As they were driving away the next morning, Vivian told Jules, “I’ll be leaving for dinner from the townhouse at seven thirty. And don’t forget my lunch appointment with Stan.”
“Right.” Jules’s tone came out too sharp.
It provoked a frown.
Jules cleared her throat. “Sorry. Right.”
The lunch appointment was pretty short. Vivian and Stan Oppenheimer only had thirty minutes to spend together before the Burberry show. Jules spent the whole time thinking in agony about all the different ways a person could spend a half hour. She and a couple of her exes had tried several of them.
At least she had her own thing to do tonight. Her own puzzle to solve. Monique Leung obviously wanted something from her. Only time would tell what that might be, and ordinarily the thought would have made Jules nervous. Was going to the party an act of disloyalty?
No, she told herself. It’s a party, you’re just going to see what’s up, and nobody can make you do anything. And it’s something just for you.
That helped.
At least temporarily. Vivian arrived at the Burberry show three minutes before it was due to start. After her lunch with Mr. Oppenheimer, she was flushed as if with excitement. Her eyes glowed with satisfaction. With pleasure.
Jules wanted to vomit. She found it almost impossible to pay attention to the show, and only with a huge surge of willpower did she keep things running smoothly until five in the afternoon, when she and Vivian returned to the townhouse.
As usual, Vivian retired immediately to her room without a word.
Jules tried to catch some badly needed shut-eye. But she only managed twenty minutes of fitful dozing, then gave up and decided to get ready for the party well ahead of time.
She wouldn’t wear fade-into-the-background black. She wasn’t going as Vivian’s shadow. For this, Jules was going to break out the deep green Vejas minidress she’d snagged a few weeks ago. Her credit card was still howling, but at least her legs looked incredible, especially when she slipped on nude vintage stilettos. Add a deep berry lip gloss, a fashionable tousle to her hair, et voilà.
Time to head downstairs and go over the schedule for the millionth time. Vivian would be ready soon.
Sure enough, as she stood in the kitchen looking at the schedule, she heard footsteps descending the stairs. Vivian had emerged from her room. Just as she had on New Year’s Eve, Jules turned to behold her as she came into view.
Vivian was dressed for dinner in a satin-trimmed ankle-length Simone Rocha, so current that a version had appeared on the runway this week. She’d had it customized so that it draped flatteringly over her midriff, and the bateau neckline showed off the elegant line of her throat. She looked absurdly beautiful.
Jules had expected no less, of course, and felt an ache in her heart just at the sight. It’s not fair. And you’re an idiot.
When Vivian saw her, her eyes widened in surprise. Jules wondered why until she remembered that she was in evening clothes too. Showing a lot of leg, no less, and on her night off.
“Why are you so dressed up?” Vivian asked. “I said you weren’t going to the dinner.”
“I know,” Jules said in surprise. Did Vivian think she’d forgotten? “I’m going somewhere else.”
“What? Where?”
The jig was up. Vivian didn’t like Monique Leung for some reason, and now Jules had to confess. It just hadn’t occurred to her that Vivian would give a shit where she was going, not after the cool she’d been showing all week.
“I was invited to a party,” she said. Maybe she could avoid mentioning Monique entirely. “Prabal Gurung’s throwing it.”
Vivian’s eyes narrowed.
Oh shit.
Maybe she could still save this. “Since you’re busy tonight, I thought—”
“Still thinking about moving to Beijing?”
The words fell between them like an ax, the meaning unmistakable, and the two of them stared at each other in silence.
Finally, Jules broke it. “No, Vivian, I am not.”
In her head, Simon’s voice told her that she really should, that escaping halfway across the world would get her out of this emotional clusterfuck. She shushed it.
“I never was,” she continued.
“Then who invited you? Prabal Gurung himself, was it?”
Jules took in a deep breath to confess the truth.
“Don’t bother lying to me,” Vivian said. “I guessed right away.” She crossed her arms. Her pale cheeks were starting to flush. It had been quite a while since Jules had seen her this pissed.
In fact, the last time had been when Page Six broke the news of her pregnancy to the whole world. But this couldn’t compare. Vivian wouldn’t get that mad about her personal assistant going to somebody’s party. Right?
Either way, that had been a shitty thing to say. “I wasn’t going to lie,” she snapped. “There’s no reason to accuse me of that. Yes, Monique’s assistant invited me. That’s the whole story.”
