The day started early in the fashion world.
Raven stood and went to brush the crumbs off her hands into the garbage can. “Thank you, Melanie. We’re ready.”
We. That inclusion again. Hopefully this assignment would end – or he’d be removed from it – beforeourandwebegan to feel normal.
Two
Contrary to what an outsider might have thought of her, given her firm handshake and cool smile, Raven’s favorite meetings were those with the models, rather than with sponsors and fashion buyers. She’d walked the runway for a decade, and knew all its stresses, its pitfalls, its dangers. She’d had her mother, however stiff-backed and cold, to guide and support her, and there was something about taking a girl shaking with nerves by the hand and assuring her that she was safe here at Intemporelle. She kept framed headshots and runway shots of herself along one wall, not for vanity’s sake, but to remind her new clients that she wasn’t tackling this business as an outsider; wasn’t going to treat the girls like an auctioneer inspecting a horse’s teeth. She liked to schedule her meetings with them as early in the day as possible, because she knew they wouldn’t eat beforehand and didn’t want them to swoon their way in at four on an empty stomach. Had them come in at eight-thirty or nine, fed them a quinoa breakfast bowl and some green tea, and talked with them until their shaking had subsided and they were able to smile hopefully about their futures.
Normallythose were her favorite meetings. But she wasn’t enjoying any of her meetings lately. Knew she wasn’t as sharp as she should have been; not as warm with the girls nor as stern with the wheedling advertisers who didn’t want to pay what her models were worth.
She hadn’t been sleeping. Had awakened at least five nights a week from a nightmare, drenched in a cold sweat and shaking wildly ever since she moved to New York. The first time it happened, she’d chalked it up to jet lag and a change of environment. She didn’t globetrot like she had in her modeling days anymore and was out of practice. The second night, she’d attributed it to the din of New York nightlife outside her windows…which was a lie because she’d lived in the heart of London her whole life and spent time in Tokyo, Paris, Dubai, St. Petersburg…the list went on. She’d taken to having a couple glasses of wine before bed, which made it worse. Then she’d tried to workout in her building’s gym for two hours after she got home from the office, and then was even more exhausted after a restless night.
She’d moved onto the hyper-caffeination stage, which made her even twitchier and jumpier. Was putting extra foundation under her eyes to hide the dark circles, and trying desperately to hide this new, unwelcome anxiety from Cassandra.
Every morning, she hauled herself, sore from tossing, eyes aching, out of her sweat-damp sheets at five, made herself a strong cup of coffee, and began the business of making herself chic and presentable. Then she had tea with Cassandra, like normal, before school. More tea at the office. Somewhere around lunchtime, she swapped back to coffee, and kept going until four. She poured the coffee from the office carafe into her tea cup and no one was the wiser. She was concealing it well – even from herself because she refused to admit what was going on.
She was going through some sort of American adjustment period.
(Lie. Raven wasscared.)
She limped her way through the end of her meeting with her newest client, a fidgety girl built like a gazelle who’d been smiling and laughing by the end.
“Take care, darling,” Raven said as she waved her off from the door. “I’ll see you Monday.”
“Bye!” The girl tossed a brilliant smile over her shoulder that Raven struggled to return, and was thankful to drop when she was around the corner. She stood a moment in the threshold, and felt her left eyebrow pulsing. A fatigue twitch. Fabulous.
Grant, the hulking man at the door, turned his head slightly. “Ma’am?”
“Nothing. As you were.” She smoothed her expression – though there was nothing to do about the twitch – and retreated, closing the door on his annoying little frown.
She swept back through the office, plucked her teacup off the table as she went, and moved to the coffee cart. The cup rattled, just a little, as she set it down, which betrayed the unsteadiness of her hand. Shit. She checked over her shoulder and saw that Miles was bundled up on the chaise with a chenille throw and his laptop, oblivious. She plucked up the coffee carafe and started pouring. The teacup wouldn’t hold as much as one of the tall, paper cups on the cart, but she’d established a pattern of using real china; breaking it would blow her cover (and look a lot lessherto boot; she had an image to preserve).
Quickly, she added enough cream so the milky brown resembled the way she took her tea, picked up the cup, and congratulated herself on a successful operation. She lifted it for the first, much-needed sip.
“You know–”
Panic shot through her. At having been caught. At the unexpected sound of that low, dark-edged monotone. At her own slip, for not having checked to see where Toly was and where his attention was focused. A panic chased quickly by anger, and no small amount of shame, because it was wildly ridiculous that she was skulking around sneaking coffee as if it was contraband.
“–I’ve realized you’re a hypocrite.”
She’d spilled coffee over her hand and on the edge of her sleeve, and a trickle was dripping off her chin. “Fuck,” she hissed, snapped up a napkin and blotted her face, and then her hand and sleeve. Thankfully the coffee wasn’t black, but it was still visible on the pale blue cashmere. Bollocks.
She set the coffee down on the cart, grabbed a fresh napkin she wetted in the water pitcher and blotted more aggressively. “Your street ensemble and whole…everything” – she gestured briefly to her own face and scrubbed at the coffee spots on her sleeve – “gives the impression, and then your behavior follows through: you enjoy scaring people, don’t you?”
He gave a sound somewhere between a hum and a snort, one from his usual repertoire of non-verbal vocalizations that he employed more than actual words. “Iscaredyou?”
The inflection – the fact that he’d bothered to use any at all – brought her up short. She lifted her head, met his gaze, and froze.
There was a section of wall between her desk and the cart, in a narrow span ofactualwall that wasn’t floor-to-ceiling window, that had become his spot. The first day, he’d propped his foot back against it and slouched with his arms loosely folded, until she’d glared his foot back down to the floor. He hadn’t done it since, but he persisted in slouching and arm-folding unless she had someone else in the office.
There he was, slouching, sunlight striking the side of his face so it gleamed like porcelain, his eyes bright amber, their black and ochre striations set off by the eyeliner he’d applied with expert skill. The sharp cheekbones, and clean jawline, his slanted brows…from a purely professional, artistic sense, through her lens as both model and modeling agent, he was gorgeous in that instant. His hair slicked back off his face left his severe, characterful features on full, brilliant display, the sun serving a spotlight. She blinked, and then she saw the little flaws. The narrow white scar along his jaw; the little spot on his lower lip where he’d taken his piercing out.
The suit clung to him beautifully, shirt faintly creased thanks to the angle of his shoulders, the burgundy sheen in the jacket brightened by the the color of his eyes.
The problem was, she knew exactly what he was. Well…she knew that he was a Lean Dog. She didn’t know what the hell he’d been in Russia, had only a faint gleaning as to the severity of the termbratva. When she’d called it “the mafia” in front of Fox, he’d laughed.Yeah, mafia. He’d shaken his head.The Russians make the Italians look like a children’s choir.
So she sort of knew what he was. And the problem was, moments like these, he looked ready to send down the runway, and that, paired with that sort-of knowledge, the sense of danger and intent rolling off of him, left her stomach far too fluttery for her liking.