“Not if you put on the gray scarf. With the little bit of shimmer?”
She pulled it off the back of the chair in the corner. “This one?”
“Yes. Perfect,” I said. “You look great. Not that it matters. You could show up in yoga pants and Reese would still think you look fab.”
“Reese? Yes,” she said with a cheesy grin. “My mother? That’s another story.”
I looked toward the bedroom door. “Your mother has been alone in our living room for a very long time,” I said. “Should we check on her?”
“I’m ready anyway,” Paige said. “You sure you don’t want to come to dinner with us?”
“Positive,” I said. “You guys have fun.”
A week later, Paige was home on a rare weeknight, her employers out of town, for once, without her. I’d made her try on the dress again, so I could adjust the way the lace hung along the bottom hem. It was also possible I was having a hard time relinquishing my sewing needle.
“Dani, seriously. One more quarter-inch adjustment isn’t going to make a difference. It’s perfect. You have to stop.” Paige stood in front of the full-length mirror I’d hauled from my bedroom out to the living room, turning this way and that, admiring the dress from every angle.
“Just stand still for two seconds and let me fix this one spot,” I said.
She huffed. “Fine. Two seconds. That’s all you get.”
“Where did the Hoffmans head off to this week?” I asked her.
“They’re on a cruise, I think. Somewhere in the Caribbean.”
“Seriously? And they didn’t want you to come along?”
“I’ve heard the childcare on cruises is available something like twenty-four hours a day. I guess they figured if the boat is providing it for free, why pay to bring me along?” Paige said.
“Yeah, because the Hoffmans are definitely hurting for cash.”
She scoffed. “Ha. True. Whatever their reason, I’m not complaining. I haven’t spent two nights in a row with Reese in months. The next few days are going to be bliss.”
“You’re not with him now, though. Is that my fault?”
“No, he’s working. But he finishes his shift in an hour, so, you know, don’t dawdle back there.” She looked over her shoulder, angling her head to try and see what I was doing.
“Stop moving!” I tugged on the dress. “Unless you plan on walking down the aisle leaning sideways. I just need this hem to hang evenly.”
She sighed a dramatic sigh. “What if the Hoffmans took a different nanny on the cruise?”
I stood up straight. “What? Why would they do that?”
“Because I’m getting married. And they need to replace me, and maybe this is like a trial run.”
“So you’re for sure quitting after the wedding then?”
“Yeah, I have to,” she said. “It’s hard to give up the pay, but the commute from Reese’s place would kill me.”
“So what then, you’ll teach?” I dropped my pin cushion onto my sewing table. “You’re done,” I told her. “It’s perfect.”
“Probably. I mean, it’s about time I use the degree I paid for, right?”
I sank onto the arm of the couch. “The Hoffmans have been good to you. But I’m excited that you’re moving on. It’s fun to imagine you in your own classroom somewhere.”
My phone rang, interrupting our conversation. I looked around. “Do you see my phone anywhere?”
Paige picked it up from the sewing table. “It’s Sasha. You want it?”
“Really? What on earth does she need?” As demanding as my boss was during business hours, she wasn’t one to typically take her work home. For her to reach out to me this late was weird.
I stood and quickly crossed the room, answering the phone before it went to voicemail. “Hello?”
“Oh, Dani, darling, I’m so glad I caught you.”
Dani darling? “What can I do for you?”
“Actually, I’m in the neighborhood. Well, I think I’m in your neighborhood. You live above the pet shop, right? The one with the red awning?”
My eyes went wide. Sasha was outside my apartment. Why was Sasha outside my apartment? “It’s a clothing store for pets,” I said. Not particularly relevant, but it was the best my brain could come up with.
“Oh. How charming. You’re the red door? Can I come up?”
“Um, is everything all right?”
“Of course. I just have a quick question, and since I was walking by, I figured I might as well drop in and ask you in person. Besides, it’s past time I see the place where my favorite assistant spends her time away from the office.”
My brain kicked into hyperdrive. Sasha in my apartment. Sasha seeing my workspace, my designs. It wasn’t terrible, necessarily. And yet, it still felt like an incredible invasion of my privacy. “Actually, my roommate isn’t feeling great right now. I can come down to you if that’s okay. Are you here right now, as in, right outside?”
I crossed to the window and peeked down at the street, not wanting her to see me. “Oh, actually your neighbor just let me in—thank you, yes,” I heard her say to whoever had opened the door for her. “I’m on the phone with her right now, so I’ll just go on up. Okay,” she said back to me. “I’m coming up. See you in a minute.”
I dropped my phone onto the couch. And then proceeded to full-on panic.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Paige asked.
“Sasha’s here.”
“As in coming up the stairs here here?”
I froze and looked at Paige. “You’ve got to get out of that dress.”
“What, right now? Who cares if she sees the dress?”
I cared, but for a reason I couldn’t quite define. Sasha had been nosier than normal the past few days. When I’d returned from lunch earlier in the week, my sketchbook had been out and open on my desk, flipped to the drawings of Paige’s dress, even though I distinctly remembered putting it away before leaving. And Sasha’s questions had been pointed and unusually wedding dress themed. I’d rebuffed her inquiries as best I could. Ultimately, she had no reason to care if I was designing a wedding dress in my apartment. But obviously, she did care. Why else would she have shown up unannounced?
