Espresso Shot

“What do you mean?”

“The architect was no spring chicken. The man suffered a heart attack and died right before fall fashion week. The clothing line he helped create was a huge hit, and I had the only interview.”

“So your article ran as a Vogue cover story under a pen name you invented: Breanne Summour.”

She nodded. “By then Rhonda was old enough to take care of my brothers. So I moved to New York and, with a completely fabricated resume, landed a job at New York Trends.”

“But I still don’t understand. Why did you have to hide your past?”

Breanne’s laugh was sharp and cynical. “I didn’t have an Ivy League degree—or any degree. I talked my way into the job with the single Vogue piece.”

“Didn’t anyone look into your background?”

“New York Trends wasn’t exactly high on the food chain. Randall Knox was just a horny little editor-in-chief. I fluttered my eyes, flipped my blond hair, crossed my legs, and he didn’t bother checking out my fake credentials. He just hired me on the spot. The creep hit on me regularly, by the way, along with every other woman under thirty in his office, which is one reason I vowed from day one to create my own magazine. Taking most of Knox’s staff with me was just the cherry on top.”

I regarded Breanne, looking as polished as ever in her thousand-dollar Fen business suit, her million-dollar view around her. “It was your ex-husband who did the polish job on you, wasn’t it?”

Breanne’s glossed lips twisted into a smirk. “I considered it a fair trade at the time. Stuart Winslow was a blueblood. Back then he was riding high with money and connections. In the ten years we were together, I did a lot of catching up. He taught me how to dress, how to speak, what to praise, what to disdain. And I taught him how to screw.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“His Mayflower name was a huge help on my pitch to Reston-Miller to start Trend. I’d been a Winslow for so long by marriage, I’d created a whole new me, a whole new life. No one in my new social circle ever questioned my right to be there.”

I looked at Breanne once more, but I didn’t see Nunzio’s braying donkey. I saw the Esmeralda geisha, a spindly coffee tree that no one noticed until she was planted at a higher altitude, cultivated, and brought to market, where bidding could drive up her value.

I’d once read a breeder’s notes on the varietal. The geisha, he’d written, was an undesirable type of bean, long and thin, which, under neglectful conditions, produced a liquor of poor quality; yet it almost always displayed resistance to leaf rust. Breanne carried innate resistance, too, and she’d been forced to become hearty in the big, bad city. She’d not only learned how to adapt and survive but flourish. Still, Breanne’s choices had exacted a price. Women with real patrician backgrounds had nothing to prove. They floated through social circles on lilting breezes of carefree laughter. For Breanne, the facade of taste and class had to be scrupulously maintained. Without the silk shawl of Nunzio’s little proverb, the world might just label her a pack mule.

“If Knox knows what I know, he can ruin you. Can’t he?”

“He can’t take away Trend’s phenomenal circulation,” Breanne said. “But he can embarrass the hell out me.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Don’t you worry about Knox. I’ll swat that little pest myself. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with this sort of thing, and I doubt it will be the last.” She exhaled and met my eyes. “Okay, Clare, you know everything about me now, the ugly truth.”

“It’s your private business, Breanne. I just need to know one more thing. Why are you marrying Matt? What’s the real reason? Is he some part of an elaborate game plan, like your first husband was?”

“Not even close.”

“You really love him?”

Breanne glanced away, which I didn’t take for a good sign. I waited in silence as she studied the view beyond her floor-to-ceiling windows. Finally, she answered. “More than any other man I ever met, Matt makes me feel the way I used to feel about myself.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

She faced me again, met my eyes. “I’m a fighter, Clare. I did what I had to for my family and for myself—to succeed. Here at the magazine, I’m the bitch boss. It’s a role that gets the job done, gets the magazine out on time, keeps my people employed and my bank account healthy. But when I’m with Matteo...”

“Go on.”

“He’s like no other man I’ve ever known...” The woman’s brassy voice had become a whisper, and her gaze drifted back to the clouds, the park, her dreamy view. “When he takes me in his arms at night, I feel vulnerable again, innocent and sweet and beautiful. When he kisses me, he makes all the bad days... all the bad years... disappear...”

I never, not in a million years, expected an answer like that from the grand bitch of fashion. It was exactly how Mike Quinn made me feel; and in that moment I realized, beneath all of her Machiavellian scheming and bridezilla-on-steroids demands, Breanne Summour really did love her groom.

“Thank you for being honest with me,” I said.

Breanne nodded, then her gaze fell on the piece of paper on her desk, the one with her sister’s contact information.

“She misses you,” I said. “And she still admires and loves you.”

“She said that?”

“She didn’t have to. The way she talked about you—it was clear as sunlight through plate glass.”

Breanne sighed. “I know what you must be thinking, Clare, but seeing my sister again, making contact... I don’t know if I can do it.” She shook her head. “When you travel so far from who you were, it’s like living in a new world. You can’t go back again. I decided that long ago. My family would never understand my life, my choices.”

“Maybe... or maybe you just never gave them a chance to understand.”

Breanne picked up the piece of paper. “Maybe. I’ll think about it...”

I nodded and turned, heading for the door. Before throwing the lock and departing, however, I turned back to say one last thing.

“Breanne, I really will keep your past a secret, but only on one condition. You have to tell Matt the whole truth about your life before you take your vows.”

“I can’t do that,” she whispered. “He’ll never want me then ...”

“If that’s how little you think of Matteo Allegro, then you really should call the wedding off.”

Thirty-Four

“Okay, guys, what’s the verdict?”

“Pretty amazing, Clare,” Gardner said, paper cup in hand.

Dante nodded. “Good job on the roast!”

“Superb,” Tucker said.

“Thanks.” Three down one to go. “What do you think, Esther?”

Esther Best pushed up her black rectangular glasses and peered at me with her big, brown, hypercritical eyes. “I think I can’t get my mind around where these beans have been.”

It was eight o’clock in the evening. Matt, Joy, and Madame were all at the wedding rehearsal dinner. Here at the Blend, I’d just finished roasting the final batch of green beans for tomorrow’s reception. My top baristas and I were now sampling the freshly roasted Kopi Luwak.

Mike elbowed me. “What does she mean by that? Where have the coffee beans been?”

“You can ask me directly, you know?” Esther told Mike flatly. “I won’t bite your head off. I generally don’t bite people’s heads off unless the moon is full.”