Unfortunately, the next morning allowed no more leisure time. Jules was up at six thirty, directing porters as well as various minions who’d come at the last minute to drop off goodbye gifts from designers and friends.
Vivian—up, dressed, and perfect by seven—strode around the house with a wireless earbud, barking out constant instructions to poor saps all over the world. When they were within twenty minutes of leaving, she breezed through the living room where Jules was frantically packing up the gifts to be shipped back to New York.
“David Yurman said he’d sent me some carnelian earrings,” Vivian said. “I’m sure you saw them in there. They’d go well with this outfit.”
Jules couldn’t refrain from looking said outfit up and down. She hadn’t meant to do it suggestively, but Vivian’s breath caught anyway.
Jules held back a smile. She kept her voice analytical. “Yeah, I can see that. They’d pick up the accents in your scarf.”
“Excellent,” Vivian replied before walking away quickly.
Jules grinned but then drooped as she looked back at the huge pile of gifts. Vivian might think Jules had perfect recall, but she had no clue where those earrings were. What a pain in the…
Vivian poked her head back into the living room. Her earbud was still in, but she said, “Don’t forget to select something for yourself” before leaving again.
Jules blinked. Select something for yourself? She was used to scoring the occasional sample or castoff at Du Jour. It was different to be set loose in Vivian’s personal stash of goodies. That was pretty freakin’ cool.
She zeroed in on an unlabeled box and opened it to find no earrings but a medium-sized brooch—a gold-plated snake with malachite eyes. It wasn’t Jules’s usual thing, but it was gorgeous and she set it aside immediately.
Shortly after that, she found the carnelian earrings. Just in time too. At that moment, more porters came, and Jules told them with relief to haul the rest of the loot away. It was time to head to the airport.
Vivian returned with her handbag, earbud out and already wearing her coat. Jules told herself she was not disappointed that she didn’t get to help Vivian into her coat today, that there would be many other opportunities.
“Here you go.” She offered Vivian the earring box.
Vivian snapped it open and slipped the studs into her ears with Olympic-level speed. Predictably, they looked fantastic. “What did you choose?”
Jules showed her the snake brooch. “I loved this one.”
Vivian raised an eyebrow.
“Unless it’s too nice,” Jules said quickly.
The other eyebrow went up.
“Oh. It’s too nice, isn’t it?” Jules started to panic. The damn snake was probably worth a thousand bucks or something. “I didn’t know. Here—it’ll look good with your shirt. You should—”
Vivian set down her purse, took the snake brooch, and affixed it to Jules’s blouse near her collar.
Jules stopped breathing as she realized that this was as close to her breasts as Vivian’s hands had ever been and that perhaps she should pay attention to how it felt because it might not happen again for a while.
Once the brooch was fixed, Vivian stepped back and gave her the stop-being-an-idiot look. Had it always been so affectionate?
“When I tell you that you can have something,” she said, “then you can have it.”
Jules blushed with pleasure. “Okay,” she said, then added, “Same here.” When she heard the words out loud, she realized they sounded like a total come-on.
Vivian obviously realized it too because she cleared her throat, glared, and said, “Let’s go.”
Jules followed her, still blushing and feeling the memory of Vivian’s hands on her blouse a lot more than she felt the weight of the golden snake.
* * *
They arrived at Heathrow early, but the rest of the Du Jour crew was well used to Vivian’s timing and had beaten them there.
Jules looked at her colleagues and wondered that they couldn’t see her radiant secret. They’d be shocked breathless if they did. Disapproving too, and—she was pretty sure—jealous in a couple of cases.
Everything was different now, and none of the people she saw almost every day could know.
“Good morning.”
She twitched at Simon’s sudden appearance. His eyes were baggy and tired. He must have had a hell of a time last night.
Simon definitely can’t know. What a weird thought. They’d shared so many stories of Vivian’s caprices over the years. Now there was an invisible wall between them. She pressed her lips together and fought down a brief pang of regret.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
Huh? “Oh! Yes. All recovered, thanks.”
“You sure seem to be. I haven’t seen you this pumped since you told me about getting into The Cut. What’s up?”
Jules was clearly not off to a good start when it came to acting casual. Maybe, just maybe, her happiness shouldn’t radiate from her face. “I’m just glad I’m not puking my guts up anymore.”
Simon wrinkled his nose. Then he saw her new brooch. His eyes widened. “Well, well. How’d you snatch that one from under her nose?”
“What?”
“The Stephen Webster.” He pointed at the snake. “She’s been coveting it ever since she saw it in the showroom a few days ago. Or is this merely a cunning and extremely quickly executed knockoff?”
“Would you believe me if I said knockoff?” Jules said weakly. Damn it. She’d fixated on a piece Vivian had actually wanted. Great, just great.
“I wouldn’t believe you if I’d seen you knocking it off yourself.”
“It was just in a pile of stuff,” Jules protested. “She said I could take something from it. I just happened to pick this. She didn’t say anything about it.”
“I have to admit, it suits you,” he mused.
A snake suited her? That didn’t sound like a compliment. Jules glared at him; he merely returned his most benign smile.
“Careful,” she said, “or I’ll tell the flight attendants that you have a medical condition and can’t be given alcohol on an airplane.”
“Meow, darling.” Simon patted her shoulder. “Just calm down, drink your coffee, and enjoy your eight-thousand-dollar token of Vivian’s appreciation.”
Jules very narrowly avoided spilling her coffee everywhere. Simon was a sneaky bastard. “E-eight—”
“That’s what you get with eighteen karats and a big name. Oh, Paul,” Simon called over his shoulder, “I need to bend your ear about June’s accent feature.”
Eighteen karats, not gold plating. Jules sat on the nearest available surface, trying not to hyperventilate. It isn’t a big deal. In this business? Eight thousand was a drop in the bucket. Practically nothing. Holy crap, Vivian probably wore fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of clothes, jewelry, shoes, accessories, and beauty products every day.
She self-consciously tugged at her jacket so that it covered the brooch. Wouldn’t want other people to see it and get the wrong idea.
She glanced at Vivian, who was frowning at Charlotte garbling her way through some kind of explanation or plea. Fifteen thousand dollars had never looked so good.
Vivian tossed her head in irritation, Charlotte shrank back, and Jules’s stomach flopped pleasantly before she remembered herself and looked away again.
She wondered how much better Vivian would look in zero dollars’ worth of clothing. Wondered when—or if—she’d ever find out.