Chapter 19
CASH
I’d made a tactical error. I’d assumed that “conservative black-tie gala” and “Cleo Quinn” were a negotiation I could win. Cleo was the star of her own show, but I needed her to fit into my world for just a few hours. My carefully constructed world that included designer labels and elegant dresses.
It should have been easy, given the amount of money and resources I was throwing at the situation. I’d been wrong.
The first dress came out and it was perfect. Deep navy, structured, elegant. The kind of thing that belonged in the room we’d be walking into tonight and communicated exactly the right combination of wealth and restraint. Not too sexy but just enough to make men look twice.
Cleo stood on the small platform the team had set up and looked at herself in the full-length mirror with an expression of profound disappointment.
“No,” she said.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“It’s a costume.”
“It’s a dress. It’s appropriate for the event. It’s Dior. I believe it’s from the fall line that hasn’t even come out yet.”
“It’s what someone who doesn’t know me would put me in.” She turned to the lead stylist, a woman named Giulia who’d been professional and unflappable up to this point. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Giulia said with the diplomatic composure of someone who’d been in this exact situation before.
I was going to have to make sure I tipped the team well. They already signed NDAs, which carried a hefty price if they broke it. I wasn’t taking any chances. Summer had had fuck-you money and she used it to pay the price for breaking the NDA without breaking a sweat.
That was my mistake and I wasn’t going to ever make it again. Well, I hoped I wouldn’t have to. I wouldn’t hire another woman to pretend to like one of my brothers ever again. Cleo was different. The situation was different. Cleo could be trusted.
She disappeared into the adjoining bathroom once again. I could hear her muttering and complaining to the woman that was in the bathroom with her.
Giulia cast glance my way that said it all. I would have better luck putting a designer gown on a tiger.
Cleo stepped out again. She was wearing a burgundy, off-shoulder, floor-length gown. It was very Grecian goddess. Also perfect. Also classic. Also exactly what the evening required.
Cleo also wore the same expression.
“Still no,” she said. “I’m not wearing this out of this room.”
“Cleo, you look nice in it.”
Her lips curled back. “Nice? No thanks. I don’t do nice.”
“Pretty?”
“I look like I’m attending a state funeral for someone I barely knew. Very respectful. Very appropriate. Completely not me.”
“That’s the point.”
She fixed me with a look. “The point is for me to be convincing as your fiancée. A woman who looks nothing like herself the entire evening is not convincing. She’s suspicious. If I’m using this as my brand launch, I have to be me.”
I had to concede, privately, that this was not entirely wrong.
The third and fourth dresses produced the same result. Each one beautiful. Each one met with that particular expression that managed to be polite to the stylists and completely unambiguous to me.
Giulia was conferring quietly with one of her team members in Italian.
I caught enough of it to understand that they were running low on options within the brief I’d given them.
Cleo had wandered to the rack and was sorting through the remaining options with the focused attention of someone who already knew what they were looking for and hadn’t found it yet.
Cleo talked to Giulia’s assistant. A young woman that seemed to have similar fashion choices as Cleo. I watched the exchange. The young woman’s face went through caution, consideration, and finally a small smile.
“I’m not sure the signore would approve,” she said with a glance in my direction.
“The signore doesn’t need to know yet,” Cleo said pleasantly. “Go get it.”
“Get what?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Cleo said at the same moment the young stylist disappeared through the door.
“What did you just send her to get?”
“We had a conversation. It was private.”
She sat down in a chair, crossed her ankles, and smiled at me. “Have some more cheese. You look tense.”
If I had more cheese, I wasn’t just going to be tense. I was going to be very constipated. Not a great combination.
“I liked the first gown,” I said. “You could accessorize it to make it feel more like you.”
“No thanks.”
The young stylist returned eight minutes later with a garment bag over her arm and an expression of someone who’d run to the van and back and felt it was worth it. Her cheeks were flushed and she was smiling.
Giulia said something in rapid-fire Italian. The girl shrugged and replied in a much quieter tone. She kept looking at Cleo. I really hoped Cleo didn’t just get the woman fired. She presented the bag to Cleo with a small, conspiratorial air. Cleo unzipped it.
I saw a flash of black fabric. She didn’t let me get a good look at the gown before she swept toward the bathroom with the satisfaction of someone who’d found exactly what they’d been looking for. And I had a feeling it was nothing that I was going to find appropriate for the event.
“That’s not what I asked for,” I told Giulia.
Giulia spread her hands in a gesture that was entirely Italian when I knew she spoke English just fine. The young assistant was grinning. Something was definitely happening.
Cleo called out for help. The young stylist disappeared into the bathroom. I could hear them talking excitedly. The young woman emerged to retrieve something from the jewelry case, then went back.
More conferring. Something about the hair.
“I specified timeless,” I started.
“I know what you specified,” Giulia said diplomatically. “But perhaps you should wait and see before you assume they’re wrong.”
Cleo stepped out and I closed my mouth. The dress was black silk, draped in a way that accentuated her body.
I had nothing to compare it to. It fell off one shoulder and bunched around her waist to disguise anything extra a woman may not want to show off.
