Chapter 22
If Luca had been hoping to garner anything more about Gabriella Felix from listening to her talk about Zero Fucks Given he would have been sorely disappointed.
This was a show. A promotional piece with as much depth as Benoit Torres’s last performance as a Columbian warlord.
But it didn’t surprise him. This was a tour for the book, not for Gabriella as a person.
Except, in his experience, if you went through life only showing a manufactured persona, eventually the outer facade cracked and any authenticity that existed underneath the surface, prior to the start of the sideshow, had crumbled long before you even realised it.
Gabriella was astute. Professional. A masterful conversationalist, seemingly putting the other celebrities alongside her on Zeeta’s golden couch at ease, asking questions in a way that coaxed answers out gently, making people automatically trust her.
That was some skill to have. And, all the while, as he listened and made mental notes about outfits to come, he also got more and more convinced there wasn’t one scrap of the real Gabriella on the stage.
Then, as the cameras stopped rolling and everyone deflated just slightly from the live televisual high, Luca watched her stand, outwardly calm, but as she made her way into the wings her pace quickened and her assured expression dropped.
Something was wrong. He stepped forward.
‘What happened?’
‘There’s something in the dress,’ Gabriella said, face contorting in discomfort.
‘What d’you mean there’s something in the dress?’
‘Just… help me get the fucking thing off! Before anyone asks me for a mic pack or, I don’t know, my thoughts on the latest peace treaty.’
‘OK, come with me.’
He didn’t know where they were going, but any part of the green room or even her dressing room with Cheyenne being all taskmaster was not going to give her the privacy they needed and she was omitting more than discomfort.
This was pain and already his mind was wondering what had happened with the dress to cause that.
He stopped in the corridor, pulled the handle of a door and ushered her inside. Darkness. He switched on a light. Mops and buckets.
‘A broom cupboard,’ Gabriella said, taking a short breath.
‘Yeah, so let’s be quick before Harry Potter claims it back. Where is it?’ His fingers were already unlatching the hooks of the corset from the bottom up. Slowly, diligently.
‘By… my ribs.’
He worked faster until he saw… blood. What the hell had happened?
And then his fingers found something hard, sharp.
He didn’t wait a second longer, he ripped the bodice open to see what he was dealing with.
Metal. A shard was sticking out of Gabriella’s skin!
Time seemed to stop. Momentarily he didn’t know what to do.
‘Pull it out,’ Gabriella said, bending a little so she could see herself. ‘Just get it out of me.’
‘I can’t just pull it out, Gabriella. It’s going to bleed more. You need to have it taken out by a professional. A doctor. At the hospital.’
‘No,’ Gabriella said. ‘You do it. Or I will.’
‘Are you crazy? We can get a cab to the hospital. I’ll take you. It’s a few blocks down—’
‘I said no hospitals. So either pull it out or I will. And we’re in a janitor’s happy place, there will be kitchen towels or wipes or something.’
He did a quick reconnaissance of the shelves and grabbed a few items. He sprayed his hands with antibacterial spray then rubbed them together. ‘OK. Ready?’
‘I’m good. Not my first injury rodeo and nothing an espresso martini won’t cure. Get on with it.’ She leaned a little against the shelf behind her.
He used his thumb and forefinger and gently took hold of the shard, easing it, until he had it out and then he pressed a wad of absorbent towel to the wound. Small, yes, but not insignificant.
‘OK, I’ve got it,’ Gabriella said, taking control of the paper towel and pressing the cut. ‘But, what I don’t get, is how the fuck there is a piece of metal in my outfit. I thought the staples were just for the dress rehearsal.’
‘Yeah,’ Luca answered, looking at the small, pointed piece of something still in between his fingers. ‘I mean, I don’t even know what to say. I apologise. Obviously. On my behalf because I dressed you and I didn’t see it and on Errol’s behalf because he made it and—’
‘Don’t apologise for something you didn’t know about.’
‘But I should have known about it. And prevented it. And if I could tell you any logical explanation as to how this happened I would give it to you but… I’ve got nothing.’ He took a breath. ‘But I will find out. And… I’ll understand if you don’t want me to continue to work with you.’
Losing two clients in one day? That had never happened before and he knew, given Sybille’s current unfathomable demeanour, that it wouldn’t go down well.
‘Yeah, well,’ Gabriella began, holding her wound.
‘The good news, as far as you’re concerned, is that while I’m hating everything about this being styled situation, if I have to start all over again with someone else I would hate it more.
’ She looked again at the wound. ‘And what’s a small incision between client and stylist? ’
She was taking this well. Better than he deserved. But his mind was still trying to do the math with regard to how this could have happened and he needed to speak to Errol. ‘I’m going to find the answer about this, I promise you.’
‘Right now,’ Gabriella began. ‘You have to promise me two things. The first is not to tell anyone about this, especially not Phoebe. She worries about everything and everyone and I need her not to.’
‘You have my word,’ Luca said. ‘And the second thing?’
‘You have to order me a Loulou burger to be delivered to my hotel at midnight.’
‘O-K.’
‘And don’t tell anyone about that either.’
‘OK.’
‘And the third thing.’
‘You said two things.’
‘Holding something that has been inside my body that could potentially give me tetanus from a dress you put me into isn’t a position of strength from which to argue about the terms and conditions.’
He sighed. ‘Factual. So, what’s the third thing?’
‘Get me back into this bodice so we can get back to the green room, listen to Cheyenne criticise me for not selling the book enough until I can finally take Phoebe somewhere she actually wants to go in this city and so you can get to your mom’s birthday party.
’ She sighed. ‘And, look, there’s a kind of emergency-looking box there. Let’s put some kind of dressing on it.’
He nodded. ‘Sure. OK. I can do that.’
But before he reached for the potential first-aid kit, he wrapped the piece of metal in a piece of tissue and put it into his pocket.