18. Iris
18
IRIS
L uc held open the door to the dressmaker’s studio with a scowl. The shop was right where Agnes had told him—in the middle of Marsan village, tucked away on a cosy side street, nestled amongst cobblestones and lilac trees.
Judging from Luc’s brow, he likely felt as comfortable as I did around beautiful dresses. He was probably more at home with what came in them. The second we stepped inside, though, the roll in my tummy dissipated.
“Holy crap,” I breathed, running my eyes over the room. Pure white walls housed half-dressed mannequins draped with fabrics I couldn’t identify, let alone pronounce. Subtle light filtered in through the long windows that were draped in fine white muslin—yep, more muslin—and an eclectic array of elegant chairs fringed the outside of the room.
I walked around slowly, hovering my fingers over the fabrics, afraid to touch, until I reached a wall of exquisite shoes. I chuckled to myself. This shop bore no resemblance to any of the clothing stores on Upminster High Street.
“Bonjour,” came a soft voice from above. A pair of feet appeared at the top of a set of stairs originating somewhere overhead. The owner of the feet must have a shoe fetish because she wore the highest pair of heels I’d ever seen outside of a Vogue centre spread.
The feet made their way down the stairs, bringing with them a pair of elegant legs and a perfectly packaged body. The blonde owner smiled, lighting up the room. With her fine features and smoothed blonde waves, she could give Grace Kelly a run for her money. But her pink suit was nothing like Princess Grace. It was sparkly and detailed, like someone had attacked her with a glue gun and some party decorations. In fact, if you stuck a tiara on her head, she could pass as a chic Glinda from the “Wizard of Oz.”
While I stood gaping at the woman’s jacket, Luc stepped forward, speaking a few words in French. After some nodding and polite laughter, the two of them spoke in English.
“Thank you for visiting my studio. According to your assistant, you’re here to select a dress for…” The woman’s eyes swept over me. Her fairy-like glow and general perfection lodged my words well and truly in my throat.
“My fiancée,” said Luc. Thank goodness he’d taken pity on me. The word still sounded alien. I guess he couldn’t introduce me as anything else, though. Theoretically, Luc’s sister could speak to this woman between now and the gala. If she thought he was buying a dress for an employee he’d found half naked in his pool, the situation would sound a little sketchy.
“Your fiancée?” the woman repeated.
“That’s right,” Luc said, sounding authoritative and dreamy.
The lady smiled and turned to face me. I wouldn’t like to guess her age. With her dewy skin and sparkly jacket, she had a timeless, ethereal elegance. She just needed a wand and a bubble to float around the room.
With Luc looking on, she ran her eyes over my figure, likely measuring me up mentally. I’d worn my smartest dress, but still, her eyes lingered on the frayed hem and the paint stain I’d never been able to remove.
The woman ended her ocular journey at my breasts. She gave the tiniest chuckle, and my cheeks erupted like a volcano. What the actual…? Had she laughed at my boobs? I couldn’t rival Christina Hendricks or Sydney Sweeney, but I had more than a handful. Particularly if the assessor had smaller hands.
I opened my mouth to defend my assets, but she brought her eyes to my face. They were full of warmth. “Very nice,” she said. “My job will be easy, I think.” A glow radiated from my chest. Yay for my smaller boobs! Even if she had laughed, she’d said I had the correct anatomical build to make her job easier. Just call me a supermodel.
The Glinda look-alike turned to Luc. “And you’re attending the opera?”
“The gala,” he ground out, with ill-disguised irritation.
She nodded. “Ah, yes, I’ve dressed a few of the attendees.” She ran her eyes over my body again. “But I think for your fiancée we’ll need something a little different.”
The dressmaker rested the tip of her tongue between her pink lips and turned me to face the large mirror on the wall. Just like Luc had the other night, she moved my head and then my arms, posing me like a doll. Each time, she stepped back to examine my position before letting out a breathy “hmm.” She didn’t acknowledge my presence, circling me three times before locking eyes with Luc in the mirror.
“Silk,” she said with a smile. “Despite her lack of height, she carries herself well, and she has a simple beauty which we shouldn’t overdress.” The woman stepped away and picked up a length of heavy fabric from a nearby table. She held it up against my body, her eyes narrowing with each racing beat of my heart. “Yes. Her figure demands to be draped,” she announced, “not contained.”
