I’m Victoria Preston. Please, come in. I’ll introduce you to Myra—Myra Allen, the head of the Miami office—and see that you get something to drink.”
The fourth woman, seated on a gently swinging wicker love seat, didn’t move, though she looked at him assessingly. There was a touch of red in the smooth fall of blond hair that curled around her shoulders. Her eyes were green, lime-green, almost like a cat’s eyes. She continued to survey him thoughtfully, without speaking. Strange—she didn’t look as if she was trying to appear cool and aloof; she was just more interested in studying him than introducing herself.
Interesting.
“Chloe?” Victoria Preston said quietly.
“Oh, of course.” The woman with the sunset-streaked blond hair rose. She was tall, five-nine, maybe, hard to tell. She was wearing sandals with small, weirdly shaped heels, probably the newest thing. She wasn’t the most classically beautiful of the four—that title would have gone to Victoria—but she was the most intriguing. It was her eyes. They were light colored, but also large and well set, and just slightly tilted, giving her a look of mystery. She had a wide smile and full lips, perfect white teeth. A necessity, he imagined, in her business. She wasn’t quite as thin as the others; she looked more like an athlete or a runner.
She offered him a hand at last. “Chloe … Marin,” she said.
It was a strange hesitation, as if she didn’t really want to identify herself. The first name came easily, the surname not so much. Maybe it was a model’s equivalent of a pen name because she had a tongue twister of a last name with twenty syllables or six consonants in a row. Awkward to say. Schwartzenkopfelmeyer or Xenoskayanovich or something.
Or maybe, instinctively, she just didn’t trust him.
“Chloe, nice to meet you,” he said.
“You’re a designer?” she said.
He nodded.
The ghost of a smile played over her lips, and skepticism touched her eyes.
“Chloe, let’s introduce Mr. Smith to Myra,” Victoria urged.
“Oh, look who’s coming!” Maddy drawled. “It’s Vincente!”
“Vincente … who?” Lena asked.
“Vincente. Just Vincente,” Maddy said. “There was just a huge article on him in GQ!“
Luke tried not to laugh out loud; he had just become dog chow as far as Maddy from Amarillo was concerned.
“Come on in, Mr. Smith,” Victoria told him, and led the way. Chloe followed them.
The house was even more elegant inside than out. They had barely stepped into the travertine entry-way before a uniformed server was there to offer him champagne from a silver tray. He accepted a glass with thanks, noticing that the women didn’t follow suit.
Maybe it was the expensive stuff, reserved for clients and the other guests.
They kept going, to a living room with mile-high ceilings, a curving white staircase and white marble flooring covered with expensive rugs. The house boasted a huge fireplace and mantel, though he was sure the fireplace hadn’t been used in decades.
Three pairs of French doors led to a massive patio with a pool and adjacent hot tub. They stepped out and headed for a tiki bar set up at the south end of the pool, weaving past small groups of extravagantly dressed people on their way.
“That’s Myra,” Victoria said, pointing out a woman to the left of the bar. She was speaking with two women who appeared to be in their early forties, attractive in simple black dresses, short black hair and medium black heels. “She’s talking to the women from Rostini. You’ve heard of the label?”
Not before today, when he had crammed on the fashion industry. “Rostini,” he said, nodding. He felt Chloe watching him, and sensed that she was suspicious.
Of what?
“They make a lovely couple. When you think that they met at college and have lasted longer than a lot of marriages … They’re the name in cocktail dresses, if you ask me,” he added.
Myra looked up from her conversation just then and saw the three of them drawing near. He’d met the woman once before, to set up his invitation for the evening, but he kept his gaze bland, as if he’d never seen her before.
She smiled, and waved them over, her own expression a match for his. He might only have met her once, but he found her fascinating. Myra Allen had once been a supermodel herself, until shooting a commercial on the beach had left her with a scarred cheek. She had accepted an administrative job with Bryson Agency while she convalesced, and she had also accepted a nice settlement from the client’s insurance company. Rather than accept plastic surgery or rely on makeup and go back to work in modeling, she had risen swiftly in the company and now managed one of their most lucrative locations, the Miami Beach mansion.
She was still a beautiful woman. Tall, slim and capable of turning on a warm smile.
“Mr. Smith,” she said. “You’ve made it. I’m delighted.”
She extended a hand, and he stepped forward to take it, wondering, from the way she presented it, if he was supposed to kiss her fingers. No, a Frenchman certainly would, but he was an expat Brit living and working in the U.S.
He shook her hand.
She smoothed back a lock of sable brown hair cut at a sophisticated angle. “Mr. Smith, Josie Rowan and Isabel Santini. I’m sure you know they—”
“Are Rostini, of course,” he said, smiling at the women.
After that, Myra took over, leading him back into the living room, introducing him to various people in the business.
Jesse and Ralph Donovan, a young couple who designed evening wear together. Bob—or Bobby—Oscar, flamboyant and arrogant, but hardly someone who seemed liable to seduce a young woman into disappearing. Cindy Klein, dramatic and conceited, but a powerful player with one of the biggest labels in the world.
Harry Lee was there, too—a big shot with the Bryson group. He was a man of about sixty, slim, articulate and impeccably dressed. Another man, nondescript—small, slim and wearing large black-rimmed glasses—seemed to be his assistant, completely at his beck and call. Not unexpectedly, a veritable flock of women also surrounded him.
Harry Lee seemed to take Luke at face value and was glad to welcome him to the party. “Nothing like Miami Beach. Each of our offices does a swimsuit calendar, but this one is, arguably, the most important. Miami is known for—frankly—hot bodies. Beach bodies. Of course, too many women walk around in suits too small to hold a teacup Yorkie.” He paused to shudder. “But the beautiful bodies are here, as well, and naturally we take full advantage of that. Myra tells me you’ll be shooting your first catalogue in tandem with our calendar shoot. So, welcome. As you’re about to see firsthand, Bryson will always be known for the most spectacular and most talented models. Nothing will ever change that fact.”
Luke politely agreed with him, then moved on.
To the young women.
To
