Designing Woman (The Sloan Brothers Book 2)

My name is Melody Elizabeth Lincoln, and I'm a kick-ass, take-no-prisoners fashion designer.  I have a cast on my hand and arm, and the attitude that put it there.  My on-again-off-again boyfriend, is the brother of my perfect sister's perfect husband.

Rumor has it that the boyfriend in question is a confirmed bachelor that runs at the first whiff of commitment.  He thinks he can outrun me, but he obviously doesn't know me very well.  You see, unlike my sister who doesn't much care for confrontation, I thrive on it.  Welcome it.  Chase it down like a blue light special at Kmart.  I'm the one he never saw coming.

I wasn’t always like this.  The man makes me crazy.  I studied Fashion Design at Parsons, here in New York.  With Lincoln money, I could’ve studied anywhere.  It doesn’t hurt that my mother is Catherine Jacoby-Lincoln, Supermodel.  They’re wonderful people in that, “old money, jet-setting, Do-you-know-who-I-am?”, sort of way.  They’d do anything for Dorothy or I, and we know it.  Dorothy chose to be stupid and do things the hard way.  She worked her way through school and wound up writing about dog shows for the Post.  Granted, she’s a celebrated and sought after Biographer now, but that wasn’t always the case.  It happened to bring her to Deacon Sloan and his brothers.  She’s married with a baby on the way, and you’ve never seen two families more involved.  You’d think Kate and William were having another one just for us.

I jumped the track for a minute there.  I’m famous for that.  Dorothy is famous for over-thinking everything and coming up with theories to explain human behavior at large.  I say, fuck human behavior.  Since when have humans, as a species, behaved?  By design we react.  Our reactions cause others to react and a chain of events follows.  There’s no theory to that, it just is.  Who cares why?  Can we change it?  No.  Why struggle to explain it?  It doesn’t matter.  The best you can hope for is to make that chain reaction work in your favor.  Correct?  Correct.

I’m also famous for my temper.  Where my sister has a slow fuse and tends to get her feelings hurt before she gets angry, I’m the exact opposite.  I go thermonuclear and THEN we can discuss why I ripped your lungs out, AFTER the event.  If I’m in the mood and you’re still standing.  I may look like my mother, but my temper is my father’s.  We’ll come back to that.

Let me tell you about myself so that you can get a visual.  My friends call me Mel’, and I’m twenty-four years old.  Young for a fashion designer, but I’m already making waves in the industry.  This is due in part to my sister, who goes to high-class, widely photographed events, wearing nothing but my designs.  She also name drops like a wannabe in Hollywood.  I love that girl.  She’s put me on the map.  I design for my mother as well, and in her circles, that counts for a lot.  Between the two of them, my client list is growing faster than Anton’s list of excuses.  We will DEFINITELY get back to that, because it gets funnier all the time.

I’m five-foot seven and have long blonde hair and blue eyes.  My sister inherited my father’s green eyes and my mother’s docile temperament.  I look just like my mother looked at my age, and got my father’s spicy temper and knack for making money.  My mother would describe me as, “willowy”. Translation: I’m stick thin and flat chested.  I can wear anything and make it look good, that’s why I don’t model.  I know that sounds odd, but I’ve never wanted to be a walking mannequin.  I want to be known as the brain behind the design ON the mannequin.  Have I used my beauty as a weapon or door opener?  Yes.  What beautiful woman hasn’t at some point in her life?  I’m beautiful, not stupid.  If you take one look and label me a “dumb blonde”, I laugh like a hyena.  I’m twenty-four, already a fashion industry standard, and my accountant-slash-assistant Ayla tells me I’m worth a little over 22.3 million and growing.  That’s in Melody money people, not money given to me by my father.  So suck on that and then judge my intelligence.

Do I have an attitude?  I thought we’d established that already.  I’m the youngest Lincoln out there, so an attitude is a necessity.  My parents are famous, my sister is famous, and then there’s me.  If I don’t go large, then I end up being the, “Oh and there’s the other Lincoln, what’s-her-name” at the party.  Not me baby.  No way.

