Page 87 of Be With Me
Fabi hummed as I scrolled through their latest collection of cocktail dresses.
I’d ordered one of them for a client just last night. I'd spent all day yesterday catching up on my styling work, which wasn’t exactly rest, but it was close enough. It was a lot less stressful than giving speech, after speech,after speech.
My remaining roster of ten clients seemed stable for now. And to my surprise, after the dinner at The Golden Circle, I did actually get an email from Romolo’s cousin about the newsletter.
He’d kept his word.
Two weeks after the election, once my obligations had ended, I’d be sent out to their mailing list.
The timing couldn’t be more perfect.
I paused on the next dress. “What about this?” I pointed to a sculpted white gown. It was cinched tight at the waist before flowing into a dramatic floor-length skirt with a thigh-high slit. The neckline—an architectural masterpiece—featured a structured, asymmetrical cut. One shoulder was left bare, while the other was adorned with a folded satin detail.
“Whoa,” Fabi breathed.
“Exactly.”
“You always do this,” she whispered. “Make me rethink everything until I’m obsessed with your choice.”
“And I do it for free. Aren’t you so lucky to have me as a friend?”
She elbowed me. “Hey, I’m convinced one of the reasons why you’re so good at this is because I gave you free rein to edit my closet all through boarding school. That was valuable experience.”
“True. You, Zo, and Nina were always game to wear the crazy looks I’d pieced together,” I said with a laugh, setting my laptop down on the coffee table.
Fabi picked up her mug and sighed. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? I feel terrible that you’re helping me pick out my outfit and you won’t even be at the wedding.”
I shrugged. “It is what it is.”
Did it suck that I’d miss my best friend getting married? Yeah, it sure did. But there was a silver lining. I wouldn’t have to spend the evening trying to avoid Romolo.
I was making progress on the whole forgetting him thing, I supposed. Not nearly as much as I would have liked. I still found myself daydreaming about him, wondering where he was and what he was doing. Wondering if he still thought about me. Probably not. I was sure he’d moved on. There wasn’t even anything real to move onfrom.Just an unexpected, unwanted, and utterly inappropriate spark of wild attraction between two people who weredefinitelynot meant to be.
I'd buried myself in work in the weeks that had followed our goodbye.
As easy as it would have been to blame Jenny for the certifiable insanity that was my schedule, it wasn’t all her fault.
I could have pushed back on some of the things she wanted me to do. But I didn’t. I said yes to it all with a smile, losing myself in a whirlwind of campaign events and client meetings where I bent over backward to meet everyone’s expectations.
Until it had caught up to me.
Fabi sipped on her tea, still looking crestfallen about the wedding.
“Hey.” I reached out and squeezed her knee. “You’ll have a great time. Nina and Zo will be there, and you know they’ve got your back. There’s no point in being upset about something we can’t change.”
She sighed. “I know. You’re right. I just wish…”
“That my dad wasn’t trying to put your future father-in-law in jail?” I asked.
She winced. “Yeah.”
My phone rang. It was a client.
“I’ve got to take this,” I said to Fabi, getting to my feet. Eliza wasn’t the type of client to call just to chat. She was one of the biggest influencers in fashion right now, with a brand that had skyrocketed in the past few years. If she was calling, something was up.
“Hey, Mia. You’re not going to believe what just happened.”
I leaned against the kitchen island, which was only a few steps away from the sofa in my tiny East Village apartment. “Is everything okay with the dress?”
