Free Always the Designer, Never the Bride by Sandra D. Bricker Page A

plate of cookies and extended it toward Kat. "Try one of these. Emma's a genius."
    Kat took one and moaned at first taste. With a full mouth, she told Emma, " Theesh are yummm."
    "How many of them can I safely eat without puking or something?" Audrey asked.
    "You may have passed that limit a couple of cookies ago," Fee stated.
    "Then I'd better stop," she said, and she took another bite.
    "Hey," Sherilyn interjected, and she timidly pointed at Kat before tapping her own throat. "Kat, I love the necklace."
    A single strand of floating pearls, with a dangling rhinestone heart. One of Kat's originals.
    "Thanks," Kat replied without revealing that she'd designed it herself.
    "It's really beautiful," Sherilyn said, approaching for a closer look. "So dainty, but really eye-catching."
    Audrey waited, but Kat didn't confess. So she did it for her.
    "Kat dabbles in jewelry design. That's one of hers."
    "You made this?"
    Kat nodded, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. "Yeah."
    "It's stunning! You should really get these on the market. Have you ever—"
    "It's just something I mess around with. I've taken a few classes."
    Sherilyn looked at Audrey, her blue eyes wide and one eyebrow arched. "Right?"
    "I know," Audrey answered. "It's beautiful."
    Kat plunked down on the stool beside Audrey and bumped her shoulder. "Really? You hate New York?"
    "Everything about it."
    "Everything?"
    "Well," Audrey corrected. "Not everything. I like you. And I love the pizza at Maggio's."
    "That's it?"
    She thought it over for a moment and nodded. "Yeah. That's it."
    "I guess this is stating the obvious, but what are you doing there then?" Fee asked.
    "I'm a designer. It's New York."
    "Oh. I guess there's that."
    "The good news is I'm about to be an ex-designer. So the world is my oyster," she announced. "I can live under any bridge in any city I choose."
    Emma tilted her head to Audrey's shoulder. "You can always come back to Atlanta, right?"
    "Why?" she asked seriously. "Are you hiring?"
    The kitchen door swung open, and an elf of a woman poked her head inside. "Emma, you need to come next door."
    "Hey, Pearl. Come on in and meet Audrey and Kat. They're—"
    "Good to meet you," the woman interrupted. "But really, you want to come next door now."
    "What's going on?" Emma asked as she hopped off the stool.
    "Your aunt is here."
    "She is?"
    "And she's just wandered into Anton's kitchen."
    "Ohh!" Emma's face cemented over with sheer panic as she hurried out the door behind Pearl.
    "C'mon," Fee said with a nod of her head. "She may need reinforcements."
    Kat and Audrey exchanged glances before they followed the line of women around the corner and through the identical swinging door beside the one leading to Emma's kitchen.
    "Aunt Soph, what are you doing in here?" Emma asked, gingerly taking the hand of an elegant woman in a light blue party dress draped with a large white apron.
    "Oh, Emma Rae. Have you met Anton?" she asked, reaching for the wooden spoon Emma removed from her hand.
    The short man in a matching apron huffed as he snatched the spoon and began to stir the steaming pot on the stove.
    "Yes, I have," Emma said, nodding with animation directed at the the man. "Anton Morelli, meet Audrey Regan and Kat Ivanov. They're dress designers."
    Morelli looked Audrey over like a pork chop he considered breading, and he muttered something indecipherable before moving on to Kat.
    "Good to mee—," Audrey began, but he cut her off, midword.
    "Ivanov," he repeated, focusing on Kat with slightly narrowed eyes.
    "Yes."
    "Russki."
    "Um, yes."
    The man glanced at Pearl, his waif of a sous chef, then back at Kat. He rubbed his bulbous nose with a balled fist as he asked her something in another language.
    Everyone in the room turned toward Kat curiously.
    "Oh, my father's family is from Chechnya."
    "Da," he muttered, nodding. Then he tried out her first name as if simultaneously spitting a lint ball from his tongue. "Kat."
    "Katarina," she replied, and a smile