Chapter 13
MAGGIE
Maggie sat at the drafting table in the back office of her boutique with a soft pencil in her hand and the faintest trace of a smile on her lips that had not, in all honesty, left her face since she’d woken up.
The sketch in front of her was a rough sketch for a bridesmaid gown the celebrity client wanted for her sister.
Maggie had been working on it for an hour and had managed maybe two new lines.
The rest of the time her pencil had been still on the page, and her mind had been miles away, on a sofa in Heart House in the early morning, with Michael.
She touched her fingertips to her lips without thinking about it, then caught herself doing it and dropped her hand back to the pencil.
"Stop it, Maggie," Maggie muttered to her own sketchbook. "You are a grown woman, not a giggly school girl."
She sighed and turned the page, smiling as she looked at the sketch she’d been doing in between the dress.
It was a picture of Michael. “Oh, good grief,” Maggie hissed, disgusted with herself.
“It’s high school all over again with me having a huge crush on my best friend's older brother.” She breathed.
“It’s like one of those bad romance novels: Falling for My Best Friend’s Brother.
” She started at the sketch of Michael. “I could write it with real-time experience.”
Her phone rang on the corner of the desk, distracting her from her thoughts, and she saw the name on the screen was her celebrity client, who was coming in this morning for a fitting. She sighed and shook her head.
“Seriously, if you cancel again, I can’t be held responsible if your dress isn’t done on time,” Maggie muttered to herself before answering the phone.
"Good morning," Maggie greeted her smoothly. “Please tell me you’re just running late and not canceling again. Because we need time to ensure this adjustment is perfect.”
"Maggie." The celebrity's voice was crisp and tight, laced with haughty annoyance. "How the heck did the design for my wedding dress get leaked already?”
Maggie's stomach dropped. “What?” She frowned in confusion.
“My dress, Maggie,” the celebrity said angrily. “Apparently, some rip-off boutique is claiming to have my wedding dress design and a new line with the style ready within a few weeks of ordering.”
"That’s impossible,” Maggie answered. “No one has seen the dress. It’s been locked up with the pattern in the safe.
” She glanced toward the closet where the safe was hidden.
“ The only people who have seen the sketches are you, me, and your seamstresses, who all have NDA’s and wouldn’t dare break them. "
"Then how," the celebrity said, "is my name attached to a wedding gown announcement on a boutique I have never set foot in?" She took a slight pause. “It also has a brief description that sounds very much like my gown.” And another pause. “And how do they even know it’s for me? We have a very strict contract between us, Maggie. I’ve always trusted you.”
Maggie went still as the word boutique registered in her brain. "What boutique?" she asked carefully, remembering a certain impromptu visitor she had the previous day.
"Kitsch Couture. In Sanibel. It’s all over my social media feeds this morning.
” Her voice rose slightly. “They are advertising an exclusive new wedding dress line inspired by my taste, with my name in the caption.
I have never given that boutique permission to use my name for anything, because I have never heard of that boutique. "
Maggie closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Of course, it was Kitsch Couture, Vanessa’s boutique. She’d know Vanessa was involved the moment her client had mentioned the leak.
"Maggie, please tell me our years of friendship and stylistic partnership isn’t going to end here,” the client said, her voice dripping with ice. “It’s going to be very inconvenient for me, but… I will find another designer and boutique, Maggie.”
"I have never broken your trust," Maggie said firmly. "I give you my word. Not one person on my staff would put your name on anything without your written approval. No one in this boutique except me has ever seen your gown sketches.”
There was a long pause on the line.
"I believe you," the celebrity said eventually. "Which makes this worse, because then how did they know?"
"That is what I am about to find out," Maggie answered. "Give me until the end of the day. Please. I will get you an answer and fix this. I just need a few hours."
"You have until five." Her voice was clipped.
"Thank you." Maggie breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I have some information.”
“Thank you, Maggie,” the client said. “I’ll wait to hear from you.”
The call ended.