I tugged my brows closer together. Hang on. Simple? Draped? Neither sounded very glamorous and despite having perfect fashion boobs, I’d need to look amazing at the gala. Not like someone had thrown a tablecloth over me.
I pulled in a breath, ready to defend my shortcomings, but when I saw Luc in the mirror. I stopped. I’d almost forgotten he was here, but as he ran his eyes over my body, just like the dressmaker had, they heated. No doubt all artists assessed their subjects this intensely, but I’d seen that burn in his eyes before, and it wasn’t while he’d been selecting which pencil to use.
He examined my shoulders, and the length of my neck, before bringing his eyes to mine. My gut pulsed at their burn. Blood buzzed in my ears and I swallowed. He looked so hot. Short, tall, or tiny-boobed, I’d happily sign myself up to an eternity of being simply draped if it bought me a ticket to Smoulder Town. Population–two.
“I have just the dress,” Glinda said, bringing me into the room. “It’ll require some adjustments, but if I work quickly, I think I can have it ready by tomorrow morning.”
“Perfect,” Luc said, his gaze still on me.
“Then let us get to work.” The dressmaker led me to a corner at the back of the room. She pulled aside a curtain, revealing an ornate, full-length mirror. Next to it sat a table laden with exotic fruit and chocolates. I widened my eyes. I’d been right. This definitely wasn’t Upminster High Street.
The three of us stopped in front of the mirror, and she turned to Luc. “Forgive my boldness, but I will require your fiancée to undress. Although I like to think of myself as liberal, I assume you have somewhere else to be?”
Luc’s eyes grew, and what looked suspiciously like a blush spread on his cheeks. He fumbled in his pocket before bringing out his phone, holding it up as if to prove he had reasons not to be here. “Of course, forgive me,” he said. “I’ll leave. I have calls to make.”
Luc strode to the door and gripped the handle .
The dressmaker smiled. “Could you pull the latch to lock the door? We don’t want just anybody walking in.”
Damn right, we didn’t! He paused, fumbling with the mechanism. After a long beat, he nodded before passing through the door and closing it behind him.
The dressmaker turned her high-vis smile onto me. “Bon. Now we begin. I’ll find the gown while you undress.”
My mouth ran dry. Undress out here in the open? No changing room? I swallowed. Europeans had a reputation for being more liberal than us Brits. We were always too busy apologising for ourselves. But I wasn’t in England now. I was in the land of Brigitte Bardot and croissants. Two of the sexiest things ever to exist. So, embracing my inner sex-kitten, I peeled off my dress.
At around the same time the third wave of goosebumps hit, she reappeared, cradling a length of sea-foam-coloured silk. She joined me in front of the mirror and checked her watch, like she was waiting for a train.
“Is everything okay?” For all I knew, she could have another appointment. Instead of speaking, though, she glanced down at my knickers. I did too, and my gut rolled. They were amongst some of my worst pairs. It’d been dark when I got up this morning, and I hadn’t expected to undress in public. I mean, who did? I ran my eyes over the greying cotton and cursed every wash where I’d not separated my colours from my whites.
The dressmaker grimaced. “Miss…”
“Iris,” I murmured.
“Iris. This dress demands minimal undergarments. Even though you have the figure to carry it off, if I’m going to measure you properly, you’ll have to remove…” she glared at my knickers, “those.”
My face heated to furnace-like temperatures, and I turned my head to check out the scarily un-curtained windows. I couldn’t remember if I’d been able to see inside the building from the street.
She chuckled. “Don’t worry, no one will see you. My studio is private, and most of my clients prefer not to be spotted naked by the townsfolk.”
I gave her a sheepish smile, and she looked up at the ceiling. I took it as my cue to lose my undies. Taking a deep breath, I stepped out of my ageing knickers and into the dress. She pulled the fabric around me, and the glide of the silk sent a shiver across my shoulders. Once she’d secured the cleverly disguised zip, she stood back, appraising the dress’s fit.
“It’s a little big, but the colour is good for you. It brings out the glow in your skin and the blue of your eyes.”
I swear a pulsing heart glowed in my chest. Apparently, I had a bit of a kink for praise after receiving very little from my ex. Apart from Luc’s comment about my elegant neck, it’d been years since anyone had said something so nice about the way I looked. And even if they did, I’d always suspect an ulterior motive, or wait for the backhanded end of the compliment.