“That’s never the whole story, Julia.” Vivian’s eyes flashed. “You think you were invited because Prabal Gurung couldn’t find enough people to attend? Of course there’s an agenda.”
“Oh? What is it?” She threw back her shoulders. “I’m all ears.”
Vivian inhaled sharply. “You can’t be serious. You’re going to a party with this woman after she all but sedu—tried to hire you right in front of me, and you expect me not to believe we’re in for act two? Why did her assistant wait to invite you until I was away?”
“Was he supposed to invite me when you were in the middle of telling me to do something?” After all, Vivian didn’t tell Jules anything else these days. “Vivian, there’s no way the editor in chief of Du Jour China would go to all this effort just to maybe hire someone as far down the food chain as me.”
“Finally you’re getting it.” Vivian’s eyes had gone from flashing to ice-cold.
Jules hadn’t gotten that kind of look from her in a while. She shivered accordingly. Get it together, Moretti. Don’t let her win this one. It’s ridiculous. “So what are you so worried about?”
“I’m not worried.” The frost in Vivian’s voice could have killed all the houseplants. “I’m reminding you of your job, which I can’t believe I have to do. You’re forgetting yourself.”
Wow. That was a really shitty thing to say. Judging by the way Vivian kept steady eye contact with her, she didn’t give a damn.
Then again, when did Vivian give a damn about Jules, period?
“Forgetting myself,” she said. “You mean forgetting my place, I guess. As a lowly assistant.”
“Watch yourself,” Vivian said quietly. “Watch yourself carefully, Julia.”
“Watch what?” Jules’s ears were getting so hot that maybe steam was actually going to start coming out of them. “What am I doing that’s so awful? You’re going to a dinner, and I’m going to a party because you don’t need me.”
That had come out all wrong. The words weren’t so bad, but it was the little crack in her voice that gave her away. Fuck.
“Tonight,” Jules added hoarsely. “You don’t need me tonight, so why shouldn’t I go?”
“You seem awfully sure that I’d ever need you at all.”
Had Vivian been taking judo lessons? That had certainly been a blow to the gut. Jules’s breath caught.
“Besides,” Vivian continued, “what if there was an emergency? You’re my assistant on duty at all times. You’d rush from your little tryst to help?”
“Of course I…” Jules trailed off and her stomach flipped over. “Did you say ‘tryst’?”
A moment of silence followed. Silence that said absolutely everything. Vivian crossed her arms, her fingertips pressing into her biceps as if she were cold. She didn’t take back the accusation she’d all but thrown into Jules’s face.
“You’re kidding,” Jules said.
“I don’t kid.” Vivian sneered. “That’s something else you should know by now.”
Wrong answer. The worst answer. “Seriously? That’s what you think of me? She isn’t—and I’d never—that’s not what I want!”
“You’re the one person in the world who doesn’t want advancement? Monique’s going to be surprised. Is that what you’re going to tell her when she tries to lure you away”—She raised a disdainful eyebrow—“or lure you into bed?”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Vivian’s breath caught. Made sense. No assistant could have ever spoken to her like that before.
Might as well go for broke. This was absolutely unbelievable. “What? You want me to tell you when I’m mad, right? You just accused me of sleeping my way to the top!”
Vivian just looked at her.
“You don’t mean it,” Jules said. “You can’t mean it.”
But those eyes grew even colder, if such a thing was possible.
“You can’t,” Jules repeated. Her heart was slamming so hard in her chest, she was shaking with it. “I-I don’t believe this.”
“I might say the same thing.” Vivian was plainly unaware that she’d just broken what was left of Jules’s heart into a thousand pieces.
“I don’t believe this,” Jules repeated as if Vivian hadn’t spoken. “You think I’d do that? You don’t trust me? After everything I’ve—I’ve done everything you asked me to do!”
“Yes, after everything.” Vivian’s face was hard and unyielding. What the hell was wrong with her? She couldn’t really think…
Then Jules realized the truth. This was it.
This was when she’d finally crossed the line, made the same kind of mistake that Mallory and Lucia had and all those other nameless employees Simon had mentioned. Jules had messed up in a way considered unforgivable—or Vivian thought she had—and nothing Jules had ever done mattered compared to that.
“Now, let’s go.” Vivian looked at her black evening gloves and adjusted the right one.
Jules asked numbly, “Now, what?”
“You’re coming with me to the dinner. If you’re only going to Prabal’s party because you’re desperate for entertainment, that shouldn’t bother you, should it?”
