The oversized, polished wood door swung wide, the beep of a security system announcing Arlie’s arrival at Retrospect, the upscale vintage store in Philadelphia’s trendy Fishtown neighborhood. More art gallery than thrift store, the shop was clean, white-walled and spacious. All the better to show off the dresses artfully arranged like installations at strategic points in the interior.
“Be right with you.” A warm, throaty voice floated out to her from somewhere in the back.
“Damn right you will,” Arlie called back with far more bravado than she felt.
The simple black curtain behind the counter parted abruptly, revealing the store’s owner.
One look at her, and it was easy to see why Philadelphia’s moneyed elite lined up to shove their cash into her pockets. With wide eyes the exact color of burnt sugar, full lips painted a stylish matte burgundy, gleaming onyx hair knotted into braids at her temples and tumbling into riotous natural curls, Kassidy Nichols was a show stopper. An effect only amplified by the simple but elegantly cut white frock that hugged her curves and made her skin glow a rich sepia brown.
“You know,” Kassidy said, tapping her chin, “you look just like my former best friend. Arlington Banks? But I know you can’t be Arlington Banks, because she hasn’t returned my numerous calls.”
Truth be told, Arlie hadn’t exactly been looking forward to this interaction for this very reason. She could practically feel the relentless engine of her brilliant best friend’s brain working.
The valedictorian of their class at Lennox Finch Academy, Kassidy had bonded with Arlie over a shared dislike of The Great Gatsby in freshman AP English. Ironic, considering the herd of wealthy thoroughbred classmates that they—two girls from suburban middle class families—found themselves trotting awkwardly among.
Always the rebel to Arlie’s compulsive rule-following nerd, Kassidy had graduated from Harvard Law School and completed one year with the most prestigious firm in Philadelphia before scandalizing her family by announcing that her considerable mental gifts were best used helping lonely vintage gowns find good homes. Within her first year of business, Kassidy had paid back the initial loan she’d borrowed to get Retrospect off the ground. By her second, she’d earned enough to purchase her stylish condo in Rittenhouse Square outright.
“I’m so sorry.” Arlie shifted on her painfully pinching heels. “I’ve just had a lot going on lately and—”
“You’re sorry?” Kassidy mimicked. “No, I’m sorry. We take American Express, cash, checks and, occasionally, wire transfers from Swiss bank accounts, but I’m afraid lame-ass excuses aren’t accepted here.”
“Your Honor,” Arlie said, clasping her hands in supplication, “I plead guilty to violating the communication requirements of the best friend contract and cast myself on the mercy of the court.”
The subtle softening of her friend’s features sent a gust of relief through Arlie’s tight chest.
“Since this is your first offense, the court will commute your sentence to two dinners and a Bridgerton marathon. If,” Kassidy added, pointing an accusatory finger at Arlie, “you bring the wine.”
“I do so swear.” Arlie placed one hand on the counter and lifted the other, open palm facing her friend.
“Now.” Kassidy scanned her from foot to head, missing nothing. “Are you going to tell me why you look like you’re auditioning for a role as one of Christian Gray’s secretaries?”
Well, shit.
Arlie took a breath and readied herself to deliver the answer she had rehearsed on the way over.
“As it happens, I had a job interview.” Knowing that Kassidy read her as easily as an illustrated storybook, Arlie tried—unsuccessfully—to evict all thoughts of Samuel Kane from her head. As if in protest, her mind offered up a contact sheet of her favorite visual snapshots of the time they’d spent together. The expensive fabric of his shirt worshipping the muscular shoulders beneath. The way he cut through the space of his office like a shark.
And God, his eyes. The intensity of his gaze.
He’d known she was lying. Of that much, Arlie was sure. She just hoped he hadn’t guessed the full extent of her lie.
“Spill it, Banks,” Kassidy said, snapping her back to reality. “Immediately if not sooner.”
“It’s just a temporary corporate gig,” Arlie said, trying to sound breezy and vague. “Just some part-time consulting work. But they made an offer.”
