I sighed and switched seats with him. We were starting to attract attention from the rest of the table, and I didn’t want to make a scene.
I was nervous Luisa would be upset I took her special guest’s seat, but as the night wore on, Christian’s weird quirk turned out to be quite advantageous for me.
I now had direct access to Luisa, who didn’t seem upset at all and who finally turned to me after Raya excused herself to use the restroom.
“Thank you for coming up to New York. I know it’s a bigger ask of you than the other girls.” Luisa’s cocktail ring glittered beneath the lights as she sipped her drink.
“Of course.” Like anyone would turn down an invite to a private Delamonte dinner. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
“I’m curious why you don’t move to the city. There are more opportunities here than in D.C. if you want to get into fashion.” She sounded equal parts curious and disapproving, like I was intentionally being obtuse by not seeking greener grass elsewhere.
A cotton ball formed in my throat at the indirect reminder of Maura and what was at stake.
“I want to be close to family.” Maura was like family, so I wasn’t completely lying. “But I’m considering a move soon.”
Also not lying. I was considering a move. I just knew it couldn’t happen anytime soon.
“By the way, congratulations on a wonderful Fashion Week.” I switched subjects to something more relevant. I wasn’t here to talk about my personal life; I was here to land a deal. “I especially loved the pastel dusters.”
Luisa lit up at the mention of the brand’s latest fall/winter collection, and soon, we were deep in conversation about the trends we’d spotted at last week’s New York Fashion Week.
I couldn’t attend in person because of work—only senior editors at D.C. Style, like Meredith, were budgeted to attend NYFW—but I’d caught up on my anticipated shows online.
When Raya returned from the bathroom, her face soured at the sight of me and Luisa chatting animatedly.
I tried my best to ignore her.
Once upon a time, Raya and I had been friends. She’d started her account two years ago and reached out to me for advice. I’d been happy to share what I knew, but after she surpassed me in followers a few months ago, she’d stopped answering my messages. The only contact we had these days was the occasional hello at an event.
Her meteoric rise could be traced directly to her relationship with Adam, who was a big influencer himself in the travel space. When they started dating last year, their content went viral and both their accounts exploded.
There was nothing like cross-promotion and feeding the public’s voyeuristic desire to follow the love lives of strangers.
Meanwhile, I’d been blogging for almost a decade, and my account had been stuck at just shy of nine hundred thousand followers for over a year. It was still a huge audience, and I was grateful for each and every one of them (except the bots and creepy men who treated Instagram like it was a hookup app), but I couldn’t deny the truth.
My social media was stagnating, and I had no clue how to revive it.
I faltered and lost my train of thought in the middle of a sentence.
Raya swooped into the lull like a vulture after prey. “Luisa, I’d love to hear about Delamonte’s fabric archive in Milan,” she said, pulling the CEO’s attention back to her. “Adam and I are visiting Italy this spring, and…”
Frustration bit at my veins as Raya successfully hijacked the conversation.
I opened my mouth to interrupt them. I could see myself doing it in my head, but in real life, the words couldn’t make it past the filter of my upbringing and lifelong social anxiety.
Disaster number three.
To anyone else, Raya’s interruption wouldn’t rise to the level of a disaster, but my brain couldn’t always untangle the difference between a setback and a catastrophe.
“You did well.”
My heart skipped a beat at Christian’s voice before it returned to its normal rhythm. “With?”
“Luisa.” He tilted his head toward the other woman. I hadn’t realized he’d been paying attention to our conversation; he’d been conversing with the guest on his other side the entire time. “She likes you.”
I gave him a doubtful stare. “We talked for five minutes.”
“It only takes one to make an impression.”
“One minute isn’t enough to get to know someone.”
“I didn’t say get to know someone.” Christian brought his wine to his lips, his words relaxed yet perceptive. “I said make an impression.”
“What impression did I make on you?”
The question sparked and hissed like a live wire between us, swallowing enough oxygen to make every breath a struggle.
Christian set his glass down with a precision that pulsed in my veins. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”
Surprise tinged with hurt bloomed in my chest. “That bad?”
From what I remembered, our first meeting had been fairly standard. I’d said a total of two words to him.
“No.” The word was a rough caress against my skin. “That good.”
Warmth suffused my skin.
“Oh.” I swallowed the breathless note in my voice. “Well, in case you were wondering, my first impression of you was that you were very well-dressed.”
That’d been my second impression. My first impression had actually been that face. So perfectly chiseled and symmetrical it should be stamped inside textbooks as a prime example of the golden ratio.
But I wouldn’t admit that even if Christian put a gun to my head.
If I did, he might think I was flirting with him, and that would open a can of worms I didn’t want to deal with.
“Good to know.” His dry tone returned.
The servers brought out dessert, which he declined with a shake of his head.
I took a bite of layered chocolate cake before I asked, as casually as I could, “How do you know Luisa likes me?”
“I know.”
If this was the way Christian conducted all his conversations, I was surprised no one had tried to stab him in a boardroom yet. Or maybe they’d tried and failed.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Lu, are you coming down to D.C. anytime soon?” he asked, ignoring my pointed response and cutting into Luisa’s conversation with Raya like the other blogger wasn’t even there.
“No plans yet.” Luisa gave him a curious stare. “Why?”
“Stella was telling me about this spot that would be perfect for your menswear shoot.”
I almost choked on a mouthful of cake.
“Really?” Luisa eyed me with renewed interest. “That would be perfect timing. Our location scout has been having the hardest time finding a spot that’s on theme and not overdone. Where is it?”
“It’s…” I scrambled to come up with an answer while silently cursing Christian for putting me on the spot like this.
What place in D.C. makes sense for a menswear shoot?
“You said it was an old warehouse somewhere,” Christian prompted.
Clarity dawned in an instant.
There was an old industrial building on the fringes of the city that I’ve shot at a few times. It was a bustling factory until the 1980s, when the owner moved his headquarters to Philadelphia. In the absence of new owners, the building fell into disrepair and became overgrown with weeds and ivy.