Page 79 of Ache for You (Slow Burn 3)
“She shortened it.”
The squint deepens.
“There were five Kimberlys in her kindergarten class.”
Her father told me the story over dinner one night of how his six-year-old daughter had informed her startled teacher she was to be addressed as Kimber from that day forward. Kims were everywhere, she’d said, and she was only willing to give up two letters in the name of distinctness.
I’d chuckled at the precociousness of it, never guessing I’d find myself on the other end of that formidable will soon enough.
Smoking thoughtfully, Antonio lets me make another few passes in front of his desk. Then he removes his glasses and folds his arms over his chest. “The woman in the bar the other night.”
“Yes.”
He murmurs, “Very beautiful.” Then he waits, knowing silence is the most effective way to get me to speak.
I stop, prop my hands on my hips, and look up at the ceiling. I listen to sewing machines whirr and technicians conferring in hushed voice for a few moments before saying, “The new designs are hers.”
He snaps his fingers, excited at the news. “Ah! Good! I need to ask her about the feathers on look number twenty. Valentina has ordered the bleached peacock, but there’s a delicate floating accent on the hem that could either be ostrich or . . . what is this face you’re making? You look like you ate a plate of bad clams.”
I gaze at him meaningfully. “The designs are hers.”
He jolts upright in his chair, staring at me with wide eyes. “You didn’t buy them from her?”
“No.”
“She hasn’t given you permission to use them?”
“No.”
Astonished, he gapes at me. His face drains of color. “That’s theft! She’ll sue! She’ll ruin your name!”
“Not when I’m done with her, she won’t.”
He barks out a disbelieving laugh. “You’re going to put her in a sex coma, is that it?”
Hopefully. “I’m going to convince her it’s better to have me as a friend than an enemy.”
That throws Antonio for a loop. His face goes through a series of interesting expressions, including confusion and suspicion, until finally it settles on dismay.
“You’ve threatened this poor woman?”
He says that too loud. Several people at workstations nearby stop sewing, lift their heads, and glance over at us. I glower at them, and they quickly go back to work.
“Of course not! You know me better than that.”
“Then I don’t understand what you mean.”
“It’s complicated.”
Antonio takes a long drag from his cigarette. He’s so agitated he doesn’t notice when a fat clump of ash falls onto the middle of his chest and rolls down his shirt, bouncing off his belly and scattering. Then, as he does, he turns practical.
“Stealing isn’t the way to compensate for the designs that snake Riccardo destroyed when he left. This is beneath the House of Moretti. This is beneath you. We’ll scale down the show—”
“There has to be fifty pieces,” I interrupt, starting to pace again. “We always show fifty new looks!”
“Of our own,” he replies, his tone bone-dry.
I don’t want to tell him exactly what I have planned, so I wave a hand dismissively in the air. “Think of it as a collaboration.”