Kassidy’s sculptural curls caught the light as she shook her head ruefully. “Lady, have I taught you nothing?”
“What?” Arlie asked, hoping to buy herself time to think.
Kassidy crossed her arms over her chest. “You are, without question, the worst liar I’ve ever met.”
Shoulders sagging, Arlie exhaled the breath it felt like she’d been holding since her visit to Samuel’s office earlier that morning. “Meet the new senior food stylist for Kane Foods International.”
“Kane Foods International,” Kassidy repeated as if the ruthlessly bright motor of her brain had become bogged down with swamp weeds. “Kane Foods International?”
Arlie nodded, knowing when not to talk being one of the things she’d learned under her best friend’s tutelage.
“Well, now I know what that disastrous chignon is about. You must be covering the scar from your lobotomy.” Her friend’s eyes flashed as a deep rose-red bloomed beneath her smooth cheeks, warming them to a russet hue.
“I know,” Arlie said, collapsing over the counter with her chin in her hands.
“These are the Kanes. The buy you, sell you, crush your small business, eat your soul and destroy your family to expand our boathouse Kanes. The ones we said were everything that was wrong with wealth distribution. The ones we swore we would never end up like.”
“I know,” Arlie repeated. She felt her throat begin to constrict, unwelcome emotion threatening to hijack her thin veneer of calm.
“Do you?” Kassidy’s normally rich contralto rose to a rusty-edged soprano. “After what happened with your mother and Daddy Kane—”
“Can we fucking not?” Arlie snapped, surprised by the sudden solar flare of anger. From the moment Samuel’s email had arrived in her in-box, she’d been choking out the overwhelming urge to scream at the mere sight of the name Kane. Of what that name had done to her father. To her family.
“Easy, Banks.” Kassidy’s soft, warm hand covered Arlie’s on the glossy counter.
Instantly regretful, Arlie dialed down her emotional thermostat and exhaled a long, slow breath. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t think about that right now. Not with everything else going on.”
“Look, I know that things have been rough since you resigned Gastronomie.”
Since she’d resigned Gastronomie.
Guilt added to the rapidly growing tar pool of self-loathing spreading in her middle.
She may have become an accomplished liar of late, but this was the first deliberate falsehood she’d ever told her best friend.
“If it’s the money—” Kassidy began.
“No,” Arlie interrupted, all too aware of the tears welling in her eyes. She thought of sprinting out of the shop before Kassidy could ask the inevitable question that would open the floodgates once and for all.
“Hey,” her best friend said, the constant undercurrent of lightly mocking humor giving way to genuine concern. “You okay?”
And with that, every ounce of pain, worry, fear and desperation came flying directly out of Arlie’s already stinging tear ducts. It wasn’t just crying, but back-breaking, hiccoughing, body-wrenching sobs.
On cue, Kassidy came around from behind the desk and wrapped Arlie in the first fiercely protective hug she’d experienced since her mother’s death five years ago. She’d lost her father to cancer only last year, but their bond had always been tenuous at best. The realization only made her sob harder.
“Shhhh,” Kassidy soothed, her hand making slow circles between Arlie’s shoulder blades. “It’s all right. Everything is going to be all right.”
Arlie could no longer remember a time when she believed those words. She simply stood there, letting herself be held, careful to keep her wet cheek away from the pristine fabric of her best friend’s dress.
“Anyway,” Kassidy said, “I know what this is all really about.”
Without warning, Arlie’s stomach took a roller coaster death drop toward her shoes. “You do?”
“Of course I do. You’re just trying to find a way to realize your misguided adolescent fantasy of jumping young Samuel Kane’s bones.”
“I am not.” Arlie pulled away, color flooding her cheeks because, ever since setting her eyes on him this morning, she’d been feverishly fanaticizing about that very thing. A flickering reel of lurid scenarios, interrupted only by intermittent panic attacks.
