Haute Couture and Death by Patti Larsen

Author:Patti Larsen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Patti Larsen Books

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Chapter Seventeen

Vivian was in high spirits when I arrived at her apartment, smiling and offering me champagne she cracked open the moment I landed. I hated the taste, always had, so took one polite sip before using the baby as an excuse (and rightly so).

“Of course, what was I thinking?” She took my glass from me and downed it herself before laughing. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

Okay, I had been cutting her a lot of slack because of her situation, but that attitude and up and down look while she gave me the icy Vivian eye of disapproval and judgment was just about as much as I was willing to take. Especially considering I really didn’t want to go to this party in the first place and was now in the deep throes of poor me and heck no and what was wrong with me.

Before I could crack a rather nasty snark, however, Vivian grabbed my arm and dragged me toward her bedroom, leading me past her large four-poster king-sized bed over her lush, white carpet to the double doors of her closet.

I say closet, but I mean warehouse of endless designer pieces and shoes and boots and displayed jewelry worthy of the most devoted of clothes horses. Not to mention the full-length mirrors, two angled inward to give a more-or-less complete view of oneself while standing in their domain, the idea of which made me shudder. I didn’t exactly have body issues or anything. I was fairly fit, tall and was graced with good genes. But still, that kind of exposure would intimidate the most self-confident woman in the world.

Vivian didn’t seem to notice, her robed self sorting through some of her endless selection, all color-coded and pristine. “You really love clothes,” I said, not meaning to sound sarcastic, but knowing it came out that way.

She turned and winked at me with an airy laugh. “It’s my thing,” she said, spinning away to continue her hunt. “Yours is murder, mine is fashion. Ah!” She grabbed a dress from the bunch, sliding it out and holding it up in front of her, the deep green fabric almost glowing with the barest sheen of gold as though the cloth had been embossed. The deeply plunging V-neck ended in a wrap-around wide tie at the waist, the A-line of the skirt looking like it would hit past my knees. “What do you think?”

It was gorgeous, I had to admit it, and the bare minimum effort I’d made of black dress pants and a cream blouse wasn’t going to cut it in comparison. “Let’s try it,” I said, surprised to find I was actually into it.

I let Vivian do all the work, her expert hands adjusting the lay of the fabric after I wriggled into the dress, the elaborate tie at the side she created accenting my still-narrow waist, her fingers settling the neckline, so it bordered on scandalous while still looking classy. When she was done and stepped away, I smiled at my reflection in those mirrors of horror, realizing I had nothing to be afraid of.

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