Where Beauty Lies (Sophia and Ava London) (11 page)

“It
is
real,” she said. “I’m real and we’re real. And I’ll work extra hard to be there whenever you call.” In this position on the floor she could see only one mirror, and it just showed Charming’s face looking blissfully up at her as she scratched between his ears.

“Maybe we could compromise and make it like every other time,” Hunter said.

She smiled. “That sounds like a good compromise.”

He let out another deep breath. “I can’t believe I just told you that. I haven’t told anyone that. Even Liam doesn’t know.”

Sophia felt like she’d been given a precious gift. “Thank you. I’m glad you did.”

“Now tell me about your day. I want to hear everything.”

Sophia shrugged off her jacket, which Charming promptly lay down in, and started telling him from the beginning, about the new security and her phone being on the fritz and Lucille and the contest and how it seemed like everything might finally be coming together. Again.

Only when they’d hung up and she was getting into bed did she realize she’d forgotten to tell him about running into Giovanni. She hadn’t mentioned it to Ava, either, she reminded herself, because it was too insignificant. She and Giovanni had been friends, but he lived in New York City now and it wasn’t like she would have time to see him while they were there. She had much more important things to focus on.

If he even texted her.

LonDOs

Cuddly kitties

Honesty

Compromise

Friends from the past

Makeup-remover cloths

LonDON’Ts

Kitties who think Wolford thigh-highs are for their clawing pleasure

Jumping to conclusions

Mirrored walls

Alarms that go off way too soon

People who say they are going to text but never do

9

textuplets

There was a cold wind whipping across the sidewalk the next morning as Ava and Sophia left for the studio, and the doorman who put them into a taxi said, “You ladies be careful. Predicting snow for this evening.”

“Popcorn is going to be in heaven,” Ava said as they pulled away. “He loves walking in the snow.”

“Mmhmmm,” Sophia answered, already texting. Or still texting. Ava was starting to wonder if Sophia texted even in her sleep.

“I’m so excited about the contest. I can’t believe it goes live in two hours.”

“Me too,” Sophia said, which was the right answer, but something about her tone made Ava question whether Sophia was actually listening.

“I heard a news story about a woman whose phone merged with her hand,” Ava said.

“Mmhmmm,” Sophia answered.

“Soon she lost the power to interact with others and could only communicate with her phone,” Ava went on.

“Me too,” Sophia answered, typing.

“And later she gave birth to textuplets.”

“Mmmhmm,” Sophia said.

Ava sighed. The taxi ride was the only time the two of them had alone together most days and she found she’d started to look forward to it. Plus, she’d wanted to tell Sophia about running into the guy from Starbucks at the party the night before and how horrible that had been, and then tell her about the Contessa coming up and how horrible
that
had been. She really wanted someone to laugh about it with her because otherwise it felt a little grim.

Click click click.
What could she be saying? What was so important that she couldn’t stop even for a moment to talk to her sister?

She glanced over and saw that Sophia was smiling. It did seem to make her really happy, though, Ava had to admit, remembering the way she’d been glowing the night before at the first party.

“I do not think your friend is listening,” the cabdriver told Ava.

“Thanks.” Ava pulled out her phone and checked her messages. It contained the usual, “Sorry we didn’t get to talk last night. Have a great day!” text from Liam, this time with the addendum, “The train accident no big deal. Cute of you to worry.”

She deleted it, then typed, “Dear right side of the car. How’s it going? Your friend, left side of the car.”

She pressed Send, and heard Sophia’s phone chime. Sophia frowned, looked over at her, rolled her eyes, and went back to texting Hunter.

You’re right, Ava,
she said to herself.
It’s going to be a very exciting day.

*   *   *

The “AS you are” model search launched at ten o’clock, and by noon the entries—and press queries—were pouring in.

“I’ve got a waiting list for VIP,” Harper announced, meaning that more celebrities than they could accommodate wanted front-row seats. “A good waiting list,” she added.

“We don’t even have a venue,” Ava reminded her.