“Paige, please. I don’t want Sasha to see the dress.”
“You’re being paranoid. I do want her to see it. Because once she does, she’s going to give you that internship.”
“I just have a weird feeling about it.” Alex’s warning snaked through my brain. “I’m not sure I can trust her.”
A knock sounded at the door. “It’s just nerves, Dani. Trust me.” Before I could stop her, Paige swung the apartment door wide open, head held high. Sasha stepped into the apartment, her eyes glued to the dress. She didn’t even look up, not at me, not at Paige. “Turn around,” she said softly, motioning with her fingers for Paige to spin.
Paige smiled, and shot me a knowing look, then turned, showing Sasha the back of the dress. It was my favorite part, the sheer back, save a tiny line of lace-covered buttons.
Sasha gasped, her hand covering her mouth. “Oh, it’s perfect.” Finally, she looked up, her eyes scanning the room. When they landed on me, she smiled. “I knew you were hiding something from me.” She walked toward me. “But I’ve seen the sketches in that little book of yours. The one you keep tucked away in your purse?” She held up her fingers like she was ticking off all the evidence she’d collected against me. “Then the bag of lace you left on your desk. Do you remember? You went to Mood on your lunch break and came back with all this gorgeous lace. I knew you were working on a dress. I knew it!” She presented evidence, but I still couldn’t figure out my crime.
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say,” I said, my words careful, deliberate.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this dress?”
I raised my eyebrows. “It didn’t have anything to do with work. My best friend is getting married, so I made her a dress.”
Paig
e waved. “Hi. That’s me,” she said with a goofy grin. “I’m the best friend.”
Sasha turned back around and looked at Paige. “You don’t understand. This is more than a dress, Dani. It’s exquisite. It’s magazine-worthy.”
My heart started pounding in my chest. “Thank you.”
“Now, I came over here hoping to discover that my suspicions were, in fact, founded in truth. Since they are, I have a proposition for you.” She steepled her hands in front of her, her fingers tapping together.
I folded my arms. Something about the entire situation felt off. Why couldn’t she have just asked me? Why all the secrecy and spying and late-night visits? “I’m listening,” I finally said.
“Well, it’s still technically a secret. The press release won’t drop until next week, but LeFranc is debuting its first-ever line of wedding gowns in January. The Sasha Wellington Collection.”
“January? That’s so soon.” As Sasha’s assistant, I felt like I knew every single aspect of her business life. How had she planned the launch of an entire line of wedding gowns without me knowing?
“It took forever to convince Alicio it was a good idea, but he’s finally on board and I’m determined to make this work.”
My brain still struggled to keep up. “LeFranc has never done wedding gowns before.”
Sasha tossed her hair over her shoulder in a gesture that might have made me gag had I not been so distracted by her news. “LeFranc has never had me before either.” She held out her hands. “Welcome to the new face of the company.”
I swallowed. The whole entire company? “What does this have to do with me?”
“And my dress?” Paige added.
“Dani, I’m going to have a lot of influence when it comes to these gowns,” Sasha said. “I’ll need people I can trust—designers I can trust—on my team.”
“Are you . . .?”
“Asking you to design for me?” She motioned to the dress with a slight tilt of her head. “Are you willing to give me that dress?”
I hesitated. “It’s Paige’s dress.”
“Well, I’m sure she can still wear it,” Sasha said. “I’ll just need to borrow it for a bit first.” Sasha’s offer was enticing. Almost too good to be true. But, for the hours I’d put into that dress, it took all my logical reasoning not to sleep with it tied to my wrist.
“Dani, I think you should do it,” Paige said.
“I think you should too,” Sasha said.
I willed the knot in my stomach to loosen. This was a good thing. But something was making me hesitate. And I was pretty sure it had a lot to do with Alex and the text he’d sent warning me to be careful.
But this could mean designing.
It could mean finally landing my dream job.
“If the line goes live in January, the dresses are done. That’s not even five months away. You can’t add an extra dress to an already finished collection.”
“I’m in charge,” Sasha said. “I can do whatever I want. We have half a dozen dresses to debut, and they’re very good. It’s why you’ve had to help so much with the spring line, Dani. I’ve just been so consumed by these dresses. And they’re fantastic. Truly. But this,” she motioned to Paige, “is too perfect not to be featured.”
“I still don’t know. Does it even fit with the rest of the collection?”
Sasha rolled her eyes. “They’re all wedding gowns. They’re white. There’s lace. Isn’t that enough of a unifying theme?”
Her lack of understanding grated on my nerves. How had she managed to get so far with so little understanding of how design actually worked? I shook my head. “I’d need to see the other dresses. Maybe if you let me see them, I could find some ways to tie them together, to—”
“Fine, fine,” Sasha said. “Whatever you want. But you can’t do a thing to this dress.”
