Page 83 of Ache for You (Slow Burn 3)
It’s more than I hoped.
If I were a supervillian, this is the part where I’d rub my hands together in glee and produce an evil laugh. “I accept your offer. I’ll see you at your shop at five o’clock sharp.”
“Not today! Matteo—”
I disconnect the call. Then I adjust my hard cock, grab my briefcase, and head out, the page I’d already removed from her sketch pad inside.
The full-color copy is pinned to the wall in the workroom, along with all the others.
Sometimes a man has to bend the truth in service of a greater cause.
TWENTY-THREE
KIMBER
I stare at the phone in my hand with my mouth hanging open and my heart impersonating a bongo inside my chest.
It’s three o’clock. Matteo will be at my door in two hours.
Shit.
“Miss Kimber?”
Clara stands outside the doorway of my office. She’s one of the three seamstresses my father hired to help him, and she’s amazing. Since I met her two days ago, she’s brought me homemade stromboli, homemade lasagne, homemade gnocchi, and about four thousand different kinds of homemade Italian desserts, just because she’s a wonderful human being.
She has six children, fourteen grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, and is built like Castello di Moretti. She could be anywhere from sixty to one hundred years old, but I’m not asking. I get the feeling Clara distributes head slaps as often as she distributes food.
“Come in.”
I drop into my chair and wave her in, trying to put Matteo out o
f my mind. At least for a minute. I’m sure I’ll go back to obsessing over him as soon as Clara leaves the room because it’s all I’ve been doing for the past forty-eight hours.
Clara wedges herself through the door and stands in front of my desk. She’s almost the same width. “The pleats are done.”
“Already? Wow. You guys are fast.”
She smiles. “We have to be.”
She and the other two seamstresses—Amelia and Sofia, neither of whom speak English—have been working like lightning since I called them in to the shop on Monday to introduce myself and find out if they’d be able to help me finish the dresses in time for the show. As each dress requires somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred fifty hours of work to complete, I wasn’t sure if they’d be on board, much less capable of the task, but they surprised me by not only being enthusiastic about the idea, but far more skilled than anyone I’d worked with in the States.
These women take sewing seriously. More than once I’ve seen one of them say a prayer before starting work.
Hopefully the shop has enough cash to meet payroll at the end of all this, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
“Okay. Let’s take a look.”
We go into the production room, which is the temperature of the sun. The old building doesn’t have central A/C, so the air back here is like soup. Several floor fans are whirring, but that only means the soup is being stirred. Somehow I’m the only one sweating, despite all three other women wearing wool dresses.
Laid out on one of the large tables in back is a long piece of fabric, constructed of hand-dyed strips of grosgrain ribbon sewed together over a piece of tulle. It will eventually become the top layer of a voluminous skirt. Leaning over to pick up the edge, I inspect the stitching, which is flawless, the continuity of the pleats, also flawless, and the uniformity of color of the dyed grosgrain strips.
“Perfect,” I murmur, awed. All by itself, this piece of fabric is a work of art.
Clara doesn’t have to translate to Amelia and Sofia what I’ve said. They nod solemnly, as if perfection is simply the baseline standard, not the ultimate goal.
I’d like to kiss you for five hours straight, but we have to start somewhere.
Dammit. Matteo’s in my head again. I can’t seem to kick the fucker out. But God, his mouth! I want his mouth. I hate him for being such an incredible kisser. And for tasting and smelling so delicious, and for being so beautiful.
