Betrayed(5)

“Maybe we should.” He leaned back with hands clasped behind his head. “I understand Finery & Frocks has a secret weapon.”

“I never listen to rumours.”

“The outfits that drew our attention to you were avant-garde. They were unconventional.”

She shrugged.

“As you’d probably expect, we’ve studied your lines. We picked them at random from different outlets to be sure it was representative. They’re well made, well designed, and have a certain commercial appeal. But I would hardly call them unorthodox. Frankly, I’m puzzled why the original outfits were so different, and why I can’t see them in the stores. What is going on?”

“Most stuff we churn out is what I call bread-and-butter lines. The design is in-house though, not fashion-house copies; you’ll not find them elsewhere.”

“And you’re the designer?”

She nodded. “It’s just they can be produced more cheaply.”

“More cheaply?” He shook his head. “More cheaply than whom? Cheaper than Givenchy, cheaper than Balenciaga. What do you mean by more cheaply?”

“They can be produced more cheaply than Italian Concept.”

“Italian Concept? I’ve not heard the name.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Perhaps you’d like to expand.”

“It’s our top of the range line, probably the outfits you originally saw. Dad isn’t into it. He says it’s uninhibited, and doesn’t want to go down that route.”

“Italian Concept… Catchy name. Tell me more.”

She took a deep breath. “Principally, they’re limited editions; we sell through a specialist outlet in Wilmslow.”

“Wilmslow?”

“It’s on the outskirts of Manchester.”

“So this is the secret weapon?”

“I didn’t call it that.”

“I shall need access to study them.”

She shrugged. “Of course.”

He rubbed his chin. “Let’s be hypothetical and jump into the future. Let’s say we went ahead with a takeover. Knowing what we both know, could you work for Las Modas Ibéricas?”

“Of course.”

“In the true spirit of co-operation, not just grinding away. We expect senior staff to be totally committed, totally self-motivated.”

She glared abrasively. “Señor, I could work no other way.”

He stared her out. When she eventually dropped her eyes, he dug into a file and handed her a portfolio. “How about we talk through these? Our design team have provisionally offered them for next season. I asked for a statement of freshness and purity. Tell me what your impressions are.”

She took them from him.

Rafael leaned back. “I have my ideas, but I want to hear yours. I’d like to hear your comments. Let’s call it a starting point to see how we meld.”

“Meld?”

“I need to understand your thought processes.” He looked down at his copy of the portfolio. “The deal hinges on us working closely together. Do you find it a problem?”

Work together? She said coldly, “Should it be?”

What was she getting into? Kat frigidly picked up the first sketch, fingered it; hoped he wouldn’t notice her discomfort. She would hate to make a mess of it at this early stage. Something would have to be sorted later; meanwhile she had to stay calm.

“If you’re ready, perhaps you’d like to begin?”

In the past she’d been so much in awe of him she hadn’t known what to do. She surreptitiously glanced from beneath her lashes. If he were conscious of the impact he had on her, he hid it well. Katrina hoped he was unaware. Any empathy they may have shared was surely shredded long ago.

He looked up. “And if you’re worried I’ll plagiarize your ideas, don’t be. Your lawyer has made me sign too many documents. You’re well protected.”

She had to push her qualms away. She studied the design, fiddled with the samples of material attached to the page, thought about it, finally, pushed it aside. She cleared her throat. “It’s fresh I suppose, fairly original.”

“I can hear a but.”

“I think the material they’ve chosen is wrong. It needs to look pure and fresh; this stuff will make it prim.”

He leaned forward. “Their intention, I think.”

His closeness disturbed her, reminded her how much she hated the spiteful needs of her body. All her life it had been the same, her brain wanted one thing, her body another.

He studied her curiously and she realised she must have been silent for too long. She shrugged, avoided his eyes, and said, “What’s pure about prim?”

“Tell me more.”

“I’m not saying I don’t like it; it has good lines. I would probably have tackled it differently, but that’s designers for you. We all have our quirks and fancies.”

“And what would you have done instead?” he asked quietly.

“Design or material?”

“Material. We’ve already agreed the lines are okay.”

“Use silk; make it cling.”

“Wouldn’t that be opulent, a suggestion of decadence?”

“No!” She shook her head decisively. “It would give the outfit the purity it deserves. The silk would need to be translucent, and would have to be loosely layered to make it chaste. But using it would turn every movement into a relaxed flow of material. It would bring a suggestion of absolute innocence. Bingo, job done.”

“And the price?”

She raised her brow. “I wasn’t aware you were aiming for the mass market.”

He made a steeple of his fingers and studied her for a few moments. “Okay, so let’s look at the next outfit in the portfolio?”

The designer in her took over. Creativity tumbled into place, ideas sprouted and she began to be engrossed until it dawned on her how much he avoided looking her way. From his inflexible expression, it appeared he was trying as hard as she was, to avoid thinking about the past, about the yearning days.

Jeez! She was thinking about sex with him. What the hell was she doing? Kat squeezed her eyes tight shut, had to wait for her pulse to quiet. In this game there was no room for memories. If this was to work, and it had to work, then the past had to be kept at arms-length.

Rafael looked at his watch then jotted a few notes. He said, “If you’ll wait outside with my secretary, I’ll join you. Questions still need to be answered. This has taken longer than I planned and I need to reschedule a meeting. Maybe we can continue once I’ve seen to it? Ten minutes perhaps, can you give me ten minutes?”

Kat felt a sting of humiliation. He wouldn’t have sent her father away. Her status, her expertise; her years of struggling to get to this far, counted for zilch. She was dismissed as merely James Julian Bligh’s daughter. The fact that it was her, who kept the factory running, meant nothing.

She had no intention of sitting with a secretary. Instead, she made her way out onto the street. Late afternoon traffic headed out of Hanley, toward Etruria and the Festival Park, building up to rush hour. She took a deep breath. That had been one hell of a mess-up. She’d been taken so unawares that she’d fallen into silly little pieces.

She turned to the left and headed past the traffic lights, past a smart Italian restaurant, and meandered toward the town centre. There, she wandered aimlessly around the shops, tried to clear her head but couldn’t, had a coffee in the mall, afterward went out and sat on a low wall.

Meeting Rafael after all this time and under these circumstances had been too much shock and her insides were in turmoil.

Under a statue of Stanley Matthews, a busker played to people who weren’t listening; a hot-potato vendor joked with customers; in the distance a news hawk shouted that the Evening Sentinel was on sale; people hustled, people bustled, things seemed normal, but they weren’t.

“You used to come at lunchtimes when you needed to think things through. Habits die hard I guess.”

Katrina’s head jerked up at the sound of Rafael’s voice. “You…”

“Don’t behave as if you didn’t intend me to be here.”

“Of course I didn’t.”

He sat by her side on the low wall. “My instinct tells me otherwise.”

“Your instinct is wrong.” Her voice flared with embarrassment.

“I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “I’m used to carving a path through bullshit, my job you see…”

“You’re too damn direct, that’s your problem.”

“Perhaps that’s why they call me a director.”

She glared at him. “Did you just make a joke?”

“So, I suppose you thought coming out here might provoke me into taking a quick decision.”