AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her attire was somewhat debonair, torn jeans and an even more massacred t-shirt adorned by a band logo that was indecipherable due to its numerous holes. Her handshake was rushed and her smile—a touch vague—was seemingly permanent.
“Hey, you’re the Courtenay kid. Princess Allegra’s cousin? Welcome. Welcome. How are you? How are you finding everything?”
Unlike her older sister, Frankie’s low voice had only a slight accent that Vi guessed was a remnant of her native Switzerland. The stream of questions was continuous, and Vi found that perhaps she didn’t need to reply at all. Frankie was very content to speak.
“Aoife here been showing you around? Good, good. I hope you see a lot, learn a lot, but don’t touch anything. Or anyone!” She laughed suddenly, loud and brash, and Vi almost cringed. It wasn’t all that funny, or maybe she’d missed the joke.
Aoife coughed and intervened.
“Yeah, okay, Lilienfeld. I’m just showing Vi the ropes. You busy later? We have to discuss some of the spring trends. Chiara said—”
“Later, Sully, later. And just run it by Chiara. She’ll know. She always knows better. You think so, anyway.” The smile didn’t waver. Instead it turned sharp, and Aoife’s eyes narrowed in what Vi was beginning to understand was a characteristic gesture. But Aoife said nothing, and Vi felt like she was intruding on an old and particularly unpleasant argument.
For a second, silence reigned, and Vi could have sworn she could hear something moving behind the frosted walls of the office. Frankie followed her line of sight, and her shoulders stiffened before she smiled again, this time fake and mocking. She positioned herself in front of the door and pointed her thumb at her own chest.
“Genius at work here! Sully, you know how it is. I need my creative peace and quiet. We’ll definitely catch up, kid. I’ll see you around, talk you through my process.” She winked at Vi, but in comparison to Chiara’s earlier wink, it lacked in seductiveness, and the way she said ‘kid’ was indeed demeaning. Aoife had made it sound kind and familiar. Frankie’s ‘kid’ held no warmth and no sincerity.
They exited the fourth floor and Aoife stopped, watching her re-enter her private office. The walls did not turn transparent. For a second, Aoife looked like she might go back. Her hand on the door handle clenched once before relaxing. Her shoulders drooped.
“Okay. Did I not tell you that you won’t have to worry about Frankie?Genius at work.” She rolled her eyes. “Let’s go. I will show you where the genius actually resides.”
Like scaling the fairytale ivory tower, they climbed one more flight, and the stairs turned oaken instead of the marble downstairs, becoming narrower, the space more intimate, as if leading to a kingdom entwined in ivy vines, guarding secrets and, perhaps, a sleeping princess.
When they reached their destination, Vi’s breath was taken away for the second time this morning. Their path opened directly onto another open floor, massive floor-to-ceiling windows bringing in the early June sun, making the immense room look even bigger and so full of light, it felt as if Paris had stepped inside this space and taken up residence. The air was full of the earlier rain, petrichor seeping into Vi’s every inhalation.
The long desks strewn around the dark wooden floors with colorful materials draped over them made the place look inviting and gave it a fascinating, fantasy-like quality. Vi felt like she’d entered a magical realm where every single thing held meaning and purpose.
Everywhere she looked, there was beauty, a piece in progress, a mannequin wearing something amazing… The room was a rich and enticing canvas of colors and various focal points. And there, in the middle of it all, was the centerpiece herself.
Something stirred in Vi. Like a long dormant desire. To belong. To be part. To walk these floors with purpose and a sense of fitting in as seamlessly as Aoife did. She’d never thought herself ambitious. Certainly her family believed she had no drive. But the idea of being good enough, competent enough, suddenly filled her with hope. If she fit here, if she’d find her place in this world, among these people, she would perhaps be free of the confines that stifled her back home.
Chiara was bent over a designer’s workstation, her long dark hair on top of her head, with flyaways escaping the haphazard bun held together by a pencil. Vi’s hands itched to pull it out, let those tresses fall down the narrow shoulders, and capture this vision on paper, even though she knew her meager drawing skills would never do Chiara justice.
Though she was facing them, Chiara had not raised her head from whatever was holding her attention. Vi’s eyes traced the long, graceful lines of the neck and collarbones, marveling at the divine precision of their creation. Surely, whomever had breathed life into that skin and those muscles and those bones deserved all the reverence.
Next to Vi, Aoife seemed to be holding her breath too, and she thought that this woman had that effect on people. You wanted to look at her. To just be allowed to share a space. The moment felt intimate. But with Aoife there, Vi didn’t believe she was intruding, more like she was allowed the privilege.
Finally, after what could have been minutes or hours, sad eyes lifted and Vi forgot how to breathe.
“Ms. Courtenay.”
Yes, keeping up with the newness of her internship was the least of Vi’s troubles. Literally tiny in comparison. And as far as Vi’s secrets went, she felt the weight of this one might be the proverbial last straw.
2
ONCE UPON A VISION
Genevieve Courtenay was tongue-tied and suddenly weak in the knees. If asked how she felt under the scrutiny of those amber eyes, that would be how Vi would respond. If she could even say anything. How did one function in the proximity of this woman?
Even Aoife was affected, though after the initial awed reaction, she recovered quickly and sauntered farther into the studio, leaving Vi behind, and made herself comfortable, jumping to sit on the worktable.
Chiara made an expressive gesture with her graceful hands, shooing her away, accompanied by a few chosen words in Italian which Vi assumed were profanities, but Aoife was not to be thwarted.
“This looks amazing.” She twisted the arm of the mannequin wearing some kind of toga. “You really nailed it this time. I see you’ve had an inspired morning!”
“You break it, you buy it, Sully.” Chiara barely spared Aoife or the mannequin a glance, engrossed in whatever she had been working on at the design station. Then she sighed, lifted her head, and ran a hand over her neck, stretching it as if working out the kinks.
As she stepped away from the desk, she smoothly removed the pencil from her hair, causing it to cascade down in disarrayed waves. The few silver strands added depth to the silk, and Vi imagined how its softness met the gorgeous satin of the flowing blouse open wide at the neck, how it caressed the sharp collarbones, how it would feel to follow that caress with her own fingertips.
