The Affair - Danielle Steel Page 0,27
her bland, upbeat pieces. She was not out to set the world on fire. She had volunteered and Rose had agreed to let her do it. Charity was now sure Rose must have been relieved by that. “Jesus, life is complicated sometimes, isn’t it?”
Charity was forty years old, divorced, and felt like she had to fight to stay on top every day. She loved the dog-eat-dog world of fashion, but underneath it, she wasn’t out to hurt anyone, just to get the best shoots she could into the magazine and build her reputation. She was looking forward to working with Pascale. It was going to be a lot more interesting and exciting than styling the First Lady, who was almost seventy years old.
Betty brought the Advil and Charity kept the bottle on her desk. She had a lot to think about. It was daunting to realize that even with something as benign as fashion, people could get hurt. She was suddenly glad the final decision to put Pascale on the cover and run an interview with her hadn’t been hers.
* * *
—
There were stacks of fabric samples in bright colors and sketches piled high on Venetia’s desk, as she dug through the piles frantically, looking for something. She had her mane of red hair pulled up helter-skelter in clips and three pencils stuck through it. She gave a victorious shout when she found what she was looking for. It was a sketch of a sexy black see-through dress for their resort collection. She went running down the hall with it to their head designer, and showed her where she had gone off course from the original design, while the designer explained to her that the fabric hadn’t responded the way they expected, and didn’t drape the way they thought it would. The way the dress fell was the whole genius of it, and they sat together for almost half an hour, playing with the fabric and altering Venetia’s design subtly until it worked.
“You are a master,” the young designer said admiringly.
“No, believe me, I’ve made plenty of mistakes. As long as we make them pre-production, we’re fine.” She squinted then, and suggested a dusting of tiny black beads and sequins, just enough to make the dress shimmer, which was Venetia’s genius. She knew just what to add and where for a surprising effect. It made every one of her evening gowns feel like a party when women put them on, and her daywear was just plain fun. Venetia was wearing jeans with a sexy red sweater and leopard platform shoes when she ran back down the hall to her office. She wore high heels to work every day, just as she always had. Nothing had changed about the way she dressed when she turned forty, or now at forty-one. She dressed like a twenty-year-old, and had the energy and figure for it. She insisted that her designs weren’t for young women, they were for everyone, and she knew that there were grandmothers who wore them, and young girls if they could afford them.
She took her hair out of the clips, and let it cascade down her back. She was wearing no makeup and didn’t need any, but her perfume was a mysterious warm aroma that she’d had made specially for her in Paris by Serge Lutens. Everything about Venetia was special, appealing, and sensual, and she worked harder than anyone in her company. Her friends and co-workers knew how much she loved her three kids and husband. She wished she could spend more time with them, she was constantly dashing to some school event, and then came back to the office to work until midnight or one a.m. Her husband, Ben, was used to it. He wanted more time with her, but knew how much her work meant to her, and he respected her enormous talent. The business model he had designed for her was working brilliantly. Her brand, Venetia Wade, was a dazzling success and sound as a bell, as her mother said.
Venetia’s cellphone rang as soon as she got back to her desk, and she saw at a glance that it was her sister in Paris. She wondered why Nadia was calling, and hoped that some new horrifying story about Nicolas hadn’t surfaced. She knew that Nadia had been through the wringer for the past month, and Venetia couldn’t imagine how she was getting through it. She and Ben had never had problems, but she