8. Isabelle #2
Naomi arrived looking like she'd stepped off a runway instead of a nine-hour flight. She was wearing wide-leg trousers and a silk blouse, her braids pulled back in an elegant knot, oversized sunglasses pushed up on her head. Her suitcase was the size of a small car.
"I need to lie down immediately," she announced, sweeping into my suite. "And also tell you about the man who would not stop talking to me."
I hugged her tight. She smelled like airplane recycled air and expensive perfume.
"What man?"
"Some finance guy in first class. Asked for my number before we even took off. Then spent the entire flight finding excuses to talk to me." She collapsed onto my bed, shoes still on. "He wasn't even attractive. Just persistent."
"Did you give him your number?"
"Absolutely not. I told him I was engaged."
"Are you engaged?"
"No. But he doesn't know that." She grabbed a pillow and put it over her face. "I'm so tired, Isa. The shoot in Barcelona ran late, and then my flight from London was delayed, and I haven't slept properly in three days."
"Barcelona?"
"Vogue Spain. Beach editorial." She removed the pillow. "It was beautiful and also extremely sandy. I'm still finding sand in places sand should not be."
I laughed. "Sounds glamorous."
"Glamour is a lie we tell civilians. Glamour is waking up at 4 AM to have someone paint your face while you're standing in the Mediterranean in April, freezing." She sat up, eyeing me. "But enough about me. What's going on with you? You have a look."
"What look?"
"The look you get when something happened and you're trying to figure out how to tell me." She crossed her legs, settling in. "Spill."
So I told her. About the vineyard. The winemaking lesson. The dinner on the terrace. The rain. The moment in the hallway where I thought—where I almost—
"Wait." Naomi held up a hand, her eyes widening. "You almost kissed him?"
"I don't know. Maybe. It felt like something was about to happen, but then his phone rang, and—"
"And you spent the night at his house."
"In a guest room. Alone."
"In his guest room. Wearing his clothes." She raised an eyebrow. "Isa."
"It was raining. My clothes were wet."
She stared at me, her expression saying everything her mouth didn't.
"What about Femi?" she asked quietly.
The question landed like a slap. I wanted to smack myself. Femi. I'd barely thought about him all day, except for that one time. While I was at the vineyard, he'd slipped from my mind entirely—the anger, the hurt, the waiting for a call that never came.
"I haven't heard from him," I said, my voice small. "Not since that phone call two days ago. Not a single message."
Naomi's expression shifted. "You didn't call him, did you?"
"No."
"Good." She nodded firmly. "If he wants you back, he's going to have to earn it. You don't chase men, Isabelle. Men chase you."
"I just thought... after everything, he'd at least check in. Make sure I was okay."
"Apparently not." She reached over and squeezed my hand, her grip warm and anchoring. "Look. You have the boutique to focus on. The most important opening of your career. Everything you've worked for. Forget about men for now. Both of them."
"Both of them?"
"Yes, both. Femi, who can't be bothered to pick up a phone. And Matteo, who—" she gestured vaguely "—is clearly interested in you but is also a complication you don't need right now."
"Matteo isn't interested in me like that."
Naomi gave me a look that said she didn't believe me for a second.
"He's just friendly," I insisted. "Italian. They're like that."
"Isa." Her voice was patient but firm. "The man fed you dinner by candlelight, taught you to make wine with your hands touching, almost kissed you in a rainstorm, and then stood outside your door in the middle of the night deciding whether to knock.
" She raised an eyebrow. "That's not 'just friendly.
' That's a man who's trying very hard not to make a move because he knows you're technically with someone else and he respects that. "
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Nothing came out.
"Focus on the boutique," Naomi said, gentler now. "You've worked too hard to let boy drama derail you. After the opening, when everything’s settled, you can sort out your love life. But right now? Right now, you're Isabelle Dubois, and you're about to take Milan by storm."
She was right. I knew she was right. The boutique had to come first. Everything else—Femi's silence, Matteo's almost-kiss, and my confused heart—it could all wait.
"Okay," I said, straightening my spine. "Boutique first. Men later."
"That's my girl." She squeezed my hand again. "Now. Is there food in this hotel? I'm starving, and airplane pretzels don't count as actual nutrition."
I ordered room service. We ate on my bed, plates balanced on our laps, talking about everything and nothing. Her shoot in Barcelona. The models arriving tomorrow. The last-minute adjustments I still needed to make.
Normal things. Safe things.
But underneath it all, in the quiet spaces between words, I was still thinking about a vineyard in Tuscany. About footsteps stopping outside my door. About the way my heart had jumped when I'd realized he was there, just on the other side of the wood, making a choice.
About the choice I'd been relieved he'd made.
And the choice I'd secretly wished he'd made instead.