The Stylist (33 page)

London, five months later

T
he windows were hot this afternoon. I knew I should have got in earlier to finish tweaking, before the sun peaked over the top of the buildings opposite and shone down, bouncing off metal and glass to heat up the window space like a greenhouse. We were enjoying a boiling-hot early July. I peeled off my cardigan.
At least dummies can’t sweat.
I smiled, as I remembered how celebrities and their ratty publicists complained constantly about conditions—the rain, the cold, the temperature of their water.

The looks were coming together well; I was pleased. As I stood back to admire my handiwork, I thought how lucky I was to have scooped a job I loved so much: Selfridges Window Designer. It’s
been three months and I’m still not tired of the sound of it. Finally, a job without the word ‘assistant’ in the title, a job to make my mum proud.
I was now in the fortuitous position of being able to pay not only half of the
rent for the flat I once shared with Vicky, but for a cleaner, too. Since she moved out two months ago, Trey Jones had continued paying her half of the rent, so they had a London ‘bolt hole’ and I had continued living there alone, though I was still entertaining the idea of getting a kitten.
God, I miss Vicky.
Nostalgia hit me for a moment as I remembered the crazy times we had shared together as flatmates. Since she moved to LA to make a go of it with Trey, our weekly Skype chats weren’t quite the same. I greatly admired her spontaneity, though. She was always one to follow her heart.

I surveyed the mannequins again. My job situation could have been so much worse. Imagine if I’d stuck with Mona? I’d probably be in a rehab centre somewhere near Phoenix right about now, having treatment for my nervous breakdown. I laughed to myself—then I thought of her for a few moments.
I hope she’s okay. I hope she’s happy.
It’s amazing what some distance can do. The last I’d seen of Mona was just last week, in the pages of a glossy magazine, appearing in a world exclusive photo album of Beau Belle and Jason Slater’s wedding, bride and groom deliriously happy, their newborn daughter Rainbeau Slater cradled in Beau’s arms on the cover. I had pored over the glossy thirty-page feature and spotted Mona standing on her tiptoes in ankle-breakers, her head arched to catch the camera, desperate to be seen, towards the back of a number of stellar line-ups, and later hitting the dance floor with a man half her age. It meant that Beau had been over four months pregnant at the time she was supposed to be marrying Trey in Hawaii.
What a mess.

A knock at the window made me turn around. It happens sometimes; kids think it’s funny to knock on the window and run off. Sometimes Japanese tourists or fashion students
do it and snap my photo, before sending it into cyber space. Everyone loves the Selfridges windows—they’re a destination in their own right. But this time, when I turned around, there was nobody there. I continued pinning an exquisite embroidered Prada dress to one of the dummies. I’d been working on the ‘La Dolce Vita’ creative for weeks: full-on fantastical Italian glamour set amongst the attractions of Rome, with models licking polystyrene ice-cream, reclining decadently against the Spanish Steps, power-dressed in Moschino, Armani and Versace, and wearing huge Prada sunglasses. In the next window, the Trevi Fountain flowed with a cascade of jewels from Gucci and Cavalli, while dummies dressed to kill in Fendi and Dolce & Gabbana trailed their fingers in the gold. It was all in celebration of Milan Fashion Week, of course. You can’t be outrageous enough—the windows have to grab attention, even at a glance from the number 10 bus. It was such a buzz seeing it all come together—the creative director was going to be pleased.

The noise came again, this time lower on the glass. I spun back round, faster, and caught a glimpse of—
no, it can’t be. Maybe I drank more white plonk than I thought last night?
A bad date and a bottle of appalling wine to get through it. But then it appeared again: a little pink pig trotted over and came to a halt in front of the window. It was wearing a smart brown leather harness, not a silly leather biker jacket like the miniature ones Beau Belle used to dress poor Pinky up in. I looked closer—that wet nose, tiny curly tail, brown patches around one eye and in the middle of his back.
It can’t be, surely?
The pig made a grunting noise—whoever was holding the end of its lead was out of sight, beyond my line of vision. I watched it trot away from the window once more. Perhaps the Dolce & Gabbana I’d been pinning earlier
today had put Beau into my mind—the label still reminded me of her.
Perhaps she’s in town?
I knuckled my eyes. I’m
losing the plot, my imagination’s running away with me.
But within seconds, there it was again. I crouched down.
It is, it’s Pinky!

