“Yeah, sometimes it is.” He jingled change in his pockets. “Still, she’s a real piece of work.”
No damn kidding. “Is this your first in-person dealing with her royal highness?”
“Yep. No, wait. She came out into the garden at your sister’s wedding.” His forehead creased. “Hmm. Anders wasn’t at the wedding.”
She shook her head. “He’d said he was going out of town.” Anya had done the happy dance when she received his regrets for the RSVP.
“So Anders might have an alibi.” Tony paced the width of the store’s display window, his jaw clenched.
“There was the e-mailed threat, but nothing ended up happening at the wedding.”
He regarded her. “Really? Tell me how you found Daniel.”
“On his knees.” A familiar humiliation slapped her cheeks.
“Not that part. How did you happen to stumble upon him?”
“I was looking for the bathroom and—” Her heart dropped to the sewer tunnels buried beneath the sidewalk. “Kevin, Anders’s assistant, gave me directions. Which ended up sending me down the wrong hallway.”
“How convenient.” Tony stopped at her side and his warm hand grasped hers. “From what you’ve said and my intel on him, Anders doesn’t strike me as having the tech skills to accomplish this on his own. We need to find out who he’s working with. Get your game face on, sweetheart. We’re going in.”
Chapter Fifteen
“You have to give the little divas something.”
—Christian Siriano
If Tony had any doubts about Anders Bloom’s douchebaggery, taking three steps inside his high-priced boutique would have extinguished them. The man had four-feet-tall Andy Warhol–style photos of himself all over the store. A close-up hung over the cash register, manned by a pink-haired clerk whose eyes rounded when she spotted Sylvie. A full-body shot of Anders took up the dressing room door that opened for a Hitchcock blond trying on a dress from the designer’s latest collection. A framed profile as tall as a hockey net covered the wall behind a display of shoes. The price tag of a single pair probably equaled Tony’s monthly mortgage.
He hadn’t felt so out of place since he’d accidentally walked into his middle school’s women’s restroom in seventh grade. Seeing Mrs. Ricci adjusting her bra had done all sorts of things to improve his ability to stay awake during her algebra class…if not his final grade.
/> “Well, well, well. If it isn’t the High-Heeled Wonderbitch herself.” Anders glared down at them, leaning against the rail of a balcony-like landing at the top of a staircase going to the second-floor offices. The designer had a bird’s-eye view of the store from his lofty position and had probably spotted them as soon as they walked in.
To her credit, Sylvie didn’t immediately flip him off, which was pretty much the response Tony expected after her slash-and-burn conversation with Worthington. He nudged her with an elbow, praying she’d take the hint and keep it friendly. They needed to get into Anders’s office. Not that he expected the designer to tell them anything useful. No, the reason he needed up there was a listening device burning a half-inch-square hole in his pocket.
“Looks like you forgot your tacky High-Heeled Wonder boots, Sylvie girl.” Anders’s smug tone grated. “Judging by your past comments about my designs, I don’t think you’ll find anything here to replace them.”
Sylvie slanted Tony a glance and picked up a metallic silver pair of display shoes emblazoned with a magenta-hued image of Anders on the toe. “Finally, something we agree on.”
Tony’s toes began to itch. He needed to take control of this interview before the whole thing went sideways. “Mr. Bloom, we’d like to have a moment of your time, if we could?”
“Aren’t you a polite one? Does your new boy toy play for my team, too, Sylvie?” He delivered the dig without sparing her a glance. “Because he is downright yummy and I’m always in the mood for bear.”
Sylvie stiffened.
Shit. “Invite us up and you can ask me yourself,” Tony said quickly, before she lost it.
Anders’s booming laugh drowned out the ear-bleedingly-bad dance music coming from the store’s speakers. “Marvin, bring them up. I do love a man with a little fire.” His lips flattened. “And I do mean a little.”
With a bitchy little shrug, Anders pivoted off the landing and disappeared through a set of French doors.
Two side-by-side kaleidoscope images of Anders on a nearby wall split to reveal the interior of a stark-white elevator. A man dressed in a black suit stood in the back corner. Marvin, no doubt. He had the width of a linebacker and the height of an NBA all-star. Anders obviously spent some coin on his personal bodyguard. The only people who did that were paranoids and those with a long list of devoted enemies. Which category applied to Anders?
Tony floated the idea of letting Sylvie know about the wireless transmitter in his pocket, but some things were best left on a need-to-know basis. Between this and the origins of the first e-mails to the High-Heeled Wonder, there were a lot of things she didn’t know. Not yet. And he didn’t want to think about her reaction when she discovered the truth.
He and Sylvie crossed the elevator threshold and the doors swooshed shut. Ten seconds later they walked into Anders’s studio. The space was smaller than Tony had expected. Two long tables dominated the room, one of which was stacked high with bright fabrics and several clear plastic bins filled with buttons and zippers. The rev of a sewing machine hummed away at the opposite side of the room. Clothing hung on racks next to a closed door.
Marvin nodded toward it. “He’s in his office. Follow me.”