“What are you talking about?” Gina asks.
Nick grabs Alice’s hand, but she swats it away.
“Do you want to tell us about Zofia Nowak, Bobby?” Alice says, her face growing red.
Gina blinks. Zofia?
“What about Zofia?” Gina asks. She tries to sound defiant, too. But she feels a creeping fear spreading inside her. She continues, slowly, “Zofia was Bobby’s assistant.”
“She was,” Alice says, arching an eyebrow. “She’s also Eva Stone’s cousin.”
Forty-Nine
Malaika
Friday, November 1st
Malaika is on the second floor, sitting at the steps that lead down to the living room, listening in. When her name comes up, she feels unsurprised. She had been expecting this.
My own son filmed you. He and Malaika followed Eva and saw you!
She closes her eyes, allowing herself a moment of self-pity. Alice and Nick know about her role in what is shaping up to be a major family showdown. She is going to be fired. It’s no longer a matter of if, but when. Alice might even report what she’s done back to the agency, in which case she won’t be able to work as an au pair at all. She feels tears coming.
She gets up from the corner of the staircase. Part of her wants to stay so she can report what’s going on back to Calan, but she can’t. Self-preservation—she needs to think of what’s best for herself. She tiptoes back to her room and shuts the door quietly. She picks up her phone and texts Andy.
How much would I make if I were willing to do more?
She feels sick to her stomach when she presses send and even sicker when she sees those three tiny dots dancing on the screen.
Her phone buzzes.
The guy really wants a girl with your look and he likes that you’ve never done this before. Could pay up to 5K for full GFE.
She blinks once, then twice, as if the number on the message is a mirage. Five thousand dollars? Surely, that’s not the case. Andy must have it wrong. But if not…
She should do it. It’s only one night. And it’s her body—she gets to do whatever she wants with it. There is no shame in using her looks for her own economic advantage. It’s no different than using her brain or her fashion sense. Besides, it’s only for one night. One night where she wouldn’t have to do anything she hasn’t done before. A drink or two will help her loosen up—maybe she can even take something stronger. It could be awful, but it might not be. And she’d have enough money to make at least half of her designs.
Malaika closes her eyes for a moment. She can see the brightly lit catwalk. Photographers snapping shots of her creations. Giovanna backstage, beaming. Her mother sitting in the front row, applauding. It’s so real, she can almost touch it.
She opens her eyes and skims her room: her double bed with drawers underneath, the full-length mirror, the built-in light on the nightstand, the one she keeps on when working on her designs. She wonders if she should pack her things. She doesn’t have much, anyway. And what she’ll miss the most are the things she can’t bring with her: Calan, Allegra.
Malaika stares at her phone. Her thumbs move so fast, she doesn’t register the message until after it goes through.
I’m in.
Fifty
Bobby
Friday, November 1st
The affair wouldn’t have started if it weren’t for the company party.
Bobby had been looking forward to the celebration for months. And he was not a celebratory sort of guy. He credited his atypical excitement to the unlikelihood of his success—really, if he was being honest, to the fact that people had expected him to fail. His dad, his brother. Definitely his mother. Even Bobby himself. But he’d done it.
Bobby had turned Alma Boots around.
In late 2015, Bobby had taken over as CEO of a struggling company. No, that was too generous—floundering. Alma Boots’ business model was thought to be viable, solid, but it hadn’t turned a profit for years. Worse, they were losing market share at an alarming rate. There were plenty of reasons for this. Razor-thin margins. Aggressive competition from made-in-China players. Knock-offs that spread with the force of a virus. Even their product’s quality was a factor: the durable nature of Alma Boots’ footwear meant that even their most loyal fans didn’t need to buy replacements for their favorite pairs. All signs pointed to Alma Boots’ eventual demise. It would take years—the company’s fundamentals were solid, after all—but Alma Boots was headed towards bankruptcy.
And Bobby wasn’t going to have it. Not under his watch.
Bobby got to work.
Months later, Nick moved back to town and was made CDO of Alma Boots. At that point, Nick was briefed on the challenges they were up against, but Nick chose not to focus on the negative. (His words. Stupid words.) To his mind, Alma Boots was facing one challenge only: an image problem. Their shoes had fallen out of favor with the younger generations. Older folks still wore them, as did children. But millennials and Gen Z thought of Alma Boots’ footwear much in the same way as they thought of cable television: unaffordable and, for the most part, unappealing. The solution, Nick proposed, was to find a way to make Alma Boots attractive to young people.
Bobby didn’t get it. Bobby also loved cable TV.
But Bobby wasn’t going to waste precious time arguing with his globe-trotting brother.
Bobby was on a mission. A mission to rescue the family business.
He spent long hours at the office poring over financial statements, held tough meetings with department heads, and took countless trips to the drawing board to figure out exactly where to cut costs and where to invest. He downsized. Renegotiated existing supply contracts. Forged new partnerships and terminated popular—but financially unsound—employee benefits. The work was backbreaking and unglamorous. It was in-the-trenches, nitty-gritty, and exhausting. But Bobby had done it all without complaints.
And it had paid off.
Over