I dropped to my knees and touched the window. The pig’s snout brushed it on the other side, leaving a wet mark on the freshly cleaned glass.
Pinky!
I touched the window again and the little pig nuzzled it, against my hand. My heart sped up as I tried to fathom what this meant. Beau hadn’t been photographed with her once-beloved pet at all in the past six months, and now Vicky was all loved-up with Trey, I knew he didn’t have the micro-pig, so who did that leave? Not Mona, she hated the creature—unless she’d had a personality transplant?
How bizarre—I was only just thinking of her.
A familiar panicky sensation began to wash over me, starting in my stomach and slowly spreading upwards.
Mona’s come back to haunt me; she’s prepping for London Fashion Week and she’s coming to get me!
I was tempted to hide out the back until nightfall. Mona meant drama—no question.

Then Pinky’s lead began to shorten and a shadow fell on the pavement—suddenly the person holding the lead was there, right in front of the window, smiling at me. He waved. My stomach lurched.
Oh my God. Rob.
Three pins fell from my fingers, and I heard them land.

‘Hi,’ he mouthed. ‘Surprise!’ He bent down and scooped up Pinky into his arms, holding his right trotter and making it wave.
The only thing cuter than a man holding a baby or a puppy is a man holding a miniature pig, believe me.
I couldn’t help but beam.

I stood there for a few seconds, feeling paralysed. He
looked just as I remembered him: floppy hair, open face, green eyes, gorgeous, warm smile. I suddenly felt as conspicuous as the half-naked mannequin standing next to me. My breath felt short. My cheeks reddened. I hadn’t dared to imagine it might be Rob out there.
Damn him for still having this effect on me.

Rob wasn’t moving, he mouthed: ‘Pinky wants to see you!’

I froze.
What do I do with my limbs?

He beckoned to me, and mouthed again: ‘Come on!’

I couldn’t believe it was Rob. It’d been months since I last saw him, at Kona Airport, following the disastrous wedding where he’d tried to kiss me in a pile of chocolate cake. At least I think that’s what happened. I’d played that day over so many times in my mind, it had all got a bit hazy. I cringed. He must have known I fancied him. What a car crash I’d been, chasing a taken man. He’s probably married now, with a baby.

Maybe I shouldn’t go. I’m busy. Anyway, it’s not fair of him to put me on the spot like this.
I feared his rejection all over again, before it even happened, trying to pull me back and suck me under. I didn’t want to go through that again. I’d done a really good job of getting him out of my system these past six months, dating lots, although I was still hunting for the One. I momentarily considered borrowing a ring from the window display and pretending I was engaged.
It would be so much easier if I had a fiancé to rave about.
But here I was—the same, single, Amber Green.

I looked back out of the window. By now, a few people had gathered around to admire the pig—Pinky always was an attention-stealer. Rob bent down so a little girl could pat the pig’s soft pink belly.

How did Pinky end up with Rob? I was only joking when I’d mentioned adopting him. Has Rob actually gone through with it?

I pulled myself together. I had questions that needed answering; he owed me that, at least.
Think of him like an old work colleague, Amber—that’s all he ever really was.
I put my cardie back on and ducked out of the window, grabbing my bag and coat from the cupboard next door. When I emerged through the shop doors, Jas from Smith’s was standing on the pavement, too, and so was Big Al. Even Kiki was out there, along with a small crowd of shoppers, rubbernecking, wondering what all the fuss was about. After Kiki had recovered from the Miss P debacle and I’d told her the full story about what a nightmare boss Mona turned out to be over a lot of wine one evening, we’d wound up as friends again. She had even tried to set me up on a date with a mate of her current boyfriend. I eyed them all suspiciously.
Why is everyone staring at me?

