Chasing Harry Winston

“I’m ready,” Adriana said, working hard to sound highly uninterested.

“The agency called to say that Ricardo got stuck on a shoot in Ibiza and couldn’t make it back for today’s booking.”

“Mmm.” Adriana vaguely remembered that Gilles and Ricardo were sworn competitors, although she tended to think that this vicious competition stemmed more from Gilles than from Ricardo, who, much to Gilles’s chagrin, seemed quite content to accept almost all of the agency’s most prestigious assignments. He did most of the big names in Hollywood and his calendar was booked annually for-and a year in advance of-the awards shows. The two men had gone to beauty school together, assisted together at all the Madison Avenue salons, and then, even though both were promoted to the floor at the exact same time, Ricardo had somehow become a superstar.

“Any idea what today’s booking is?” Gilles sounded ready to jump out of his skin.

“Let’s see, what could it be? A photo shoot!” she said with snotty faux enthusiasm.

He ignored her. “Oh, it’s nothing. I’m sure you don’t want to hear what it will be like to do Angelina’s hair on the set of The City Dweller, which just so happens to be the movie they’re calling her sexiest ever. Funny, I was thinking about inviting you to come along and meet everyone, but I’m sure you’d never be into that…”

“Angelina?”

“The one and only.”

“Her sexiest movie ever?”

“They’re saying it makes Mr. and Mrs. Smith look like The Sound of Music.”

Adriana exhaled. “Do you think Brad will be there?”

“Who knows? Anything’s possible. I heard there’s a good chance she’ll have Maddox with her.”

Maddox. An interesting development. As much as Adriana disliked children-especially the shriekers and the ones with runny noses-she’d fallen in love with the entire Brangelina brood. Granted, screams and snot didn’t really come across in the pages of US Weekly, but Adriana was certain these children were different: composed, dignified, possibly even sophisticated. And there was no denying their style. She’d love to see that stylish Cambodian adoptee in person. Pax would be worthwhile, too, but no one-not Zahara nor even Shiloh- would be as rewarding as a Maddox sighting. She bolted upright in bed and began a frantic search through her open closet. What does one wear to a movie set?

“I’m so there!” she squealed, her usually aloof demeanor completely shattered. “Where and when?”

Gilles was kind enough not to laugh. “I thought you might be interested,” he said with deliberate coolness. “Corner of Prince and Mercer in an hour. I’m not sure where the hair and makeup trailers will be parked exactly, but text me when you’re there and I’ll come find you.”

Adriana clicked her phone shut and bolted into the shower. Hesitant to look like she’d made any effort beyond the cursory, she applied a little lemon-scented baby powder to her roots but kept her hair unwashed, resulting in a sexy tumble of waves. She used tinted moisturizer instead of her usual skin-perfecting foundation and rubbed a bit of lip gloss into her cheeks before slicking it across her lips. A quick dab of white shimmer powder in the corners of her eyes-a trick passed down from her mother’s modeling days-and a single coat of brownish-black mascara completed her face. Her wall-mounted magnifying mirror confirmed that not a trace of makeup was detectable, but the outcome left her looking fresh-faced, glowing, and gorgeous.

The outfit took a bit longer. She discarded two sundresses, a belted tunic, and a pair of tight white pants before finding the winner: perfectly worn skinny Levi’s that literally lifted and displayed her ass, topped with two barely- there racerback tanks layered one over the other and finished with this season’s Chloe buckle flats. Her skin, permanently tan from both genes and months spent on the beaches of Rio, literally popped against the white cotton tank tops, and her hair spilled down over her shoulders. She added a mismatched bunch of gold bangles to one bronzed wrist and chose a pair of small, understated gold knot earrings to finish the look. Forty-five minutes after hanging up with Gilles, Adriana tiptoed past the guest bathroom toward the front door, loathe to wake the sleeping bird.

“Arghwahhhhhhh!”

She heard flapping and another screech-indiscernible in content but oddly mournful in nature-followed by more frantic flapping. Christ, she thought as she opened the bathroom door. It sounds like he’s dying in there.

“You cannot die right now,” she addressed the sheet-draped cage. “At least have the courtesy to wait until after I meet Maddox. Better yet, wait for Emmy. I have no idea what to do with a dead bird.”

Silence. Then, a positively sorrowful cry. She’d never heard anything like it before, but the misery of it made her shiver with fear.

Adriana jumped forward and tore the sheet from the cage, desperate to quiet the suffering animal. “What is it, Otis?” she crooned through the bars. “Are you sick?”

It wasn’t until Otis cocked his head in that telltale-and perfectly healthy-way that Adriana knew she’d been had. She’d made it out of the bathroom and halfway through the foyer before Otis belted out “Fat Girl!” in triplicate, stopping only to cackle between calls.

“Go ahead and die, you winged rodent. I hope it’s long and slow and very painful. I’ll dance on your miserable birdie grave.” The whole situation was enraging! Just because Emmy felt too guilty to sell or murder the damn bird should not mean that others had to endure its abuse. What are you supposed to say when your best friend calls the night before her trip, panicked that her vet no longer boards birds in his kennel? Any remotely rational person would say exactly what Adriana had said-namely, that if she couldn’t wear it, eat it, or accessorize with it, she wasn’t interested-but Emmy’s sheer panic had eventually worn her down. She swore that Otis was relatively low maintenance and that with the exception of a few moody outbursts, Adriana probably wouldn’t even notice he was there. Yeah, not notice. That’s why she was standing in the elevator, wondering if her hips looked a bit wider these days. Or why she was about to trek the twenty blocks downtown rather than take a cab, because clearly she needed the exercise. Fucking buzzard.

Her heart rate was elevated from a combination of physical exertion and excitement by the time she arrived, and she felt a little sticky from sweat, but the dampness gave Adriana a sheen that heightened her beauty. Not a few passing men wondered if she’d just rolled out of bed after a morning of lovemaking; the others wondered what it would be like to join her.

Gilles appeared moments after she texted him. He noticed a group of PAs standing outside one of the trailers watching them, so he grabbed Adriana’s hips, pushed his pelvis against hers, and kissed her full on the mouth. “Damn, girl, you’re gorgeous,” he announced. “Almost makes me wish I were straight.”

“Yes, querido, me, too. I’d marry you in a second. In fact, if I haven’t found myself a husband in the next year, will you marry me?”

“Tempting, I have to say. Commit to one person for the rest of my life and a woman at that? Just castrate me now.”

“Wait, I think I’m onto something. We’d have a completely open relationship, of course-you’d be welcome to sleep with anyone you like-but we could go to parties and family stuff together and still have our own separate lives. We’d be the new Will and Grace. I think it sounds fantastic.”

“Yes, Adi dear, but what, may I ask, is in it for me? You forget, I do all of those things now without being married…”

“What’s in it for you? Hmm,” Adriana pressed her forefinger to her lips and pretended to think. “Let’s see. Oh, I don’t know…unrestricted access to my unlimited trust fund, perhaps? Would that work?”

Gilles dropped to one denim-glad knee and brought her hand to his lips. “Adriana de Souza, will you marry me?”

She laughed and pulled him up. “One year, querido. I’ve got one year to find myself a proper husband-and by proper, I mean one who wants to have sex with me-and if not, you and I are getting hitched. Sound good?”

“I’m hard right now, I swear I am. Just say it again: trust fund.”

He led her halfway down Prince Street before breaking the news that there would be no Angelina introductions that day.

“Tell me you’re kidding. I got up and showered and dressed at ten A.M., for chrissake. Is Maddox at least here with a nanny?”