I hear there are two dresses.”
“Two dresses?” She whispered too.
Oh, this was going to be good. She could tell from the derisive gleam in his blue eyes. He looked like Elton John about to burst into song. “One for the bride, and a tiny matching gown for the baby of the bride.”
Pietra and Apple had a two-year-old child, which was no secret, but the idea of the toddler wearing a matching bridal gown was news indeed. “You are kidding me.”
He’d succeeded in shocking her, which of course had been his intention. He smiled. “Wait and see. And now, tata, darlings, I must have a word with Valentino,” Brewster said, and strutted away.
She contemplated the man she’d met outside who looked as though he wanted to wipe his brow. “Thanks for rescuing me,” he said.
She caught his gaze and held it. “Who are you?”
“I told you. I’m a photographer from the Minneapolis Daily Tribune.”
“Cut the crap. You don’t know a décolletage from a demi-train. No one would hire you as a fashion photographer.”
2
ONE EYEBROW ROSE, but the eyes behind those glassesglanced at her sharply. He pulled out a business card.
She took what seemed to be an authentic Tribune business card and read aloud, “Holden MacGreggor, photographer.”
“I’m Holden MacGreggor,” he said, as though she might think the card wasn’t his. She was glad he had the sense not to try to shake hands, since she’d insinuated to Brewster that they already knew each other.
“Kimberley Renton, fashion editor, Uptown magazine.”
She gazed at the card as though it might tell her more than the skimpy information so far revealed. “Who’s your editor?” She knew most people in the business, including the fashion editor at his paper. A woman who’d chew this guy up and spit him out if she saw him show up at a couture event dressed as though he did his clothes shopping at Goodwill.
“Marsha Sampson. I’m supposed to meet her here.”
“You’ve never met your editor?”
He shook his head.
“You meet her looking like that and your first day will be your last,” she promised him. Something was off here. Way off.
“I’m a photographer,” he said, sounding irritable. “Not a model. Who cares what I wear.”
“See, this is how I know you’re not really a fashion photographer.”
His eyes were hazel, she thought, very attractive. “I’m doing this on a trial basis.”
“Who hired you?”
It was his turn to look her over as though trying to decide about something. Finally, while the question hung in the air, he looked at her face, his expression thoughtful. “Rhett Markham hired me.”
“The publisher? But—”
He glanced around. “How would you like to get out of here and get a drink somewhere?”
In truth, she’d already made nice to everyone she needed to tonight. She’d planned to hang around a little longer, but there was nothing stopping her from leaving. Curiosity was what had led her to journalism in the first place, and her curiosity was so aroused right now it was going to need a cigarette when this was over.
“Why?”
“I need some help with something and I think you might be the person I’m looking for.”
Something sizzled between them when he looked at her, in a way that she hadn’t experienced in a while. “Well, it’s an original line, I’ll give you that.”
His grin was slow and sexy and suggested he’d felt the sizzle too. “When I make a move, believe me it won’t be subtle. I need your help as a fashion professional. Really, I can’t talk about it here.”
She was a modern woman with as much native caution as any woman who spends most of her life in Manhattan. However, she had her cell phone, and her mother had sent her for martial arts training as a teenager, so she felt reasonably safe with this guy. Besides, she had good instincts about people.
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