Her personal favorite had involved Samuel raking the items off his fastidiously organized desk to bend her over it. Even now, she could still feel his breath hot on her neck. The smooth, cool polished wood hard against her cheek. Hands that held so many books dragging her skirt roughly over her hips, pausing only to push her panties to the side before filling her with his hot, hard—
“Jesus.” Kassidy’s mouth twisted into a smirk as the dimple Arlie had always coveted appeared at the corner of her lips. “You’re doing it right now.”
“That’s totally unfair,” Arlie protested. “That’s like saying don’t think about a pink elephant.”
“Or Samuel Kane’s studious cock.”
Arlie snorted despite herself, some measure of the grief evaporating from her aching heart. “Point is, there was nothing between Samuel and me when we were teenagers and there’s nothing between us now.”
“Please.” Kassidy released Arlie, walking toward Retrospect’s entrance to busy herself fussing with the dramatic floral arrangement on the round table opposite the entryway. “I’ve never witnessed two humans trying so hard to not look like they like each other.”
A heady surge of unexpected pleasure heated Arlie’s ears. “Whatever,” she said, employing a term they’d passed back and forth in high school as often as sticks of gum and coded notes.
“I’m serious.” Kassidy plucked out the long green stem of a peony and relocated it two inches to the left. “It was pathetic. You side-eye humping him every time his nose was buried in a book.”
“There may be some merit to that assessment,” Arlie admitted. “But he didn’t even know I existed.”
Kassidy said nothing, but something in the way her posture stiffened made Arlie’s antennae twitch.
“Or did he?” Arlie joined her friend at the table, a cold ball gathering in the center of her chest. Though she was no match for her best friend in terms of raw mental prowess, she’d spent a decade studying her like meteorologists studied weather maps, and for the same reasons. Her immediate future had often been determined by a mischievous smirk, a stormy gaze. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Kassidy’s usually regal posture deflated. “This information is not going to help you.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Now it was Arlie’s turn to cross her arms over her chest.
The corners of Kassidy’s mouth tugged downward, her eyes soft and shining. “He...wanted to ask you to prom.”
Arlie’s face stung as if she’d been slapped.
Time seemed to slow as she looked at her friend. “How do you know?” Arlie demanded.
“Because he tracked me down after advanced trig one day and asked me how likely you’d be to say yes.”
“And what did you tell him?”
Kassidy pressed her lips together and drew in a breath. “I told him that...it wasn’t my place to speak for you.”
“But it was your place to speak to me,” Arlie said, shaking her head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I’d either have ruined the surprise if he did ask or get you all amped up just to be let down if he didn’t. Frankly, I was as excited about either of those options as I was the idea of you being involved with a Kane.” Kassidy fixed her with a meaningful look.
Sure enough, Arlie was now feeling an odd mix of those things. Excitement that he’d at least wanted to ask her, disappointment that he never had, confusion as to why. “I know,” Arlie said. “But I’m a big girl now. We’re both adults. They need a food stylist, I need a job. It’s a simple business transaction. The end.”
Kassidy took a step toward her, the familiar scent of vanilla and violets blooming as she looked down at Arlie. Even when they were both wearing heels, Kassidy could rest her chin on the crown of Arlie’s head.
“All I’m saying is, be careful.”
“Careful is the only option I have,” Arlie said.
She meant it.
With her parents gone, and her reputation in smoldering tatters, her job at Kane Foods International was all that stood between her and ruin.
Which was why she’d lied to get it.
“Good.” Slipping past her to click on the steamer plugged in behind the counter, Kassidy unzipped a gray garment bag to reveal a stunning cream silk gown. “So when do you start?”
“Officially, Monday. Unofficially, tonight. Mason invited me to some kind of investor orgy on the Kane yacht.”
“Mason Kane.” A dreamy smile smoothed out Kassidy’s features as she paused, the wand billowing steam like smoke from a dragon’s nostrils. “Now there’s the twin I would have picked. His scores on standardized tests notwithstanding.”
“You?” Arlie asked incredulously. “And Mason Kane?”
“You’d be surprised what the love of a good woman can do.” Kassidy raised an eyebrow in her haughty sovereign addressing her subjects expression. “Along with very clear instructions.”
