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“I never meant to ruin her life,” Victoria confesses. “I never meant to hurt her.”
Liam sits down beside her and puts an arm around her shoulders.
“Sometimes we don’t mean any harm, but we end up doing it anyway.”
“You know things between us were… unsustainable. I felt like I was never enough for her. That she was always expecting something I didn’t know how to give her. And the more she asked me to open up, the more terrified I was of letting her down. So I left first.”
“A classic Victoria Vance move,” Liam remarks, pulling her close. “Running away before you can be rejected. Very mature.”
Victoria elbows him in the ribs. She gets up from the bed, needing to move so she doesn’t start crying.
“And right now, after finding this, I don’t know what she expects from me in that office.”
“She’s probably hoping you won’t ruin the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“I didn’t know she was in the running for the director’s job,” Victoria says. “Eleanor promised me creative freedom. She didn’t mention any of that to me.”
“Eleanor’s a snake in high heels, that’s for sure,” says Liam, pouring himself a little more wine. “She loves a bit of drama. She put you two together because she knows that the clash between two forces of nature sparks all kinds of things.”
Victoria stops by the closet.
“She’s using us,” she concludes. “She wants to see what happens when two ex-wives who haven’t moved on have to breathe the same air. And she wants that to carry over into the magazine. More than just an aesthetic approach, it seems like she’s trying to get people talking about something else.”
“Finally, your brilliant Parisian brain is drawing the right conclusions,” Liam celebrates. “Bravo.”
Victoria throws a wool sweater at his head, and Liam catches it in midair while laughing.
“I’ll just say one thing, little sister,” he adds, folding the sweater with surprising skill. “Don’t make Harper your enemy just because it’s easier for you to fight with her than to admit that you’re still madly in love with her.”
Victoria’s breath catches in her throat.
“I’m not in love with anyone.”
“Yeah, right. You think you’re fooling me.”
She looks at the unopened boxes, the impersonal apartment, and the New York night through the window. And inevitably, the image of Harper smiling in the office fills her mind. Five years trying to erase that face. And in less than two days, New York has a woman’s name again.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Victoria admits.
Liam gives her a tender kiss on the temple.
“For once in your life, try not to rush off to the airport. Let’s see what happens.”
Chapter 4
At nine minutes past nine in the morning, the first production meeting for the fall issue turns into a complete disaster. Harper Brooks knows this because she’s staring intently at the wall clock in the room, convinced that if she concentrates hard enough, she’ll be able to freeze time and stop Victoria Vance from opening her mouth again.
She gazes at the photographs spread out on the table while Victoria gleefully tears apart a proposal that Harper and her team had been refining for two weeks before Victoria’s arrival.
“We can’t base the entire issue on such muted tones; I thought we’d already covered that point,” Victoria says. And with a ruthless gesture, she slides three test photographs to the center of the table. “It may be fall in New York, but we’re not at a funeral in Connecticut. We need more life and impact.”
Harper inhales through her nose, counting to five in a desperate attempt to maintain the calm she’s worked so hard to build at Velvet & Silk.
“It’s a restrained palette. Sophisticated and recognizable, Victoria,” she replies, forcing herself to stay calm. “Exactly what our readers expect to see on the cover when they open the magazine.”
“If you really think that’s what people want to see… Go ahead, let’s set ourselves up for failure.”
In front of them, Julian, the head of photography, raises his coffee cup to his lips to hide a mischievous smile. But Harper catches him in the act.
