She felt like a bum walking into the Ritz next to him, in his perfectly cut suit. She was wearing leggings, running shoes, a sweatshirt, and a raincoat, and for once she didn’t even have high heels in her bag. And she hadn’t even bothered to brush her hair at five A.M. She’d just jammed it into a clip, drunk a cup of Jean-Louis’s coffee, and run out the door. And now she looked a total mess.
She was impressed to see that Alessandro di Giorgio had an enormous suite on the Vendôme side of the Hotel Ritz. He was using it to see private clients, and without hesitating, he opened the lock on the briefcase and took out a dozen pieces of breathtaking jewelry in diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. The pieces were even bigger and more impressive than what she had planned to use from the other jeweler, and it meant that there would be more di Giorgio pieces in the spread, but at this point she had no choice, and it was the most beautiful work she had ever seen.
“Do I dare ask who your client is for pieces like this?” She was fascinated. They were huge.
“The wife of an emir,” he said discreetly, but didn’t say which one. “Will this help you out?”
“Oh my God, this is a miracle,” she said, looking at him with amazement.
“Take whatever you like, whatever you need. I’ll make my excuses to the emir’s wife.” And this was good publicity for him too. He was well known in the States but much more so in Europe. He was the third generation of jewelers under his name. His grandfather had started the business, and his father was still alive and involved. Alessandro was thirty-eight and had been designing for his father for fifteen years. Liz had researched them carefully for the story and liked the fact that many of their pieces were unique and one of a kind, and that their work was so respected in Europe. They had stores in Rome, London, and Milan but none in Paris. He saw clients there himself, and it was just sheer luck that he was there today.
Liz picked four of the biggest pieces, and Alessandro nodded as she chose. He could see the direction she was going, and the look she wanted, and he suggested a fifth piece that he thought could work too. She agreed with him and added it to the others. He packed her choices in boxes and assigned one of his guards to go back to the set with her, and ten minutes after they had walked into the hotel, they walked out again, with Liz carrying an innocuous Ritz shopping bag with everything she needed in it and even an extra piece. She stood looking up at him when they got back to the set and didn’t know what to say. He had saved her ass, but saying that to a man as well-bred and polished as he was would have been rude. He was extremely polite.
“You really saved my life.” She almost cried as she said it, and he smiled. “I’ll get everything back to you tonight, or tomorrow at the latest.”
“Take your time,” he said calmly. “I’m here for three days. We have a number of clients to see in Paris.”
“Do you ever come to New York?” she asked him. She really felt she owed him something for his generous help.
“Not very often. We do most of our business in Europe. But I come once in a while. I like New York very much.” He looked younger when he talked to her. He was so serious and well dressed that at first she had thought he was much older. But she remembered now that he was only ten years older than she was.
“Well, the next time you come to New York, I owe you lunch, or dinner, my first born, something.”
“I was happy to help you. I hope your shoot goes well, Miss Marshall,” he said formally.
“It will now, thanks to you.” She beamed at him, and he had no problem looking past the unbrushed hair and the work clothes to see that she was a beautiful girl.
“Arrivederci,” he said, and then walked away and got into a chauffeur-driven Mercedes with the single armed guard, leaving the other guard with her since she had some of his most important pieces now.
And half an hour later they got back to work. Her spirits were buoyed, knowing she had what she needed, and the photographer was excited when he saw the pieces. They were much more beautiful than the ones they had been promised by the other jeweler.
At six o’clock they were still working when Jean-Louis dropped by. Liz was looking tense, still shaken by the calamities of the morning, but it was going well.
“Almost done?” he whispered as he came up behind her, and she turned with a start and then smiled.
“About another hour.” She was frozen to the bone but didn’t care. The weather had been awful, but the shoot had been great.
“What did you do about the jewelry you didn’t get?”
“An angel fell out of the sky, carrying a briefcase, and gave me even better stuff.” She grinned at him, still in awe of her good luck.
“What does that mean?” Jean-Louis looked baffled, and he knew what a genius Liz was at problem solving, but that was too much for even her to pull off.
“Just what I said. One of the jewelers we used happened to be in Paris, and walked by. He was taking a briefcase full of incredible pieces to a big Arab client and gave me five of them for the shoot. It’s the best jewelry I’ve ever seen, better than what we had. And bigger.”
“You’re a magician,” he said, giving her a hug, “and you lead a charmed life.” She definitely felt blessed that day. “I’m meeting a friend at the Ritz for a drink,” he told her. “Come in when you’re finished, and we’ll go home.” He disappeared then into the Ritz, and Lizzie went back to work.
As it turned out, it was another two hours before she was finished, and they had shot all the di Giorgio pieces. She returned them to the armed guard who’d been with her all afternoon and wrote a hasty note to Alessandro di Giorgio, thanking him again. She promised to send him tear sheets of the shoot. And then she met Jean-Louis in the bar. He was happily drinking Kir Royale with an old friend. They had gone to school together, and he looked as disreputable and unkempt as Jean-Louis. They almost looked like twins. Jean-Louis explained that he was an artist and had a studio in Montmartre that once belonged to Toulouse-Lautrec. And she had to admit to herself that for once she looked as disheveled as they did. She couldn’t wait to go home, get warm, and take a long hot bath.
They got back to his place at ten o’clock, and Lizzie had to be up at five again for the second day of the shoot. They were using the Place de la Concorde as their location this time, and the Arc de Triomphe the following day. She had a heavy week. Jean-Louis had the following day off and was planning to spend it with friends.
As Liz sank into the tub and closed her eyes, she thought back over the shots they had done, the jewelry they’d used, the models and their clothes. As she ran the film of the day through her head, she was satisfied with the work. And she was still thinking about it, and already worrying about the next day, as she fell asleep in Jean-Louis’s bed. He glanced over at her and smiled as he turned off the light. He had never known anyone who worked as hard as Liz, and he certainly didn’t want that for himself. Few people did.
Annie’s first days back to work after the holidays weren’t much smoother than Liz’s. It seemed like there was chaos at all her construction sites, her most important contractor had quit, and there were delays on all her projects. After the first of the year, all hell had broken loose. She was so stressed that she didn’t have time to stop for lunch all week. It was Thursday afternoon when she got back to her office at a decent hour. She had some plans she needed to change, and she wanted to get her files in order. And she had dozens of calls to return and e-mails to answer. She asked her assistant for a cup of black coffee and got to work. She decided to open the mail on her desk first. The second letter she opened was from Kate’s school, and she suddenly panicked, thinking she had forgotten to pay her tuition. Her accountant usually handled it, but the check could have gotten lost in the mail. Instead, her heart stopped when she saw what the letter said. It confirmed the fact that Kate had dropped out of school for a semester. And Annie’s week had been so stressful so far that she was furious the minute she read it. What the hell was Kate doing? Annie forgot everything else she had to do as she dialed Katie’s cell phone in a fury.