“Speaking of Mason,” Arlie said, “I’m supposed to meet him at the Corinthian Yacht Club at six o’clock. Which is why I’m here. I need to borrow a I definitely belong on a yacht dress.”
“And here I thought it was to apologize for your horrifyingly substandard performance in the best friend department.” Kassidy teased.
“Totally that too.” Arlie aimed her best disarming smile at her. “Can you help me?”
Kassidy let out an exasperated laugh. “‘Can you help me?’ she says.” Dropping the steaming wand into its holster, she took a step backward to assess Arlie with narrowed eyes. “Six petite,” she diagnosed. “Barely. Promise me you’re going to eat something on that damn boat.”
Indeed, Arlie’s appetite had evaporated along with her paycheck. Not that she would have spent money in her favorite gourmet food store even if she’d had it. “Scout’s honor,” she said.
“I’ve got just the thing.” Her friend disappeared behind the curtain and reappeared a few minutes later holding aloft a garment bag that she hung on the hook next to the gown she’d been steaming. With the fanfare usually reserved for ribbon cuttings, she drew down the zipper and shook out the dress with a flourish. “Ta-da!”
Arlie had to stifle a gasp.
In a color somewhere between blush and dusty rose, the back-bearing, halter-neck bodice dipped low in the front and nipped in at the waist. The skirt, comprised of asymmetrical layers of fluttery chiffon, was both ethereal and earthy. One stiff breeze and there would be a whole lotta leg.
“Oh, Kassidy,” Arlie breathed.
“Halston,” Kassidy said, running an admiring hand down the length of the skirt. “A concept garment for their 1972 spring line. Basically, the unicorn of cocktail dresses. I found it at an estate sale for a rich as shit socialite who corked off after freak complications with a routine liposuction.”
Arlie grinned at her. “It’s perfect.”
“You’re goddamn right it is.” Brusquely zipping the garment bag, Kassidy laid it over the counter.
“Shouldn’t I try it on?” Arlie asked.
“No need.” Kassidy breezed over to a wall at the back of the shop where shoes were arranged in an impressive tiered display. “You still wear a size seven?”
“Yes, but—”
“These.” She held aloft a pair of sparkling high-heeled strappy sandals.
Arlie briefly considered protesting but thought better of it. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“I don’t need thanks,” Kassidy said, her eyes serious as she handed over the garment bag and the silky shoebox. “I need you not to disappear on me ever again.”
“No more disappearing.” Arlie hooked the dress’s hanger over her wrist and tucked the shoebox under her arm. “I promise.”
“Good.” Leaning against the counter, Kassidy tapped on the screen of an iPad propped in a chrome stand. “I expect a full report of the evening’s events.”
“As you wish.” After a curtsy and a bow, Arlie turned toward the door.
“Banks!” Kassidy called after her.
Already in the doorway, Arlie looked back. “Your Honor?”
“Whatever you do,” her friend said, skewering her with the full force of her unnervingly perceptive gaze, “don’t kiss him.”
With its sharp prow and the streamlined grace of a shark, the Dolce Vita IV appeared to be knifing through the water even when standing perfectly still. Its hull was the color of the sky just before dawn. Above it, elegant white decks stacked upon each other in graduating tiers like a wedding cake. On each of them, people had begun to congregate in social clumps.
Music from an old-fashioned brass band floated down the ramp to the yacht, along with a tinkle of high-pitched feminine laughter that dumped ice water down Arlie’s spine.
She knew that laugh.
Arlie froze, as if she, and not the yacht, were anchored.
Not her. Not here. This couldn’t be happening. What could she possibly be doing here?
Arlie looked around at the people moving past her.
No one had spotted her yet. She could turn around right now and sprint back to her car within five minutes. Three, if she lost the medieval torture devices on her feet. She could make apologies via a polite email. Claim car trouble. Or anything to avoid taking another step toward the emotional equivalent of the Titanic.
“And I thought I was late.” The teasing, effervescently masculine voice of Mason Kane lapped at her like a warm wave.