Maggie sat very still at the drafting table for a long moment with her phone now face down in front of her and images of Vanessa in her boutique the previous days running through her mind. Anger and annoyance erupted inside her. This has to stop..
Maggie went over to her desk in the corner and opened her laptop. She typed in the name of Vanessa’s boutique, and there on the front page of the website was the dress her client was talking about.
“Oh, good grief,” Maggie hissed. “Her client only ever went into her own media sites as she couldn’t be bothered to go internet surfing, as she called it. If she had, she’d have seen the dress Vanessa was claiming was the sneak peek of the celebrity's wedding dress.
Maggie stood and walked out of the drafting room, then walked toward one of the most popular sides of her boutique.
The Per-Love Special Day section. It was a small, carefully curated rack of one-of-a-kind gowns, most of them returned to her by clients she had originally designed them for.
Big-name clients that she’d carefully altered and reworked the dresses with the original owner's permission to be resold with the owner's name on it: Worn by the celebrity's name.
Whoever bought it signed a contract and got an authenticated certificate that it was a one-of-a-kind Maggie Original.
It was also endorsed and signed by the gown's former owner.
It was one of her biggest-selling sections, as dresses also ensured a photo op in Maggie’s shop with the previous owner, or, if they couldn’t make it, another signed autograph with the celebrity in the dress.
The customer also signed a document promising to send a photo of them in the dress on their wedding day to Maggie's boutique, which would then be returned to the celebrity. It was great PR for them. This was one of the things that also made Maggie’s boutique so popular, unique, and highly successful.
While she catered to the super-rich, she also catered to the ordinary person who wanted to be dressed like a star.
As Maggie neared the section, she stopped.
Her eyes zeroed in on the featured dress of the month.
It was the latest dress that had been donated, and the dress was from the celebrity she’d just spoken to’s last wedding.
An auction house had asked her if they could auction it off instead of her selling it.
It was a huge success when the celebrity had worn it four years ago.
People were already lining up for it and offering to buy it.
While it was not the dress this particular celebrity would wear to marry her most recent husband, it was still worth a fortune and was one of a kind.
Vanessa creating a knockoff would cause more problems.
Maggie walked forward and touched the dress.
It was a soft champagne silk gown, hand-beaded along the bodice in a wave that swept up over one shoulder and down across the back.
Maggie remembered every stitch of it. She had designed it with the utmost care, taking into account everything the celebrity had envisioned for her gown.
When the big day had come for the star, her dress got almost more press than she did.
But of course, she loved it because of headlines such as "A dress made for the queen of the screen that no one else would ever have been able to pull off.
" And other glowing headlines complimenting the dress and how only the celebrity would’ve ever looked so regal in it.
Right there on the dress form, just below the neck column, sat the tag: As worn by and the celebrity's name. That is how Vanessa got the name, and the dress stood in the center display case labeled “Latest Design Pick of the Month.”
It was almost funny. Vanessa had really thought that Maggie would display something she was designing for a high-end client right there for all her clientele to see.
“Unfreakinbelievable,” Maggie hissed, her hand clenching at her sides. “That woman is an absolute menace and needs to get stopped.”
Maggie stood in front of the dress, staring at it angrily.
This had to stop. Not because Maggie was upset, though she was.
Not because Vanessa had embarrassed her, although Vanessa had embarrassed her on multiple occasions by associating her name with Maggie’s.
It had to stop because the next time Vanessa put a celebrity client's name on a Kitsch Couture post without permission, Maggie's boutique would lose that client for good. After that, she would lose more, especially as Maggie’s clients came through word of mouth from other celebrities.
Just as fast as they had built her reputation, it could be destroyed even faster in that world.
Vanessa was burning Maggie's reputation in slow public increments, and Kevin was holding the matches.
It had to stop today!
Maggie’s brow furrowed as she stared at the beautiful gown, and an idea struck her. Her lips curled into a sly smile. She turned on her heel and walked back into the design room.
Maggie sat down at her desk in the design room and picked up her phone.
She tapped the celebrity client's name.
The line connected on the second ring.