I stared at myself in the dress. Glinda and Chloe must be drinking the same Kool-Aid. This dress had massive Grecian goddess vibes, and the fabric gathered at the shoulder, just like Chloe’s. Only this one had stitching that didn’t require a scrunchie.
The dressmaker bent down and pulled at the hem of the dress. It currently ballooned around my feet. “You’ll need some height.”
I lifted the hem away, revealing the chipped pink polish on my toenails. I think I needed more than height. Maybe a trip to the local spa?
She scanned the wall of shoes, selecting a pair of white pumps with skyscraper-like heels. Her lips curved. “These,” she said, setting them down on the floor next to me. I slipped them on, growing at least six inches. After the thinning rubber of my flip-flops, even these impossibly high shoes felt like slippers. I examined the shimmering white satin and the sewn-on pearls in the light.
“Are these wedding shoes?”
The dressmaker waved my question away with the back of her hand. “Yes, but I can dye the fabric. No one will know.”
The irony didn’t escape me. She had no idea I was living a life of deception. Fake fiancée, fake wedding shoes. No biggie.
The dressmaker set about fitting the gown to my figure, fussing around me like a mother hen. She wrapped, sorry, draped me in the silk, repeating the same process every few centimetres. First, she’d pull the fabric tighter, then she’d ask me to breathe in. Next, she’d ask me to breathe out, then she’d plunge a pin into the silk. I found the process oddly therapeutic, like a meditation. Who needed Whim Hoff when you had French dressmakers?
About a quarter of the way down my left hip, she broke our silence. “Monsieur Du Comtois is easy on the eye, no?”
I let my mouth fall. She was talking about my fiancée, like a sunset or a beautiful flower garden. Or a drop-dead gorgeous playboy.
She looked up at me with a glint in her eye. “Oh, come, we’re both grown-ups. Let’s not be shy. I know his sister, after all.”
My whole body tensed, and I clamped my molars tight together.
“Delphine and I went to school together. How did you and Luc meet? Forgive me, but you look a little different from the other women in their social sphere.”
Did she mean awkward as all hell and owner of the oldest knickers in recorded history? I racked my brain trying to remember what I’d told Luc’s grandmother. “At a polo match,” I said as if I’d correctly answered the million-dollar question on a TV quiz show .
She pulled at the fabric near my thighs before pinning it. “Nice. Who did you wear?”
“Sorry?”
“Which designer dressed you? I’d assume any polo fixture the Du Comtois family attended wouldn’t be a provincial match. You’d need to be dressed appropriately.”
“No, no, of course.” Crap. What could I say? If I talked about a real designer, I risked being discovered. One well-placed question about purses or fall collections and it would be obvious I didn’t know my Louboutin from my Levis. “I have a personal stylist.” I blurted out, cursing my brain.
“You do? Who is it?”
“Chloe Harris.” It wasn’t a lie. “She often travels with me. She’s on hand to dress me for important occasions.” My mind drifted to her curtain dress. “She’s also a big fan of draping.”
The dressmaker straightened. “And she wasn’t available to dress you for the opera gala?”
Again, I thought about my best friend. Right about now, she’d be processing barrels of grapes in green overalls embellished with a light coating of sweat and dust. “Unfortunately, no. She’s a little busy seeing other clients.” This time, I considered Jacques and his guitar. Had Chloe plucked his strings yet?
As the dressmaker applied the finishing touches to my gown, I sighed. I’d hardly spent any time with Chloe recently. Not a day went by that I didn’t thank my lucky stars for my best friend, but being involved with Luc, and living in his world, had taken me out of Chloe’s. She wasn’t able to stay in the chateau and none of the pickers would be welcome to come and hang out on the terrace with me. I missed them.
Luc nailed it when he said his life was a golden prison. Showy, but lonely.
“There,” the dressmaker said, stepping back to survey her work. “You look stunning.”
I looked in the mirror and sucked in a breath. I did look stunning. The dress fitted me like a second skin. But it wasn’t trampy—thank you, Nathan. I looked elegant, like a mermaid. “It’s beautiful. Magical. I can’t thank you enough.”