I looked at Paige and she gave me an encouraging smile. “Will my name be on the dress?”
“Darling, you can bow from the runway at Fashion Week beside me. This is your big break, Dani. It’s time for your talents to truly shine.”
Paige squealed as she ran across the room and threw her arms around me.
“So I guess I’ll bring the dress to work on Monday morning?”
Sasha moved to the apartment door. “And not a day later.”
“Wait,” I called, stopping Sasha with her hand on the doorknob. “When will I actually start designing?”
“Start whenever you want. You’re a designer now. The faster you start, the better. Though”—she hesitated—“things are still hush, hush around the office. And I might get some push back bringing on my assistant as a lead designer on the new team. It’s probably best that you don’t say anything for now. Even to Chase. Not until we’re ready to go live with the big announcement.”
My heart sank. So I wasn’t really a designer. I would still be her assistant. At least for the time being. “But you said I should start designing?”
“Well, start sketching, at least. And you have a perfectly functional workspace here,” she said, though the look on her face said she found my loft anything but functional.
I nodded. “Okay. Sounds good.”
Sasha offered one last smile. “Good things are going to happen for you, Dani. Your loyalty won’t be forgotten.”
Chapter Ten
Alex
The wedding invitation came a few days later. I tossed it onto my desk unopened, disgusted by everything it stood for. Even though I’d accused everyone at LeFranc of corruption—my anger might have had some influence—my suspicions had originally originated with Sasha. I didn’t have concrete proof, but what I did know always seemed to trace back to her. It killed me that I hadn’t been able to stop what she was doing. Find the proof that she wasn’t what Alicio believed her to be.
I scrolled through the screenshots I’d saved before I’d quit—images of the corporate expense accounts and how they’d changed over the years. Every senior designer had access to a company credit card. So much of designing was finding the right fabric or accessory, Alicio had always said he wanted his designers’ inspiration to have free rein. Of course, the accounts were monitored and purchases indexed. If anything looked amiss, it was easy to track the overspending to the individual making the purchases.
I had had access to just enough of the numbers to see patterns develop from month to month—the rise and fall of the expense accounts over time. And I’d definitely noticed patterns. Specifically, a steady rise in expenses that coincided, quite conveniently, with the month Sasha was promoted to senior designer. Following a hunch, I’d tried to gain access to the individual accounts so I could see for certain that she was responsible for the increase. I’d been stopped before I’d been able to learn anything. The gatekeeper to the expense accounts? Senior accountant and older stepbrother, Victor.
“You’re digging for something that isn’t there,” he’d told me. “Relax. Take a vacation. Use your own expense account for once.”
It had only gotten uglier from there. It’s possible, even probable, that I’d let my personal motivations color my professional ones. I didn’t like Sasha. She’d started working for Alicio just before Mom had died and had given me a bad feeling right from the start; she had pandered to Alicio when his focus should have been his dying wife. Instead, he’d catered to Sasha’s every whim. Regardless of my personal animosity toward the woman, facts didn’t lie and the numbers justified digging deeper. So I’d kept pushing and pushing.
And pushing.
When I stormed into an executive board meeting, demanding an internal audit, all but accusing Sasha outright, Alicio had calmly asked me to leave the meeting and wait for him in his office.
I left, all right.
Out the door, down the elevator and away from LeFranc forever.
When I ran into Dani at Java Jean’s, it was the closest I’d been to the building since walking out.
I never did talk to Alicio face-to-face. Victor sent over a nondisc
losure agreement for me to sign upon my “resignation,” cutting me off from everyone presently employed at LeFranc and issuing a gag order—I would not speak to the press about my suspicions under any circumstances. A phone call from my stepfather was more than enough to let me know that should I choose not to sign it, I would swiftly reap the consequences; he wouldn’t hesitate to send over the documentation for the retroactive student loan account he’d be happy to set up in my name to cover my very expensive Ivy League education.
It was a dirty move, and in my mind, more than cemented the fact that Alicio, or someone on the inside, had something to hide. Just the same, it was enough to make me sign.
So I had.
And I regretted it every single day.
My phone buzzed and I looked away from my laptop screen, closing it with a huff. I’d spent too many hours staring at numbers, wishing I could see what they meant. A distraction was welcome.
I retrieved the phone off of my bed and stretched out across the mattress to see who’d texted.
Dani.
My heart rate climbed just from the sight of her name.
What do you mean, be careful? she’d texted.
I closed my eyes. How could I answer? It had been a risk saying that much. I’d only wanted her to know I still thought Sasha was up to something and I didn’t think she should let her guard down. But there was no way I could actually answer her question.
Instead, I answered with another question. Is something going on?
Don’t answer my question with a question, she responded.
I smiled, despite the seriousness of our conversation. I missed Dani’s fire.
I can only speak in generalities, Dani. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific.
It took a long time for her to respond. For how long the little dots bounced at the bottom of my phone screen, I expected a much longer text. Instead, it was just one sentence.
But you don’t think I should trust Sasha.
At least that was a question I could answer. I’d made no secret of my distrust for Sasha, even before I left LeFranc.
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