Many of the rooms have sliding glass doors or large feature windows, to allow what’s happening inside them to be observed, to give the impression that there are no secrets in this place.
We make a left turn into a quiet corridor at the far end of the central thoroughfare. It, too, has several doors facing onto it, but these doors are made of timber, burnished to a high sheen, and all are closed. Each door is numbered, three on each side of the corridor, with a pair of double doors at its far end. Seven rooms in all.
Giovanni’s sharp blue eyes are intent. ‘There are twenty-nine couture dresses to be shown. Thousands of hours by many, many pairs of hands dedicated solely to me, to this atelier, have gone into every creation. The audience of four hundred — by invitation only, of course — will contain many of your harshest critics. Disapproving fashion editors cheek-by-jowl with the women’s wear buyers, the young aristocracy, old friends, old clients, of- the-moment actresses and singers to bring me global coverage in every medium I could wish for. They ring and ring! Asking for better seats. Asking: “Where are the bloggers to be placed?”, “Where is Suzie to be? Anna? Isabella?” Put me here, put me there. I am almost glad it will be the last one. Rise above them all, my dear. I know you will make me very proud.’
He’s about to say something else when I hear someone calling my name in an angry voice. Both of us turn to see Gia making her way up the corridor towards us, my heavy overcoat and large handbag jammed awkwardly under one arm. Her expression is tight-lipped, her hair’s mussed and her eye make-up’s smudged. She hoists her own bag higher on her shoulder and extends that small, flat, black device towards me.
I feel Irina’s brow pleat. What do I want with it?
‘Those bastards always follow after you and leave me to deal with the psychos on my own,’ she snarls. ‘I didn’t think I was going to make it in here alive. Jurgen was assigned to me, not to you, but that’s the story of my life, isn’t it? You’re like a bloody man magnet.’
A look of horror passes swiftly across her face as she takes in who’s standing beside me. ‘Mastro Re,’ she adds with an embarrassed nod, jamming the black device into a back pocket of her skinny jeans and extending a small hand to him. ‘Please excuse my language.’
He gives her hand a brief squeeze and laughs, though his face is pale beneath his tan and his other hand is gripping his cane very tightly now. ‘The world has gone mad when such a slight creature as Irina can command so much time and so much interest.’
He turns back to me. ‘Tommy will be with you shortly to take you through the three outfits again and the way he wants you to move in them. Valentina will supervise any last-minute alterations. And I should warn you …’ his blue eyes are suddenly evasive, ‘… one of my best couture clients is in town for the show and has seen the look book we put together for those wanting to order after the parade. She wants a private showing of several key pieces. She specifically requested that you model them, Irina. So it will be a long day, my child. Your iron will should come in handy today, eh? Don’t let me down …’
He waves the back of his hand at me and moves stiffly away, down the hall.
Gia glances at the double doors and says with satisfaction, ‘I see he’s given you the legendary Studio 4. Anja and Carly will be eating their hearts out right now — if they have hearts. They’re crammed together in Studio 6 and word is they’re not happy.’
She walks up to the double doors of Studio 4 and tries both handles. They’re locked.
‘It’s only sensible, I suppose,’ she mutters. ‘What’s in there is worth gazillions. Though I’d love to be able to put all your crap down somewhere. It weighs a tonne.’
She looks at me pointedly, and I reluctantly take back Irina’s damp overcoat and the handbag that could house a medium-sized dog.
‘Oh! I forgot.’ Gia digs the black device out of her back pocket with a free hand. ‘Might as well take it,’ she says, waving it in my face. ‘Tommy’s got his hands full with Orla in Studio 1 — she’s having a meltdown because she’s just found out you’re the opening act and you’ve got one more outfit than she does. Wait till she finds out it’s the fantasy bridal gown at the end of the entire show!’
I take the device she’s waving at me — a phone, I realise — and turn it over. My heart nearly stops when I see a bored-looking young man staring out at me from its screen. I almost drop the phone.
I’d know him anywhere.
It’s Ryan.
10
‘I was wondering when you’d get around to remembering me,’ Ryan says dryly, then his eyes widen as he focuses, really focuses, on my face.
‘Can you see me as clearly as I can see you?’ I say softly, angling my body away from Gia, waving at her to move back down the hall and give me some privacy.
He doesn’t answer; he just stares at me. He’s got an expression on his face like he’s seen a ghost. Which, in a way, I suppose he has.
Ryan’s the spitting image of Luc, save mortal, with dark hair and dark eyes. I’d forgotten, you see, about the resemblance. They could be brothers. It’s uncanny.
Sometimes when I look at Ryan, I feel like I conjured him up out of my lonely subconscious, that he can’t be real. That somehow, because I couldn’t have Luc, I went and created a replacement.
I see movement behind his shoulder and focus on his surroundings. He’s in a room with pale yellow walls and white wainscoting, and behind him is a door that leads out to a hallway. I realise with a jolt that I know that room. I’ve been inside it before. It’s Lela’s bedroom. He’s in Lela’s house.
He’s still half a world away from me, and there are whole continents and oceans between us.
‘Ryan?’ My voice is uncertain. ‘It’s me, Mercy. Say something? Please?’
There’s that flutter of movement behind his shoulder again and I see a white shape enter the bedroom through the doorway behind him.
‘What are you doing?’ It’s a woman’s voice, broad, laconic, the accent so different from Ryan’s. ‘Who are you talking to? Want me to handle it this time?’
I see a face lean in behind his shoulder, loom into the screen, her cheek close beside his, only an inch separating them, and get another shock when I realise that it’s Justine Hennessy.
I’ll always consider Justine a friend and remember her fondly. But I feel a shot of pure jealous rage. I can’t help it. They’re together, in Lela’s house. In Lela’s bedroom.
‘What is she doing there with you?’ I yell into the screen, and my anger seems to galvanise Ryan into a white-hot answering fury.
He shouts, ‘Remember how I watched you die yesterday? Well, she’s helping me bury you, Mercy.’
Justine looks at Ryan with confusion, then squints into the screen. Her eyes widen.
She turns to Ryan and says, ‘Do you have any idea who you’re talking to? Wait here!’ she yells excitedly. ‘Wait here.’ She leaves the room in a flurry of white and bare limbs.
Ryan glares at me. ‘You left her Lela’s house, remember?’ he snarls. ‘It hasn’t been finalised yet, but it was pretty cut and dried thanks to that piece of paper you had Dmitri witness. The police found it when they went through Lela’s bag. The house isn’t a crime scene, so Justine had every reason to return here. And I had nowhere else to go, because you lured me all the way to freakin’ Australia and then left me again. Happy?’
Even though I already know all of this at some deep, subconscious level, it feels better hearing him justify things, hearing his blazing anger. I read subtext better than most people, and the fury in his voice tells me — clearer than words — that there’s zero chance anything’s going on between them, even though Justine’s beautiful in that earthy, hourglass way that guys love. Still, my jealousy is leaving me light-headed; I’m actually struggling to breathe. I lean over the screen, my eyes drinking in every line of Ryan’s face.
‘Don’t die on me again, damn you,’ he says, his voice low and strained. ‘Justine didn’t find me for hours afterwards — hours in which I thought you’d been destroyed, that you were gone for good. That is, if people like you can be destroyed. I still don’t know what you are. You’ve never given me a proper explanation for anything. You owe me.’ There’s devastation and fury in his words, in equal measure.
‘I know,’ I reply softly. ‘I had no way of telling you I’d make it. They shift me in and take me out, and I have no control over any of it. I was gone before Lela was gone. And I found myself here. Looking like this.’