“I’m getting close,” Lily said. Her head shot up, looking for Sam. “I heard you laughing.” She growled in his direction.

“That wasn’t Sam, sweetie,” MM said gently.

Lily growled at him, too.

Sophia looked up from her phone then, causing Ava to say, “My, what pretty eyes you have.”

“All the better to glare at you with,” Sophia answered. She glanced around the group. “Hunter just had an idea and I think it’s worth discussing.”

Ava had to work hard to keep from rolling her eyes. “What does Prince Charming say?” she asked.

Sophia blushed. “He suggested that we make another piece. Now that we have all the security in place and Sam filming, there’s no way Christopher Wildwood—”

“Wormface,” the Contessa corrected.

“Can get it, that would prove, definitively, that all the others are ours. Something that is like the rest of the line but new.”

“That’s a great idea,” MM agreed. “And, Ava, that’s no problem for you, right? You can come up with something new.”

“Sure,” Ava told them. “It’s just like kindergarten.”

Sophia’s brows contracted. “Ava, are you okay?”

“I’m joking,” Ava said, and she was.

Or she had been. She’d been sitting in the workroom for almost an hour, staring at the bolts of fabric she’d pulled, seeing no shapes, no colors, no drape. With Sam’s camera hovering around behind her, recording the nothing, and Sophia poking her head in every fifteen minutes to tell her that they were now up to five hundred, then seven hundred, then eight hundred fifty entries, and finding out how it was going, Ava found herself feeling less like joking and more like being annoyed.

She was annoyed with Sophia for not taking even one minute to talk that morning, annoyed with Liam for not letting her break up with him—“Cute of you to worry,” he’d written, like she was a puppy—annoyed with the Contessa for not letting her have her own life, annoyed with Hunter for suggesting that they make a new piece, annoyed with herself for not knowing what the piece should be, and annoyed that no one took anything she said or did or wanted seriously.

She got up abruptly and went into the other room. “I need a break. I’m going for a walk.”

“Bring me a latte?” Sophia said to her with a wink.

“I’m not going to Starbucks,” Ava told her.

“Right.” Sophia grinned.

But as she left the building she was so busy thinking about how upset she was that she didn’t pay attention to where her feet were going, and she found herself standing inside Starbucks without meaning to.

Stupid traitor feet,
she told them. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the (formerly) cute guy with the sleepy eyes, camped at his regular table, but she wouldn’t let herself look at him. She would get her coffee and go. It was freezing outside but a walk in the chilly wind would be bracing.

She took her mochachino—Sophia could get her own coffee—and was heading for the door when she found it blocked.

“You weren’t actually going to leave without saying hello, were you?” the (ex)cute guy with the sleepy eyes said. Standing in front of her like that, he seemed even taller than he had the night before and, in his blue button-down shirt and jeans, even buffer. He was also wearing glasses with dark brown rims the same color as his hair, which somehow made him even … more annoying.

“Why should I say hello to someone I’ve never met?” Ava countered.

“Maybe because that person behaved like an idiot the night before and would like to apologize.” He put out his hand. “Truce?”

Ava looked from the hand to him. When she was still hesitating he said, “I’m sorry I was a jerk. I was supposed to meet someone there and got stood up and it made me—upset.”

“I’d say it was her loss but I’m not sure,” Ava told him.

The door opened from the outside, sending a blast of cold air right into Ava’s face, and he pulled her back into the store. “You look like you’re having a really bad day.”

“Wow, you are a real charmer. No wonder your girlfriend didn’t show up.”

“Don’t change the subject,” he said. “You
are
having a bad day.”

“I’m having a bad two weeks,” Ava admitted, not sure why she was confessing this to a mean stranger in front of a rack of Valentine’s Day mugs.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“With you?” Ava’s eyes rested on a mug with
I LOVE YOU A LATTE
written in pink.
Sophia would like that,
she thought, and then pushed the thought aside. “Not a chance,” she told him

“Okay. Let me guess then.”

“Yeah, I think I’m just going to go,” she said, starting to turn away.

