An Heiress to Remember (The Gilded Age Girls Club #3) - Maya Rodale Page 0,64
be an easy sell and it’s not. And I reckon this ought to have been your first clue.”
Connor pointed to something in the newspaper he pulled out of his jacket pocket—a large advertisement for something called a “fashion demonstration.” At Goodwin’s. At two o’clock. Seating was limited and first come, first served which meant especially motived fashion-forward customers would have spent all day in Goodwin’s.
They could pass the time in that damned reading room. Have a nice luncheon and tea service in the ladies-only restaurant. Freshen up in the ladies retiring room. All before gathering on the fifth floor for a fashion demonstration, whatever the hell that was.
“Wait, it gets worse,” Connor said.
“I don’t want to hear about worse.”
“Of course you do. It’s cohosted by the House of Adeline.”
Dalton issued a swear word. The House of Adeline was the favorite of the fashion-forward women in the city. Something about dresses with pockets. He had approached her about a line of dresses for his store, but failed to close a deal with her, and so he hired someone else to design exclusively for his store—indeed there was an entire floor full of seamstresses sewing pockets into shirtwaists on the top floor, and forgot all about it.
“And there’s even more bad news.”
“Splendid.”
“There aren’t just advertisements but articles about the new spring trends and ready-made styles.”
“Why are you reading the ladies section of the newspaper?”
“I think the better question is why you aren’t. Seems like maybe you should have. Then you might have known that floral patterns were the new anticipated style for spring. And you would know that only Goodwin’s is giving an exclusive, live preview to the new ready-made styles designed by The House of Adeline, just in for spring.”
Dalton stood very still, considering.
“Florals for spring. Groundbreaking. And Miss Black had previously refused a deal with us, but she’s apparently struck one with Beatrice. It’s almost enough to make one think it’s all one giant conspiracy.”
“I know women talk among themselves but do you really think they organized all this just to spite you? The newspaper articles, advertisements, the fashion demonstration, the clashing style for spring . . . all just to best you?”
Yes, he did. Which was madness. There couldn’t possibly be some secret lady cabal, manipulating the current fashions just to vex him. But if there was, Beatrice, devious and organized, would certainly be at the center of it.
He meant that as a compliment.
Connor continued. “If it is a conspiracy against you—and that’s a big if—they would have had to know about the silk well in advance. How could any of them have known?” Connor asked, sounding a little confounded. He pushed his fingers through his hair.
Unfortunately, Dalton had an answer to that question.
“I gave it to her,” he admitted grimly.
“You gave it to her.”
“Yes.”
“You gave our exclusive product to her.”
“Yes.”
“To our chief competitor.”
“I did. As a gift.”
“May I inquire as to WHY and also what the hell were you thinking?” Connor was suddenly spitting mad. “Do you need to be driven off to a sanitarium like Edward? You gave our primary competitor our exclusive new product in advance of launch? What happened to your plans for revenge?”
Dalton had been thinking that it would look gorgeous against her skin. He was thinking the shade was a perfect match for her spirit: vibrant, passionate, powerful and sweet all the same. He was thinking as a man who wanted to please his lover, not a competitor who ought to keep secrets from his rivals.
Dalton had been thinking more and more about Beatrice and less and less about revenge, his firmly held ambition for over a decade. It was a fire that went out without his anger to stoke it and . . . he wasn’t angry. He was falling in love with her all over again. And when he let the love in, the anger faded. When the anger faded, he could see more clearly: his ambition to reign over retail in Manhattan was really just to impress her.
And yet this thing between them seemed to position them forever at odds.
Dalton did not want to be at odds with her.
If he was being honest in the quiet privacy of his innermost thoughts, he’d only ever wanted to love her and live with her.
This admission was something of a problem, as he’d spent the past sixteen years organizing his life around ruining the woman he really wanted to love . . . to make her love him?