Trust Daisy to make friends, instead of picking out designer outfits. As they left Bandia, going outside to where the SUV waited, Leonidas helped Daisy—now wearing her new white coat—into the back seat, as Jenkins tucked the carefully wrapped red ball gown into the trunk.
Daisy’s pink lips lifted mischievously. “I’m sorry I didn’t love all the clothes.”
“It’s fine.” But he felt irritated. If not Bandia, surely one of his other luxury brands would make her appreciate his multibillion-dollar global conglomerate! He turned to Jenkins. “Take us to Astrara.”
But even the dazzling delights of the famous three-story boutique, as enormous as a luxury department store, seemed to leave her cold. Daisy made friends with the salesgirls, and marveled at the cost of the clothes, which she proclaimed were also “weird looking” and “scratchy.”
After that, he took Daisy to a luxury beauty and skin-care boutique, which seemed to bore her. “I like the stuff from the drugstore,” she informed him.
Finally, in desperation, he took them to a famous perfumery on Fifth Avenue, Loyavault.
As she walked through the aisles of luxury perfume, she seemed dazzled by the lovely colors and bright boxes and lush scents. She bent her head to smell one perfume in a pink bottle, and her green eyes lit up with a bright smile.
“Wow,” she whispered.
Leonidas felt the same, just looking at her.
He took the bottle from her hand. “Floral, roses and white jasmine, with an earthy note of amber.” They stood close, so close, almost touching. “I’ll have them wrap it up for you.”
She bit her lip. “I shouldn’t.”
“I missed your birthday,” he said quietly. “Won’t you let me get you a present?”
She exhaled, then slowly nodded.
“But after this, we’re done shopping.”
Giving in to the inevitable, he sighed.
Daisy wasn’t impressed by luxury. Or his company. Or him. It hurt his pride, a little. In each store, Daisy had been treated as if she were the queen of England, visiting from Buckingham Palace. Each time, she blushed with confusion, but was soon chatting with the staff on a first-name basis. And before long, the employees seemed to forget the powerful Liontari CEO was even there.
The salesgirls treasured Daisy for herself. He wasn’t the only one to see Daisy’s bright warmth. She shone like a star.
What a corporate wife she would make!
“Shall we go for lunch?” he asked as they left Loyavault. Outside, the March sun had come out, and the air was blue and bright, as the spring snow started to melt like it had never existed. She looked at him with a skeptical eye.
“Let me guess. Some elegant Midtown restaurant, French and fancy?”
He hastily rethought his restaurant choice.
“There’s a place just a block away. It’s French, but not fancy. Strictly speaking, it’s not precisely French, but Breton. Crepes.”
“You mean like pancakes? Yum.”
Thus encouraged, he said, “Shall we walk? Or ride?”
“Walk.”
They strolled the long city block to the small hole-in-the-wall establishment, tucked into a side street, where it had existed for fifty years. He led her into the wood-paneled restaurant, rustic as a Breton farmhouse, with a crackling wood-burning fire.
Unlike the more elegant restaurants, no one knew Leonidas here. He’d been here only once before, when he’d visited the city on a weekend from Princeton. They had to wait for a table.
But Daisy didn’t seem to mind. She took his arm as they waited together in the tight reception space, and all of Leonidas’s ideas of trying to bribe someone for an earlier table flew out the window.
Soon, a wizened host with a white beard led them to a tiny table for two near the fire. He didn’t give them menus.
“You want the full?” the elderly man asked in an accented, raspy voice.