“You don’t have a boyfriend so it’s not that—”

She turned back. “How do you know I don’t have a boyfriend?”

He held up a finger. “One, you hit on a guy in a bar.”

“I did not hit—”

He held up a second finger. “Two, you said you noticed me studying here.”

“And you didn’t notice me,” Ava said, rolling her eyes as much at herself as at him. Why was she talking to the one person who had made her feel worse in the past twenty-four hours than anyone else?

He tapped on his glasses. “Without these I’m more or less blind beyond a foot in front of me. I can see fine close-up, like to read, so I keep them off when I’m studying to cut down on distractions. For example, if I’d been wearing them I would absolutely have noticed you when I looked up. And then I would have had a hard time getting any work done.”

He smiled at her and Ava felt her pulse rate jump up like an ice skater doing a triple twirl. “You’re just saying that because I’m having a bad day,” she told both him and herself.

He looked serious. “I thought we established I’m not charming or nice.”

“True.”

Without realizing it, she’d let him lead her from the mugs to his table, which had a bunch of folders on it. “So not boyfriend troubles and for some reason I don’t think it’s parents. Your dog?” He held a chair out for her and she sat down in it.

She leaned across the table toward him, so surprised that she almost crushed her coffee cup. “How did you know I had a dog?”

“Hair on your boot,” he said. “Small and white?”

Ava nodded, impressed. “But it’s not him.”

“So it must be job,” he mused. “But you are kind of young to have a job.”

Ava snorted. “I feel about twelve million years old.”

“What’s your job?”

She looked up at him. “I am designing a fashion line that’s going to be shown during New York Fashion Week.” Her voice sounded small and tight and afraid in her ears, with none of the pride she usually felt.

He leaned back and regarded her thoughtfully. “Really?”

“Really,” she confirmed.

“Sounds like some kind of fairy tale,” he said.

She felt like every muscle in her body was tense. “It’s not.”

“What about the count?” he asked.

She shook her head, standing. “Thanks for the chat. I have to go.”

He bounced up as soon as she stood, and at first she thought it was just good manners but then he started putting his folders into a messenger bag. “Just give me a minute,” he said.

“I said
I
was going,” Ava pointed out.

“Right, but you meant we were going,” he explained.

Ava shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, shrugging into his coat. “Pretty sure. Well anyway, we are.”

“Where?” Ava asked, not sure why. There was only one place she was going and it was back to the workroom. Back to the bolts of fabric that wouldn’t talk to her. To Sophia texting and the Contessa watching her like hawk and Lily chasing after venues.

He slung the messenger bag across his body. “You need a day off.”

She laughed, and it sounded slightly hysterical to her. “Maybe, but a day off isn’t going to happen for another month.”

“An afternoon off, then.”

“I really can’t,” Ava said, suddenly aware of how desperately she wanted that. An afternoon off. An afternoon away. “It’s not possible.”

“I know the perfect thing,” he went on, ignoring her.

“Really?” she asked. “What?”

“Whenever the fairy tale princess is feeling the lowest, there’s something that always cheers her up.” He led her to the exit.

“I’m not a princess,” she told him over her shoulder. “That’s my sister.”

“Countess,” he corrected. “Although technically the sister of the princess is a duchess.”

“Whatever it is, my life is no fairy tale.”

“Maybe it is, but you’re just stuck at the part where everything seems bleak. I think the cure will work anyway.”

“What is it?” she asked and then shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t go.” He pushed open the door for her and followed her outside.

“You’ll see,” he told her, holding out his arm to hail a cab. One swerved to the curb in front of them almost immediately. “You need it. You don’t even remember how to have fun, do you?” He held open the door. “Come on. Your chariot awaits.”

Say thank you and go back to work. You can’t just turn your back on work and get into a taxi with a complete stranger,
a voice in her head said. A voice that sounded a lot like Sophia’s.
Even if he does have a nice smile and very good manners. You don’t even know his name.

As if he were reading her mind he said, “I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Jax.”