‘What are you all doing here?’ I asked Big Al.

‘We just fancied a bit of air,’ he teased, nudging Jas.

‘A certain pig popped into Smith’s earlier, looking for you,’ Jas explained, indicating Rob and Pinky.

‘You’d better go and see what he wants,’ added Kiki, wearing a leopard faux-fur gilet, despite the temperature. ‘We’ve only put up the “Back in Five Minutes” sign and I’m starving.’
Well, that was a first.

For a couple of seconds Rob and I stood opposite each other in the street, just looking, before he pulled me close into a big bear hug, Pinky’s warm body squashed between us. That smell: clean washing powder, aftershave with notes of cedar—plus a light whiff of pig. It all came flooding back. Rob was looking me straight in the eye, I mean
really
looking, like he had never seen anything so intriguing before. And then we both smiled at the same time, a big, proper, cheesy grin like a focused ray of light.
Aargh, so corny!
But neither of us could help it.

Then it was as if the world and all the people around us suddenly stopped what they were doing and were quiet and calm.

‘You’re very beautiful, you know, Amber Green.’ He used his free hand to move a strand of hair from my eyes and tucked it behind my ear. I looked away, suddenly embarrassed.
Stop looking, people! Carry on shopping!

‘Don’t be embarrassed—it’s true.’ When I peeked back to check, he was still doing the looking thing.

There were a trillion things I wanted to say. I had a sick-making flashback to the beautiful, glimmering diamond ring he had shown me just around the corner from here. It hurt then, and it still hurt now.

‘I took the ring back,’ he said, reading my mind. ‘It wasn’t the right fit.’

I looked perplexed. ‘Oh, I don’t mean size,’ he qualified. ‘I mean the person.’

I swallowed hard. ‘So you’re not married?’

‘No, and I’m not a dad, either. Turned out to be a false alarm, thank goodness.’ He glanced down at the little face between us, and Pinky’s small, dark eyes looked back, innocently. ‘I became a miniature pig’s dad, instead.’

‘You seriously adopted Pinky?’

‘It takes forever to bring a pig from America, believe me.’ He smiled, stooping momentarily to place Pinky on the ground, his lead wound tightly around one hand.

‘Well, you always had a good rapport with him,’ I teased. ‘But why are you here, Rob?’

‘I had to get some things straight. And then it wasn’t hard to find you,’ he replied, looking over to Jas and the Smith’s crew. ‘I had some help. And I’ve never wanted to kiss anyone more than I want to kiss you right now.’

Everything went into a sort of candyfloss mist as his free hand gently held my face and we smiled into each other’s lips, melting into one another, right there, in the middle of Oxford Street. A delicious calm washed straight through me, from the back of my eyelids to the tips of my toes, as we shared the best kiss I had ever known; it was the most natural thing in the world.

A cheer went up from the assembled onlookers and when we came up for air we were still beaming. If I wasn’t mistaken, Big Al wiped a tear from his eye. Even Kiki was smiling broadly. A bigger crowd had gathered by now, but all I cared about was him.

‘You’re not a bad kisser, Mr Walker,’ I said.

‘Not bad? I’ll have to improve on that.’ He tenderly brushed my cheek with his thumb—then his hand dropped and instinctively found mine, our fingers lacing together tightly. As Pinky lay down at our feet for an impromptu snooze, my heart swelled with happiness.

ISBN: 9781489214416

TITLE: THE STYLIST

First Australian Publication 2016

Copyright © 2016 Rosie Nixon

All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises (Australia) Pty Ltd, Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia 2000.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

® and ™ are trademarks owned by Harlequin Enterprises Limited or its corporate affiliates and used by others under licence. Trademarks marked with an ® are registered in Australia and in other countries. Contact [email protected] for details.

www.harlequinbooks.com.au