Page 2 of Under Her Protection

"You should be proud."

"I am. I would also sell her to a pirate."

Isabella laughed, low, genuine. "I have offered. I will take her off your hands. She can model for the spring campaign and be home by eleven."

"Your campaigns end at eleven, Isabella?"

"They end when I say they end."

The ease of it was the part Vivienne allowed herself to enjoy. In her working hours she spoke in sentences that were negotiations; here, for an hour, she could speak without mapping the reply three moves ahead. The women in this room required nothing of her that she did not want to give. That was the contract. That was why the Circle existed.

Outside this room she was a balance sheet in a coat. In here, for an hour, she was not.

Isabella was one of the handful of people who knew what her real laugh sounded like. Helena was close. Sienna, tonight, reminded her that she had missed Sienna's laugh. That was as much as she ever said about any of it, even to herself.

Her Armagnac touched her tongue, caramel and fire, and her shoulders dropped by a quarter inch. She had come here to drop them. She had known she needed to.

"Tell me," Helena said, "how was Milan?”

"A waste."

"Of?"

"Of a twenty-seven-hour trip. Bellini is not going to sign."

Isabella made a small shocked sound. "He told me last week that he was signing."

"He told me last week that he was signing. I am telling you he is not."

"Since when?"

"Since a lunch he took with someone in my absence. I do not yet know whom."

Helena's glass paused on its way to her mouth. "You will find out."

"Yes," Vivienne said. "I will."

She kept her voice low, and the word carried the gravity of an account closing. In this room no one asked for details; in this room one said I will and the rest of the women in the room accepted the I will as a completed action. It was one of the reasons she came here. It was restful to be taken seriously without effort.

The drapery parted, and Sienna Castillo swept in, all motion. Sun-kissed even in November, dark hair loose, her jacket still on because she had clearly come straight from somewhere else. She dropped into the armchair opposite Vivienne, stretched her legs, and groaned.

"The players are animals," she announced. "I love them. I also hate them."

"Which one this time?" Isabella asked.

"I will not say. If I say his name in this room, I have to think about him, and I am trying not to think about him for forty-five minutes."

"Forty-five?"

"I am a realist."

Sienna's eyes landed on Vivienne and brightened. "Strauss. Tell me you have not been in your office since six a.m."

"I will not tell you that."

"You are a monster. Your skin is too good for the life you live."

Vivienne allowed herself a small, real smile. One of her rings clicked against the crystal as she set it down.