Free Project: Runaway Heiress by Heidi Betts Page A

and come up with a plausible reason for her presence here in Los Angeles.
    “The three of us are, um...taking a little time off from designing, working to establish the store and brand as they are now. So while Zoe and Juliet are running things back home, I decided to come out here and intern with Ashdown Abbey for a while.”
    That sounded okay, didn’t it? She very pointedly didn’t mention that she was working as the big kahuna’s assistant. And she hoped Bella didn’t find out, because then she would have to explain why she was going by a different name and pray they never ran into one another while Nigel was around.
    “Cool,” Bella replied, apparently accepting Lily’s explanation at face value.
    “How about you?” Lily asked, eager to turn the younger woman’s attention away from her and on to something, anything else.
    “Oh, I’m, um...” Bella stammered, glancing down at the toes of her pointy, leopard-print shoes before returning her gaze to Lily, but not quite meeting her eyes. “I’m an associate designer for the company,” she said finally. “I’ve been here for almost three years now.”
    “That’s wonderful,” Lily told her, meaning it. She didn’t know Bella well, wasn’t even sure how long she and Zoe had been friends, but she’d never heard her sister speak a bad word about her, and she seemed perfectly nice.
    “You’re working on the latest collection, then?” she asked, nodding her head to indicate all of the fourth-floor workrooms.
    Bella gave a jerky nod, her gaze skating away again for the briefest of moments. “I don’t really have much to do with it. I’m just sort of a cog in the wheel, doing a little here and a little there. Whatever needs to be done.”
    “Hey, you have to start somewhere,” Lily said with a pleasant smile, knowing the truth of that better than anyone. “I’m sure it will be great. All of Ashdown Abbey’s designs are exceptional. You should be proud to be a part of it.”
    That was true, too, even if it pained her to say so. Especially since she was still smarting from their use of her great designs for their California Collection.
    She thought about trying to wheedle information from Bella—about the California Collection, or Nigel, or maybe just Ashdown Abbey itself. It was possible she knew something important without even being aware of it. But after blurting out her real identity when she was supposed to be undercover, she was afraid of coming across as too curious and giving herself away even further, so she kept her mouth shut. She could always come back later to pick Bella’s brain if she needed to.
    It also crossed her mind that—being a friend of Zoe’s and having been in their studio in the past—Bella might have had something to do with the theft of her designs. She didn’t want to believe that a friend of her sister’s—especially one who’d roomed with Zoe for four years straight—would do such a thing, but made a mental note to look into it anyway. At least cursorily, just in case.
    “Do you know where Mr. Franklin is?” she asked instead of beginning an impromptu interrogation right there in the hallway.
    Bella glanced back over her shoulder. “Um...he should be here somewhere. Try workroom B. He’s been working pretty closely with that team this week.”
    “Great, thank you.”
    “Do you want me to take you?” Bella offered, finally making eye contact.
    “No, thanks. I can find it, and I’m sure you have work to do,” Lily said. “It was nice to see you, though. I’ll tell Zoe you said hi.”
    After saying their goodbyes, Bella headed in one direction while Lily retraced her path toward the elevator. She went more slowly this time, figuring she had a valid excuse for poking her head into each room to see who was there and what was going on. So what if workroom B was one of the last rooms she’d pass?
    She caught glimpses of the color palette and fabrics that were being used for this particular collection, as