Free A Dress to Die For by Christine DeMaio-Rice Page A

hand on the box. “You’re right. I’ll get you a scarf.”
    He’d pulled the box back toward himself, and she couldn’t help it. Her hand darted out and landed on his.
    “I already have a scarf,” she said, weaving her fingers in his and slipping the box away. She had it in front of her, like an appetizer. She smiled so hard her face hurt because she was just human after all. She fumbled with the white bow, slid off the top, and opened the velvety box. Inside sparkled a pair of diamond earrings. “Oh.”
    “Yes?”
    “I’m supposed to tell you it’s too early in our relationship for these, and you should take them back.”
    “Okay.”
    “But I want them.”
    His laughter snapped the tautness of the air like a rubber band. She dug the earrings out of the little slits in the cushion. Jeremy reached forward and helped her get them in her ears, and when he leaned back to look at her, he seemed to approve. She’d touched them all night, making sure they were still there, loving their weight and hardness, feeling a little lighter in the chest, a little more birthday wearing them. They were silly and impractical, and they made her feel loved and secure.
    Though the concerns about the speed of their intimacy were the same when he tossed her his keys, the businesslike attitude that accompanied the key toss differentiated the two.
    He looked up from his work. “It’ll be easier for you to handle everything if you’re close by. Half your wardrobe’s there anyway.” He leaned back in his chair. “Do what you want. If you can handle the traveling, handle it. But you have the option.”
    She clicked the keys together, feeling them scrape against each other. Yes, he had the right idea. She pulled her bunch of key chains from her bag, a bunch that seemed to get bigger every month. She slipped his keys on next to hers, using a different ring than the pink rabbit’s foot tchotchke she’d gotten from some swag bag. “I read that they’re putting the saffron gown back up today. Dressed for Infamy is complete again.”
    “Can I tell you a secret?”
    “Another one? Please do.”
    “It looks fake as hell to me.”
    She wasn’t surprised that Jeremy could see through a fake. For one, he’d spent years counterfeiting his own clothes, but second, he had an incredibly sharp eye. What surprised her was that Bernard Nestor didn’t see it. Or he said he didn’t see it and was either protecting his reputation, his source, or the people who had stolen the real one.
    **
    Laura spent the rest of the day helping half the company prep for their trip. Desks were cleared, decisions made, and comments sent to China in anticipation of corrected garments being ready in time for more corrections and approvals. She felt as if she were on a stationary bike, sweating her way to nowhere. But at seven-thirty, most of the team, including Ruby, packed themselves and their gear into a limo and left for JFK. She and Jeremy took a cab.
    “You’ll call me if you get overwhelmed?” he asked as the car’s tires clip-clipped over each bump on the Brooklyn Bridge.
    “I will. Do you have all your meds?”
    “More than enough. We have shipments due at Long Beach. Customs is going to be inspecting everything because they’re our first really big units from Asia. Fortieth Street needs watching. I didn’t realize how much they’d slipped.”
    He hadn’t been to the factory regularly for years because the particles and dust aggravated his cystic fibrosis. He’d needed a mask to be there more than a few hours. One of the first things she had done when she became his partner was to bring in a team to clean every corner and surface. Hinges clotted with old wool fibers were replaced. Machines were cleaned and lubed. Light fixtures with bugs in the glass were swapped for new. The vents were retrofitted, and a professional protocol was put into place to keep the building spotless. So he could go to 40th Street and be as bossy as he wanted, for as