Lipstick Jungle

“I talked to Lyne, and he said the Whitney opening would be perfect,” Ellen said. “I’ll call you a couple of days before then, to confirm.”

“That’s fine,” Victory found herself saying, too weak to object.

She hung up the phone, knowing she’d made a mistake. She hadn’t even had the date yet, but she could already tell that Lyne Bennett was going to be a pain in the ass. Didn’t his assistant have better things to do than arrange his social life?

But that was how rich single men behaved. They turned their female employees into wife substitutes.

She stood up and walked to the long table where she did her drawing. Neatly piled on the right corner were the sketches she’d started for the fall collection. She picked one up and stared at it critically.

The lines seemed to blur in front of her face, and she began to panic. She couldn’t tell if the sketch was good or not. She put it down and picked up another, one of her favorites. She stared at it, shaking her head. She didn’t know. She just didn’t know anymore. This had never happened before. No matter had bad things were, she’d always been able to rely on her taste and her instincts. If they failed her now, she was dead.

“Vic?”

She jumped. Zoe was back in

her office. “It’s that woman again. From Lynn’s office?”

Jesus Christ, she thought. She walked angrily to the phone and picked it up.

“Yes, Ellen?” she said sternly.

“Sorry to bother you,” Ellen said. “But I just talked to Lyne, and he wants to know if Cipriani’s is okay for dinner afterward.”

“I didn’t know we were having dinner,” Victory said.

Ellen lowered her voice. “He doesn’t usually do dinner on a first date, but apparently he’s very interested.”

“Is he?” Victory asked, thinking bitterly that if he was, he was in the minority. But he probably didn’t read the fashion papers.

“If you can’t make it, it’s okay,” Ellen said. “I’ll tell him you already have plans.”

Victory considered for a moment. It probably wouldn’t hurt for her to be seen out with Lyne Bennett right now. It would give people something new to talk about, diverting attention away from her disastrous collection. She hated to be calculating when it came to romance, but there were times when you had to do whatever it took to help your business. Besides, she didn’t have to sleep with the man.

“Tell Lyne I’d be delighted to have dinner with him,” she said.

* * *

“ALL I WANT IS love,” Jenny Cadine said sighing dramatically.

“That and an Oscar,” Wendy said knowingly.

She and Jenny were sitting on couches in the living room area of the loft, drinking white wine and smoking cigarettes. Jenny was like most female movie stars: Publicly, she insisted that she didn’t smoke or drink, but would do both, given the opportunity to do it in secret. Wendy suspected that Jenny probably smoked pot occasionally as well, but she was not one to judge—she and Shane still smoked a few times a year. She frowned and looked at her watch. It was nine-thirty. Where the hell was Shane . . . ?

“If you can’t find love, I don’t know who can,” Wendy added, taking a sip of her wine. This comment was merely conciliatory. Jenny was considered one of the most beautiful women in the world, but hadn’t had a relationship for over three years, which really didn’t surprise Wendy. It wasn’t easy to go out with a movie star. It took a special kind of (sick, Wendy thought) person who actually enjoyed being followed by the paparazzi, and then movie stars were traveling all the time. And every set became like its own intense family unit, with intrigues and drama. There wasn’t really room for a spouse in a movie star’s life, and it was something that most men figured out pretty quickly.

“You’re so lucky you have Shane,” Jenny said.

“Yes. Well . . .” Wendy began. Shane hadn’t come home for dinner, which was totally unlike him, and he hadn’t answered his cell phone. She was beginning to get nervous. She’d left him two messages, but she didn’t want to keep bugging him, because if he was really pissed off about something, it would only make it worse. Shane was still capable of acting like a twenty-five-year-old guy who needed his “space.”

Tyler roared into the room like a freight train. “I’m bored,” he announced.

“You should be in bed, little man,” Wendy said, half scolding. “It’s nine-thirty.”

“No,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, insistently.

“No!” he shouted. God, he was at a difficult age. Magda had been so sweet at six. She grabbed his arm and pulled him toward her, locking her eyes on his. “You’re acting like a jerk in front of Jenny. You don’t want her to think you’re a jerk, do you?”