He approached with arms outstretched, a puckish grin on his face. The sunset light caught the crests of his dark hair, casting his tanned skin in the most flattering of glows. He had lost his tie and shucked the sleeves of his beautifully cut button-down shirt to the elbows. Casual in the perfectly arranged way only the deeply wealthy seemed capable of achieving.
“You are,” Arlie said, managing a watery smile. “And so am I.”
Mason’s grin widened. Talented in the art of flirting as he clearly had become, Arlie didn’t miss the quick flick of those golden green eyes over her face, her hair, which was released from its chignon prison for the evening, her bare shoulders, her dress.
“Shall we?” he asked, offering her his arm.
Glancing at the yacht, Arlie calculated the odds that she could refuse Mason’s offer.
They weren’t good.
Looping her arm with his, she climbed the red-carpeted ramp and arrived into a whoosh of conversation and music, a world of lacquered wood, gleaming brass, and gowns and teeth glittering like diamonds beneath a sky turning from sherbet orange to flamingo pink.
Mason snagged two glasses of champagne from the silver tray presented by a waiter with the cleft chin of a soap opera hero.
“Cheers,” Mason said, handing the elegant flute to Arlie before clinking its rim with his. “To your future with Kane Foods International.”
Arlie, praying her shaking hand wouldn’t slosh the drink onto her dress, brought the glass to her lips and took a swallow. Citrusy aromas burst onto her palate, the densely carbonated liquid bringing tears to her eyes. It had been a hot minute since she’d had the good stuff.
Expecting Mason to abandon her any moment for one of the clearly purebred debutantes taking up every available space, Arlie was surprised when he remained at her elbow as she gingerly began to clear the cluster at the top of the entry ramp.
“So, should I begin the introductions, or would you rather make your way through that glass first?” Mason eyed the dainty stem of the champagne glass that Arlie hadn’t realized she’d been white-knuckle clutching.
She took another sip and attempted a casual laugh. “Maybe half the glass?”
“Fair enough,” Mason agreed, mirroring her healthy swallow. “It’s a lot to take in if you’re not used to it.”
For the second time that evening, she found herself surprised by his display of empathy. A quality he had seemed to altogether lack all the years of their mutual acquaintance growing up.
“You’re right about that.” Scanning the bottom deck, her shoulders lowered by a couple inches when she was nowhere to be seen. If only Arlie’s luck would last.
Another uncomfortably attractive server approached them with hors d’oeuvres, the scent wafting up from the tray making Arlie’s salivary glands clench uncomfortably. She hadn’t been able to force down a single swallow of food since her morning coffee, her nerves having made her mouth into a sand trap and her stomach into a dusty cavern.
When she trained her vision on the haphazardly scattered pile of perfectly baked mini beef Wellingtons, she felt a clench of an entirely different variety.
This tray needed something green to set off the filet’s succulent and perfectly pink interior. Resiny sprigs of rosemary or a tangle of freshly snipped sage. A tumble of peppery arugula.
And the arrangement was all wrong. Small, decadent pieces like this begged for some kind of contrasting order to emphasize their golden pastry’s perfect imperfection.
Her neck ached for the familiar feeling of the wide leather strap, the solid weight of the camera like a security blanket against her chest.
But it was more than that.
The world felt a much safer place when condensed into the small vignette of a lens. In that small space, life could be arranged exactly as she willed it.
“Miss?” The server smiled at her politely.
Arlie took the cocktail napkin and relieved the tray of the bite nearest her. Mason once again followed suit, popping his hors d’oeuvre whole into his mouth and chewing appreciatively. “Not half as good as your mother’s,” he said, his muscular jaw working. “But not half bad all the same.”
Chewing her own bite, Arlie was forced to agree.
After all, it had been her mother who’d patiently explained how colors opposite on the color wheel enhanced each other when placed side by side.
“We eat with our eyes first,” her sweet, practical mother had said, wiping her hands on her apron before placing a leafy bunch of sage next to a perfectly bronzed capon. “Never forget that.”
Arlie never had.