I live in Manhattan near West 38th and 7th in the “Garment District”, not far from Times Square.  The real estate is definitely not cheap, but it’s a designer’s paradise.  I live in a two-story Penthouse in a twelve-story building.  It’s almost five-thousand square feet, but in my own defense, it has offices for both Ayla and myself, plus a huge workspace for designing and sewing my designs together.  It was built in the 1920’s, and the art deco stuff on the rooftop terrace and throughout the place is what sold it to me.  It’s got four bedrooms and four baths, a state of the art kitchen and dining room, plus a living room and a den.  It’s not ostentatious, believe it or not.  I may be a little over the top in most things, but where I live and work is purely comfort based.  If we’re working on designs for an upcoming show, no one has to worry about getting home at a “reasonable” hour.  They can spend the night if they want and wake up to a gourmet breakfast and coffee on the roof, while relaxing in over-stuffed lounge chairs.  My terrace garden is not to be believed and is meticulously maintained.  I host parties out there.  I hosted Dorothy and Deacon’s Manhattan reception out there to rave reviews and that’s where we’ll have her baby shower in the Spring.  They don’t live far and that makes it nice.

Now that you have a feel for the nuts and bolts of Melody Lincoln, let’s get down to the peanut butter and jelly of the matter.  I was born a beautiful trust fund baby, used it to my advantage to make something of myself, and here I am.  I never thought of myself as the marriage type.  I like being single.  I do what I want, when I want to do it, and I answer to no one.  I own a Mercedes and a classic ‘67 Camaro convertible RS/SS with a 396 V8.  It’s jet black with black leather interior, fully restored.  What can I say? I’m fast and I’ve got the car to prove it.  The Mercedes is to impress clients.  The Camaro is for me.  My condo is for me.  What I wear and where I go?  All that is at my whim and it’s for me.  Am I self-centered?  Maybe, the jury’s still out on that.  The thing is, I’m single.  I make my own money and I’m getting famous in my own right.  I don’t have a husband or children to consider.  I have the right to be self-centered.  I’m neglecting no one, so how am I being selfish?  Do you see what I mean?  Can you see why single life might be fun for someone in my position?

Keep that in mind and imagine if I were a guy.  No stigmas for sleeping around, magazines applaud your “Confirmed Bachelor” status, and no chances of getting pregnant.  A perfect life?  Fuck yeah it would be a perfect life!  No wonder Anton runs like Usain Bolt every time a woman seems overly interested in him.  I would too if I were him.  Here’s the thing.  He’s my perfect match.  He knows it too.  He doesn’t like it any more than I do, but that’s the way it is.  We’re so much alike it’s unnerving.  We have the same tastes, the same idea of fun, and the same temperament.  We’re even good together between the sheets.  There is absolutely nothing that we disagree on.  That’s the problem.  We’re also simpatico on the “staying single” thing.

“Sounds perfect”, you might think.  You think wrong.  Because we’re a perfect match, we don’t like anyone else sniffing around our arrangement, or lack thereof.  We don’t want to commit, but we don’t want anyone else interfering with our “lack of commitment” status.  It doesn’t stop the curiosity seekers, or the fact that we both feel the need to remind ourselves and each other that we’re single.  Case and point: The cast on my wrist and arm.  Anton dumped me before Dorothy’s wedding to his brother, so that he could hook up at Deacon’s bachelor party if he found a stripper that he took a fancy to.  I tracked him down, got in a brawl over some slut named Liza, and broke my damned hand.  Trust me, nothing says “bad publicity” like a Lincoln getting into a bar brawl over a Sloan.  Our parents loved that photo op.

You’re rolling your eyes.  You think I can’t see you, but I can picture it.  You’re also thinking, “Rich people problems”, and you’d be right.  To a point.  We are wealthy, but that has nothing to do with our problem.  It would still be a problem if I were a cashier and he was a mechanic.  Think about it.  We’re a match made in heaven, but we’re determined to stay single.  We’re both insanely jealous and have different ways of showing it, but that jealousy is centered around each other.  Folks, this is a no-win situation.  It’s already cost us our dignity, a black eye, and a broken hand.  Now, we’re not speaking.  It’s more like detente.  We’re on speaking terms, and we try to be nice to one another in social situations, but that “between the sheets” thing that we excel at?  Not happening.  It’s becoming an issue.

