Rise - Part One (Rise #1)(5)
"I don't think so," I say with a half-shrug. "Gabriel told me last night what a great job I'd done. He said I surpassed his expectations."
"Rowan said the same thing when I talked to her this morning." Ivy grins. "She said that you outdid yourself."
The temptation to ask Ivy to put in a good word for me with her best friend, Rowan Bell, had been hard to resist when I first approached Gabriel Foster about taking on the Liore event. Rowan, Gabriel's sister-in-law, deals with most of the day-to-day business operations of the lingerie division of the Foster's fashion empire so it was plausible that if Ivy mentioned her cousin's company as a contender for handling the management of the fashion show, that I would have had an instant leg up on all the competition.
I specifically asked Ivy not to bring the subject up with Rowan and she had handled that request with grace and understanding. Ivy has worked hard to establish herself as one of the leading jewelry designers in the country. She may have had Jax's help financially when she first opened her store, but since then, her talent has catapulted her hand-sculpted designs into some of the most sought after jewelry pieces. She understands my determination to succeed on my own merit.
"I'm going to meet Gabriel later this week to talk about some future projects." I don't want my voice to give weight to all the excitement I'm feeling over that. I'm not the type to count my blessings before they're firmly entrenched in my hand, but this is promising, and I sense that if I handle myself well in that meeting, that I'll walk away from it with more events to plan.
"You'll do great, Tess, "she says it with the same conviction I can see in her expression. "Remember what I told you about staying focused."
Ivy's another one who unabashedly offers unsolicited guidance. That particular piece of advice is met with more than a little skepticism by me. I know Ivy's history. She met Jax when she was only slightly older than I am now and the tumultuous beginnings of their relationship almost sidelined her entire career. She's a success now, but her path to get there was dotted with a failed engagement to another man, a world of drama with Jax and heartbreaking betrayal by her best friend, Liz, thrown in for good measure.
Luckily for me, my newest, and now closest, friend, Lilly Parker, lives a life that is as boring as it gets. She's a tech wizard which comes in handy when I can't get an app on my smartphone to work. She's also the doting mom of a beautiful daughter, Haven. That means I get baby cuddles whenever I want them and a sympathetic shoulder to cry on when I need it. Her husband, Clive, and I haven't spent enough time together to form a relationship that reaches beyond pleasant greetings when we see each other. I hope in time that will change, but I sense that Lilly needs our friendship to be just a girls' thing as much as I do.
"I'm focused," I counter, not wanting to open up a discussion about what pulled me to Milan so unexpectedly. I hadn't told Ivy about the reason I boarded a flight after giving her less an hour notice that I was leaving the country for four days. She'd thrown so many questions at me on the phone that day that I'd wilted emotionally under the weight of them. I'd made up a believable excuse about needing to end the call so I could connect with some work contacts before I got to the airport and she had reluctantly wished me a safe flight with a promise that I'd call her once I landed in Italy. I had sent her a quick text message as soon as the plane touched the ground but that had been all the correspondence I could manage while I was there.
She's only asked me once, since I've been back, about what happened in Milan. I sidestepped the question because I know with Ivy's hurried life and her unending devotion to her family, that my trip will become a memory not worth mentioning before long. Her mind is filled with too many other things to dwell on something in the past.
"You still need a man."
The words catch me so far off guard that I actually pull my gaze from the wall of shoes to my cousin's face. She can't know how completely wrong that statement is. I had a man that I needed and it blew up in my face. "I don't need a man."
"Is the pilot single?"
The fact that she completely ignored my last statement should irk me but it only makes me smile. She's a romantic at heart which explains her teary eyed stories each time someone comes in to her shop to purchase an engagement ring. She loves love and it's what she wants for everyone she cares for, including me.
I'm on a self-imposed romance break at the moment so Landon's dating status shouldn't matter to me. Hearing her ask about it ignites a spark of curiosity within me that I didn't know was even there. "I have no idea, Ivy. I didn't ask."
"I can find out from Rowan." Her hand dips into oversized purse. "I can text her right now and get her to ask Gabriel."
Discretion isn't Ivy's strong suit. Judging by the signals that Landon was tossing in my direction last night, it's not part of his repertoire either. He was flirting and I didn't respond in kind then. Chasing after details of his life now will only make me look pathetic especially given the fact that he probably heard from Gabriel's mother that I wanted to have my way with him on that airplane. "If I want to find a man to date, I can do it on my own."
Her hand stills within the depths of her purse. "You don't want me to text Rowan to ask?"
"No." I reach forward to run my hand along the length of a black belt hung on a rack by the entrance to the shop. "I'm not interested in him, Ivy. He's not the man for me."