It highlighted her ample breasts and the flare of her hips.
It was the perfect hourglass shape. Not like a size two hourglass but a real one. Like Marilyn Monroe curves.
The slit started at the hip and went higher than anything I’d specified for this evening. It was just a little risqué. I could see the black panel that prevented anything from being flashed, but it gave the illusion of “one move and there will be vag.”
“I know what you’re going to say,” Cleo said, watching my face.
I searched for the professional response and couldn’t find it. “Rossi is conservative. He’s from a different generation.”
“I’ll wear this underneath.” She turned back to Giulia, who produced a black nylon overlay so sheer it was almost theoretical, but which technically addressed the slit situation. “See? Compromise.”
The jewelry she’d chosen herself. Earrings that were long and dramatic and not what I would have selected, which meant they were exactly right for her. Several rings. A stack of bracelets I knew weren’t from the cases we’d been provided.
Her hair was half up in a way that looked deliberately undone. Her makeup was dramatic around the eyes in a way that walked the line between event-appropriate and unapologetically Cleo.
She looked like herself. But elevated. Like the best version of the thing she already was, poured into black silk and given access to a city that knew how to appreciate beauty.
She looked extraordinary.
“Fine,” I said.
She didn’t gloat, which I appreciated. She just stepped off the platform and disappeared into the bathroom once again.
I looked at the ceiling for a moment and collected myself. My plan was to present my demure fiancée, fulfill my end of the bargain, and save the contract.
Wasn’t it?
When I had called Cleo, I knew damn well there was no denying her energy. The woman marched to the beat of her own drum. No one was going to diminish her and try to put her in a box.
The following morning, Cleo was up early. I would have expected her to be jet lagged, but she was up and ready to go.
We walked three minutes from the hotel to a café so small, tourists never found it. She scanned the menu, clearly considering her choices. We ordered and sat back to do a little people watching.
“I can’t believe I’m in Rome,” she said. “Yesterday or two days ago, I don’t even know what day it is. I went to bed thinking I was going to do laundry today. And now I’m in Rome.”
“Surprise.”
Our meals were delivered shortly after. Cleo took her first bite and moaned.
“This is amazing,” she said. “So good.”
I watched her tear her croissant and groan with the pleasure of someone who was genuinely present in their own experience. I thought about how rarely I saw that. People in my world ate at restaurants to be seen in them. They discussed the food and business but never really just enjoyed the meal.
Cleo was just eating. Enjoying it. Completely here.
“I need to tell you about tonight,” I said.
She put her fork down and gave me her full attention. Just like that, she was switched on, focused, and ready.
“The client is Federico Rossi. Old European family money, significant business interests with a current contract with Bancroft Holdings that he’s trying to exit illegally. I’m here to find out why and to prevent that exit, or at minimum to understand what’s driving it.”
“What are your instincts telling you?”
“That something’s wrong on his end that he doesn’t want us to know about.
He’s pulling out to protect himself from something, not because of anything we’ve done.
He’s trying to say it’s the Summer Situation, but that’s bullshit.
That problem has been handled and it’s old news. He’s just using it as an excuse.”
She nodded. “And the gala?”
“His foundation’s annual fundraiser. The guest list is in poor shape. There are significant absences which create a credibility gap. He needs the event to go well. My presence provides a bump.” I paused. “My presence with a fiancée provides a different kind of credibility. The kind he responds to.”
“Old money family values,” she said.
“Exactly. And a Bancroft showing up with a previously unknown fiancée is going to be big news. More attention on him.”
Cleo picked up her fork again. I could see her thinking. “Is he married?”
“Yes.”
“Want me to talk to the wife and see if I can get a read on the situation?”
I hadn’t even thought of that angle. “Sure. If you can.”
“Women in that position talk to other women. Especially women who seem like they might understand the particular experience of being attached to a man who carries a lot of weight.” She looked at me. “Which I will appear to be.”
“Yes.”
“What am I listening for?”
“Anything about why Rossi is nervous. Business trouble. External pressure. Reputation concerns. Anything that tells me what he’s actually protecting.”
She nodded slowly, eating and thinking at the same time. “And you’ll be working the room on your end.”
“Rossi and his board members. I need them to see the Bancroft presence as stabilizing rather than threatening.”
“So you need to be charming.”
“I’m always charming.”
She gave me a look that communicated her thoughts on that clearly without requiring words.
“I can be charming,” I amended.
“I’ve seen evidence of it,” she allowed. “Occasional evidence.”
We ate for a moment in comfortable silence. The café filled slightly around us.
“This is good,” she said, for approximately the fourth time, and she meant it every time.
“I know.”
“I want to come back here before I leave.”
“We’ll come back.”
She looked at me across the small table. She looked happy. Different. Like Rome was already doing something for her that New York couldn’t. She was here for her—and me, but mostly her.
Her phone buzzed on the table.
She glanced down at it. “Uh-oh.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t text Melody when I got up this morning.”
“So?”
She frowned at me. “So, I told her I would. Sorry, don’t want to be rude, but I have to text her back.”
I picked up my espresso and waved my other hand. “By all means. We don’t want Melody to worry about her adult friend.”