Now that you’re up to speed on the last few months of my life, lets continue on.  I don’t have a lot of free time.  Granted, I have more now that Anton isn’t distracting me, but the free time that I do have, is usually spent with Dorothy or Ayla.  Now that Dorothy’s married and pregnant (not necessarily in that order), I’m with Ayla more than my sister.  I understand completely.  Doesn’t mean I’m not a little jealous though.  What must it be like to be secure with the man you love, knowing that he’s insane crazy about you and absolutely thrilled with the idea of becoming a father?  I think that if I ever told Anton that “whoops” the stick shows positive, he’d go so far underground, the gophers would be making mud idols in his likeness.  He’d be lord of the gophers.  See?  There I go jumping tracks again.

Let’s talk about Ayla for a second.  She’s new in my life and she came along right when I needed her the most.  She’s gorgeous inside and out.  It’s disgusting.  She’s tall like myself, only she’s got that perfect 36-26-36 shape and long flaming red hair that’s thick and wavy.  She’s got sky blue eyes that suck you in when she smiles.  Not a freckle in sight, the bitch has perfect alabaster skin.  She resembles that freakin’ mermaid princess in that Disney movie.  If she weren’t my closest friend at the moment, I’d hate her because she’s too perfect.  She’s soft spoken and her voice is husky and warm like whiskey; her laugh sounds dirty and men turn in her direction when they hear it.  Ayla is dodgy when it comes to her past.  I know she shares a large apartment with her brother, Austin.  It sits above the bar that he owns in Brooklyn.  I also know that they were originally from Boston, and their parents are out of the picture.  I have no clue what that means exactly.  I do know that that’s a lot of information for Ayla, and I feel honored that she’s shared that much with me.

That brings us to now.  I’ll probably insert incidences from the past as they pertain, but you’re pretty much up to speed for the moment.

It was cold outside.  The kind of cold that hits New York in November, two weeks before Thanksgiving.  The weather channel has informed me that there’s a pretty good chance of snow flurries and that’s good enough for me.  My sister has me hooked on that station, and I have to admit to a fangirl crush on Mike Seidel.  Yes, I know he’s as old as my dad, but I don’t care.  I have a thing for weather dudes that will walk right out into the thick of it.  Hurricane hits Miami?  No problem.  Mike’s there holding on to a light pole for dear life, with a microphone in his other hand, discussing the potential for flooding and spin-off tornadoes.  What’s not to love?

I had zero plans of leaving the condo today.  I had six designs to finish mocking up and Ayla was due any minute to help me.  I had a part-time helper, Sean, and he was a whiz with fabrics and a wizard with a serger.  All I had to do was show him my drawings, and he could tell me exactly which fabric I should use and where to find it at a reasonable cost.  Then he’d sew the creation together.  Ayla kept track of the money, kept a diary of every decent retailer and wholesaler, and allowed me to dress her up like my own mermaid princess fashion doll, whenever we had to go to a show or an event.  She was also great with a sewing machine.  That’s how we got in the spot we were in at the moment.

They came in together, both having a key.  I’m not close to very many people, so the ones I am close to, have keys.  It’s easier that way.  I work where I live and I’m not always home.  If Sean or Ayla have free time and want to work, who am I to discourage them?  I encourage them to make themselves at home and settle in.  They’ve both stayed with me for days at a time before a big show or event.  We’re our own happy little family.

“...Oh shut the fuck up Ayla.  What would you know about it anyway?”

“More than you, blue hair.  I do have a brother you know.”

They entered the kitchen where I was sitting with my coffee and Mike on TV, getting my head wrapped around what we needed to accomplish today.

“Good morning children.  What’s this morning’s argument about?”

Ayla handed Sean a cup of coffee and poured one for herself.

“I asked him why his hair was blue today, and he said he was a little down.  He had a date with his dream guy last night and the magic wasn’t there.”

Sean rolled his eyes.

“First of all, he wasn’t my ‘Dream Guy’.  Was he a Tom Cruise look-alike?  No.  He was a fun guy I met through a friend.  I thought we had more chemistry, but it turns out he’s not bisexual, he’s gay.  That’s fine, but he went off on my being attracted to women as if I were committing a sin against the rainbow coalition or something.  I like women.  They’re...soft in all the right places.  I can’t help it because I’m also attracted to men for the opposite reason.  Who am I to fight mother nature?”