He chuckles. “It’s not too sweet. I had lifted a few other items. Things for me, a thong for this girl I was dating. Anyway, the guy offered for me to work off the items in their stock room. I agreed, and we sort of became close.” He glances over at me. “That guy was eventually promoted, to a high enough level that—when college didn’t work out for me—he had the pull to offer me a job.”
I stay quiet, trying to piece together the picture of a young Trey Marks, one who sounds like a street thug … with the polished man who sits beside me.
He shifts in the expensive seat, a bit of his cologne drifting over and teasing my senses. “You know Vicka Neece?”
Vicka Neece … the name is familiar, but takes a moment to place. “Sure. The Creative Director for Victoria’s Secret.” Maybe the rumor mill had it wrong. I lean forward.
“We used to work together at Bloomingdale’s. There was a bit of a connection there.”
A connection. I don’t have to look up Vicka Neece to imagine what she looks like. Victoria’s Secret doesn’t hire ugly women. She and Trey probably just looked at each other and orgasmed. I wrestle out a peanut M&M with a little more aggression than is necessary. “And?” I say brightly, and it doesn’t sound fake at all.
“And then my father died,” he says flatly, and I suddenly regret my mockery.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly.
“He didn’t have much to his name, but he had taken out a five-million-dollar policy three months prior to his death. A bunch of Italians came after me for part of that. Vicka Neece was interested in the rest. She pitched me on opening a lingerie brand.” He shrugs. “It wasn’t that hard to talk me into. I was twenty-six. I was stupid.”
His father. Something in my chest, a clog that hates the idea of Trey and an older woman, clears. “How were you stupid? You made it into a real player. I mean, right now we’re struggling, but—”
“I don’t regret opening the company. I regret losing Vicka. We were successful when she was here, when she was in control. And we sailed on her vision for the first few years after she left. But then, everything started to fall to shit.” He glances at me. “I don’t have to tell you that you are the sixth Creative Director we’ve had in five years.”
No, he didn’t have to tell me that. I had all of their files in the cabinet in my office. I had reviewed all of their work, all of their visions. Vicka Neece hadn’t had a file in that stack. Whatever her history with Trey, it had been erased before I got there.
“Did you ever try to get her back?” It’s almost a waste of a question, her job at VS putting her on the top rung of every fashion hierarchy. If I ever got that job, I’d be there until I died, or until I was forcibly carried out.
“No.” He rubs his neck. “We had opened the company as friends. A few months in, we started fucking.”
The words are so rough that I wince. “Just fucking?”
“I don’t know. It got so that I couldn’t tell the company from her, or our relationship from sex. I got jealous, she got jealous. We started fucking less and fighting more. And then she was gone. Packed up her office in the middle of the night and moved back to New York.”
“Do you still talk to her?”
“Fashion’s a small world. We see each other sometimes, but not much is said. I’m pissed at her for leaving; she’s pissed at me and I’m not even sure why. If you ask her now about Marks Lingerie, she won’t even admit that she worked here.”
Ouch. I take another M&M, this one gentler in its retrieval.
“Truth be told…” he glances over at me. “I’m glad you are engaged. It makes everything easier.”
I crunch down on the chocolate-covered candy and my jaw pops in response. My mind tries to process that statement, but draws a blank.
chapter 6
Him
I have grossly underestimated this woman. I stare down at the current sketch, a dark bustier with leather and lace accents. I flip the page and see the exact same cut, same style, but pale pink and white, with delicate cording instead of leather, and petite diamonds instead of silver studs. It’s a naughty and nice collection, two separate lines that will battle each other on store racks, the naughty collection a bit dominating in colors and trimmings, the nice designs almost virginal. It isn’t a new concept, but the brilliance is in the actual designs. “Our team designed these?”
“Yes.” She reaches forward, and I brush her hand away.
“Just let me look for a moment.” It’s too big of an undertaking. I flip through a stack of designs and try to count them. In four months, she’s orchestrated forty, maybe fifty, designs? “How many of these have been actually produced and fitted?”
“Fourteen.”
A more bearable number, but still. I think of production costs, of inventory levels. If it sells, if it sells well … a new set of problems. Cash flow. Production levels. I feel a knot of anxiety grip my chest.
“It’s good.” She sounds irritated, and I look up to see her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “I know it’s a different style than your last few years, but—”