Just as she’d never forgotten the special scraps her mother had always saved for her and the kitchen staff. Scooby snacks, she’d called them.
“I’m surprised you remember,” Arlie said, washing the last of her Wellington down with a swallow of nostril-tickling champagne. “That was such a long time ago.”
“I have a long memory when it comes to food,” he said, a killer grin producing that familiar dimple in his cheek. “And women.”
“Oh, I remember.” With the glass of champagne half gone, Arlie felt the familiar sting of that intoxicating contentment that proximity to luxury so effortlessly wrought.
“Marlowe!” Mason boomed enthusiastically.
Mason and Samuel’s ethereally elegant sister approached them, her body expertly draped in a dress the precise aqua-green of sea ice.
“You’re looking especially lovely this evening.” Mason squeezed his younger sister’s yoga-toned bicep before planting a kiss on her cheek.
“I heard a rumor you were joining us.” Marlowe’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, pale blue like her father’s. Her hair, on the other hand, belonged entirely to her mother. Pale, straight, and nearly platinum, it framed her face in a sleek chin-length bob. “Arlie Banks, this is Neil Campbell, my fiancé.”
Neil Campbell had dark hair, all-American features, and eyes just a hair too close together. Which, apparently, didn’t prevent them from stealing a grabby glance at Arlie’s cleavage before making their leisurely passage upward. If Marlowe noticed this, she gave no indication.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Arlie lied, taking his offered hand.
“Likewise.” He said this often, judging by the way it rolled smoothly off his tongue.
“Where’s Samuel?” Mason asked, scanning the crowd.
Marlowe rolled her eyes and jerked her chin over her shoulder. “Guess.”
Mason’s chuckle held a curious mix of amusement and brotherly exasperation. “He would find the only group of people who look like they’re enjoying themselves even less than he is.”
Arlie’s stomach flipped as she followed his line of sight, where a chance parting of bodies afforded her a sudden view of Samuel Kane, still in his tie and jacket, surrounded by a group of solemn-faced men in similar states of formality.
She wasn’t sure if it was the champagne, or a dizzying rush of déjà vu, but Arlie felt herself a little unsteady on her borrowed shoes.
Samuel standing in the corner stiff as a scarecrow at the sprawling party the night of their high school graduation. Back straight, shoulders rigid. Face equally devoid of emotion, wearing his suit coat long after girls had begun kicking off their shoes and boys had begun draping their ties and jackets over the nearest priceless antique.
Then, as now, his tie had been deliberately loosened, the knot falling about two inches away from the precise intersection of his starched collar.
Which Arlie knew with heartbreaking clarity was as relaxed as Samuel could allow himself to be.
And damned if she wasn’t seized by the inexplicable urge to yank that tie away, shuck his coat from him, and send every last button on his tailored shirt scattering across the lacquered wood deck there and then.
As if plucking her thoughts from the very air, Samuel stopped midsentence, his eyes locking with hers as the world and everyone in it slipped into a rare pocket of silence interrupted only by the thunderous beating of Arlie’s own heart.
Warmth that had nothing to do with the champagne spilled through her, pooling low in her belly. Samuel Kane had wanted to take her to the prom.
Silly that she, a grown woman with a multitude of problems on her plate, should still be obsessing about this fact hours after she’d found out. It was a just a high school dance, after all.
But it was what it meant.
Once upon a time, shy Samuel, strenuous avoider of direct human contact at all costs, had liked her enough to pluck up the courage to seek out her best friend’s advice.
Arlie felt a small stab of triumph as Samuel blinked, abruptly turning to the men waiting for his attention.
“Should we go rescue him from the investment bankers bending his ear about Project Impact?” Mason asked, drawing her attention back to the conversation.
“He doesn’t look like he especially wants to be rescued,” Arlie said, swearing she could see the faintest hint of crimson flush beneath Samuel’s sharp cheekbones.
“Which is exactly why we should do it.” Mason treated her to his pirate’s smirk.
Feeling an inexplicable magnetic pull somewhere behind her belly button, Arlie gazed up at Mason. “Okay.”