“Coming with you,” Jules repeated. “To the dinner.”
“Evidently I need to keep my eye on you tonight. I’d thought I could rely on you, I admit it.” Vivian’s voice was as calm and cool as when she’d fired Mallory and threatened Ben. “Apparently not. How disappointing. We’ll have to reevaluate your role, Julia.”
Reevaluate your role. Vague words, but the cold look on Vivian’s face said it all. Jules had seen it before, and it always meant the same thing, no exceptions. Specifically, it meant that Jules was finally, officially, yesterday’s trash.
“Oh,” she said.
“‘Oh,’” Vivian mimicked. “Is that all you have to say for yourself? I’m surprised.”
“I’m not,” Jules said. Her own voice seemed to come from a long way away.
Vivian frowned. “What?”
“I’m not surprised by any of this at all.”
The glare grew sharper. “If you do have something to say—”
“Oh, I do,” Jules said. “Believe me.”
By now, even her scalp was prickling with rage. Vivian had ignored her all week. Now, out of nowhere, she was accusing both Jules and Monique of something totally inappropriate. All Vivian’s talk about wanting to help Jules, about being grateful for her devotion: bullshit.
Vivian scowled and continued, “Then I suggest you say it now.”
“Why, because I won’t get another chance?” Well. If that’s what Vivian wanted, then here it came. Here came all the words, everything Jules had never meant to say, everything she’d kept stoppered up in her throat because it would do no good to say it.
She laughed. It sounded awful and horrible and felt worse. “I knew this would happen. I did everything right. But you don’t care. It doesn’t matter to you.”
“Excuse me?” She tilted her head back. Her cheeks began to redden.
“You think I’d just throw it all away and go to Monique. Because… Oh shit. I get it.” The revelations just kept coming, each new one worse than the last. “Because you think I’m like you. That everyone is. That explains it.”
And it did. It explained everything. Jules couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid, hadn’t seen it until now.
Vivian’s eyes widened. “What?”
“You think I’d turn on you, you think I’d throw you away, because that’s the sort of thing you do to people. Right?”
“What?” she repeated, her eyes going impossibly wider.
“No, no, I’ve got it now,” Jules said, still unable to stop talking. Everything was boiling up to the surface now, out of her mouth, and it was too late to put the lid back on it. Why bother? She was as good as garbage anyway, right?
“I just forgot for a little while,” she continued, “what you’re really like.”
“What I’m like?” Vivian sounded disbelieving, even breathless. As if all this was some big surprise to her, like she didn’t even know…
“Yeah,” Jules said, not about to stop now, because what would be the point? “You treat people like things. As soon as they screw up once—just once—you toss them. And you think I could do something like that to you.”
Vivian’s face wasn’t red anymore. Now it was chalk white, almost like what Jules said upset her, but that couldn’t be true because even after everything they’d been through, Vivian didn’t think of Jules as anybody worth keeping around. She could have screwed Stan Oppenheimer on the kitchen table while forcing Jules to take notes, and it would have hurt less than this.
And the worst of it was that Jules had been so stupid, so deluded, as to allow herself to hope. Vivian had said to be honest with her, had implied she’d like to help Jules, had said a lot of things that had gotten Jules’s hopes up for no reason, except that it hurt that much more to have them crushed now.
The kitchen clock chimed the half hour.
The sound snapped her back to reality, and Vivian appeared to wake up too. But she was still pale and trembling, still had an unidentifiable…something in her eyes. Rage. That had to be it. Fury. She was going to kill Jules. Tear her limb from limb because Jules had finally dared to open her mouth and tell her something real.
Jules wasn’t going to listen. Not anymore. She grabbed her clutch from the kitchen counter. “I never thought I’d say this, but Beijing’s looking pretty good right now.”
She bolted for the front door over the sound of Vivian’s gasp. At least she had speed on her side so she could make her escape. Not that it mattered; Vivian didn’t call after her.
Outside, Jimmy was just pulling in to pick Vivian up for dinner. Jules didn’t even look at him as she ran for the nearest Tube station in high heels.
She had no idea how she was supposed to enjoy the party now, much less try to network. But she had to try. She needed to be somebody else for an evening, not the current wreck of herself, before she returned to learn she’d been fired and would never come within sight of Vivian Carlisle again.
Simon had said that she was good at recognizing opportunities. He didn’t know she was even better at fucking them up. Well. He’d find out the truth soon enough.