She shook her head, giving me a gorgeous smile. “ You are beautiful. I just helped to makeyou shine.” She gave a tinkling laugh. “Just think of me as your fairy godmother.” She stepped closer to me, brushing my hair away from my shoulder, watching me in the mirror. “I think your fiancé is going to be very proud to take you to the ball.”
I swallowed, heat spreading through my body. That remained to be seen.
“Okay, step out of the dress. I need to hang it on a mannequin before any pins drop out.” She undid the zipper and I complied, turning away from her, for modesty’s sake. Cradling the dress in her arms again, she stepped away. “My workshop is above the showroom,” she added, already halfway up the stairs. “I’ll be back shortly.”
I shivered and glanced around, spotting my knickers on the floor—classy, Iris. As I bent to pick them up, a noise at the door caught my attention. Had the dressmaker already returned? She’d only been upstairs for about ten seconds. Maybe she had jet packs on her heels. I grabbed my undies, but hearing the thick clunk of a door closing, I looked up.
Luc stood in the doorway, mouth gaping open, eyes wider than cheese wheels. With a gasp, I straightened, bringing my knickers to my groin, clutching them in place. “What are you doing here?” I squealed. I followed his eyes to my breasts and promptly clamped my hands across them. My heart thumped hard, threatening to shatter my ribs.
“I’m so sorry,” he stammered, looking at the floor, his face blazing red. “I thought I’d locked the door. It was open, I assumed you were finished.” His throat bobbed. “And that you’d have clothes on. ”
His words snapped me out of my stillness. I didn’t have any clothes on. Holy crap! I didn’t have any clothes on!
Faster than I ever thought possible, I lunged for the dressing room curtain, pulling it across my body. I took a deep breath, thanking the gods that I still had the fast-twitch muscles nature and my parents had gifted me. “I’m decent now,” I said, my voice trembling a little.
Luc slowly looked up, something like relief flooding his face. A line appeared between his brows. It wasn’t exactly a scowl. “I’m truly sorry. I would never just walk in if I’d known…” He stopped.
I prepared to lecture him on careful door-handling, especially with naked women around, but he wasn’t looking at me. His gaze had shifted over my shoulder to the mirror, and his face had changed.
My skin tickled, and I looked back to the mirror, unsure what could have turned his eyes so molten. I caught sight of my back. And my bottom. And my legs disappearing into the sky-high heels the dressmaker had given me. I swallowed hard, turning to face him.
A fizzing sensation consumed my entire body, and when his eyes found my face. I swear my cheeks combusted under his gaze. Forget smoulder, the desire on his face was an out-and-out firestorm. The second his teeth gripped his lower lip, I knew I was toast. A tingle nudged between my legs, and my breath rushed in and out of my body, totally out of control. His chest moved faster too, like waves rushing to the shore.
The air crackled between us and molecules bubbled, manipulating the air, as if the room breathed with us.
We stood, staring at each other for what felt like forever, until the creak of an upstairs floorboard broke our spell.
Luc’s eyes flew to the floor again. “Merde. I’m… I’m so sorry,” he mumbled. “I’ll wait for you outside.”
He turned, fumbling with the door, his watch rattling loudly against the metal. Muttered words reached my ears, but he wouldn’t look at me.
The second he pulled the door open, he disappeared outside. I let out a groan and buried my face in the dressing room curtain. “Holy fricken’ crap,” I said, my words muffled by the fabric.
Did that just happen? I glanced in the mirror behind me in the vain hope I’d hallucinated the last thirty seconds. When the sight of my bare bottom greeted me, I grimaced. At least I could take comfort that all the bending and lifting at the winery had given me a butt to rival J-Lo.
My heart sank. Nope, there were no positives to be found. Luc had seen my body. All of it. I swallowed, shaking my head. There was nothing like a bit of mystery between fake fiancés.
But then I remembered the momentary look in his eye. The heat. And the tingle low in my belly reignited.
Holy hell. Never mind a dress, perhaps I should go to the gala in a suit of armour from the chateau. Wear it like a full-body chastity belt. Keep my tingles to myself.
Dropping the curtain, I pulled on my knickers, my mind racing, my pulse pounding,my brain reeling.
A suit of armour would never work. Everyone knew that fire melted metal. It was basic physics and thermodynamics. And based on the nudge I’d felt in my core, if Luc provided the thermo, my body wanted to bring the dynamics to the party.