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After everything, she still cared about what happened to him and thought she had an obligation to warn him, even if that left her sullied in ways she did not want to yet contemplate. He was all she had.
“I don’t know anything about the police. When I left, Renate and Frankie had a fight. But… The Lilienfelds hired a private investigator. He has been looking into me, into us, really, the whole summer.”
Charles’ face was stark and still in the darkness of the room. He shrugged, as apathetic and haughty as ever, and looked at her as if she wasn’t there, as if she had said nothing of importance.
And for a second, Vi thought that perhaps everyone, her own gut included, had been mistaken where Charles Courtenay was concerned. His reaction wasn’t one of a man almost caught. He looked down at his lapel, and with the practiced gesture of an aristocrat, removed a piece of lint from it.
“And your internship?”
“Two more weeks, father.” Vi pushed the camera farther from the edge of the counter and stood very still. Something was happening, and she couldn’t for the life of her find her footing, her speed and agility, the things that had saved her before, the things that would help her deal with her father.
The moment stretched, painfully so, as he touched a photograph on her wall. Followed by another. And another. When he finally stopped, Vi could see, even in the dim light, that his hand trembled. Her mother smiled easily from the last picture, a large bouquet of yellow tulips in her arms obscuring the bottom half of her face, leaving the shining gray eyes, the happy freckles and all that auburn hair, like the sun, all rays and all warmth.
“No…” Charles didn’t turn, but he dropped the hand that was still shaking. The catch in his voice had almost caused Vi to reach out to him, but he suddenly took a step back and faced her, shoving his hands in his pockets. “It ended today. No more of this foolishness. Photography? Please, don’t make me laugh. You are exactly like your mother. Creativity skipped two generations.”
He spat out the last words, and Vi was afraid for a second that he would turn back and rip the photograph off the wall, there was so much rage emanating from him.
“I have contracts lined up in the States, father. And an apprenticeship. In a few weeks, I have to be in New York.” She was pleading, and she was not entirely sure why. Or for what. She was twenty-five years old, and she was begging her father to allow her to do the job she dreamed of.
God, why couldn’t she stand up for herself for once?
He came closer, and they looked at each other, her resigned and ashamed of herself, him despondent, angry, and right as he was a breath away from her, her mother’s picture fell off the wall.
They both startled, and her father stumbled back to the place where the frame lay in pieces, sharp glass shards strewn across the floor. He jerked away as if he’d cut himself and stepped back as Vi knelt in front of the portrait. Her mother smiled on. Behind her, the front door opened.
Her father’s voice was quiet, but Vi refused to turn around, refused to look at him. “You are finished at Lilien Haus, Genevieve. You will come to the penthouse tomorrow evening, and we shall find you something else. I always knew fashion was wasted on all of you. You and Gigi and Kylie, but especially on you. And clean up here.”
Surprised by the soundless way the door shut behind him, Vi exhaled. Tears stung her eyes at the thought of surrendering the camera tomorrow, but at least it was her stepmother’s and not Chiara’s. She wouldn’t be keeping it, anyway.
She wasn’t going to keep Chiara either. Her evening at the ball had lasted longer than this particular Cinderella had ever dreamt it might. And unlike the real Cinderella, Vi even got a kiss. She looked down at her soggy Converse and laughed. It sounded brittle in the quiet of the room. Nobody, and certainly no princess, was coming to offer her a shoe.
She sat down and checked her laptop—just to make sure she didn’t unwillingly expose Lilien, in case her father did snoop around— absentmindedly scrolling through her shots. After months of being around Chiara and the models, around other photographers, after reading her weight in photography books, Vi knew what was there to see. And some of the images were good. Very good, in fact.
That feeling she’d always had, of having a vision, of her mind reeling from so much of it, was now quieted and sated, because here it all was, spilled onto the screen.
Quit? Forget about her future? About America? About Poise or all the other opportunities she had lined up?
Chiara’s hands and face were gorgeous on her screen, the shot taken at a strange angle that made it look almost as if Chiara would raise her head any minute, as if her hands would draw that line they were poised to trace at any moment now… There was talent in the composition, in every line.
Her talent.
No, she might quit, because after what happened today, there was no way she could ever go back to the way things were. But she had tasted freedom, she had breathed the air of possibilities. She could not undream her dreams and unhope her hopes, and she could not,would not, return to the penthouse.
She glanced at the floor strewn with pieces of glass and at the picture of her mother, smiling at her from where it had fallen. If this wasn’t a sign… Vi sighed and stood up to clean when a quiet knock on the door startled her.
Was her father back? Was he here to demand that she go with him right away? And what would she do if he did? She threw one last glance at her mother’s portrait and the mess on the floor. Her heart was in overdrive as she slowly opened the door. There would be hell to pay if she did what she wanted to do and told her father she would not acquiesce to his demands.
But it wasn’t her father. And even though it wasn’t him standing there—the dim bulb of the landing playing on those sharp cheekbones, obscuring the amber eyes and their expression from Vi—she knew there would still be hell. Because where Chiara Conti-Lilienfeld was concerned, Vi would always pay. And the cost would inevitably be more than she could afford. Yet she would do so freely. Eyes opened, heart on her sleeve.
She wrenched the door open wider, and Chiara entered her space for the first time. Vi felt that very same light and shadow that always accompanied Chiara suddenly suffuse her apartment. They wandered around as their mistress did, then settled in the corners, waiting for what would happen next. The same way Vi herself did.
“Hello, Vi.”
She could feel the color bloom on her cheeks as hope took over her heart. Hope for what? She had no idea, but the tone of that voice, the absolutely inadequate words, the oh-so-useless greeting… Perhaps she was not alone in this? They’d always found uncanny ways to understand each other. Maybe this time wouldn’t be so different.
Still silent, afraid to break the spell, she gestured to one of the tall chairs at the breakfast bar. It wasn’t hospitable to keep the guest in the coldness of the kitchen versus the more inviting chairs of her living space, but Vi thought she couldn’t allow Chiara in, not yet. Not without knowing why she was here.
No, she had no defenses where this woman was concerned, and she had to do something, anything, to minimize the damage.
