“Is it authentic?”
“Does it... What does that mean?”
“I’m not judging you, Rachel, I’m observing.”
Her phone started buzzing against the hard marble tile and she grabbed it, looking at the screen with no small amount of dread. Because she hadn’t talked to Ajax at all since his wedding with Leah and she hadn’t talked to Leah on the phone. Or her father. And she didn’t know if she could handle any of them.
Fortunately the caller ID showed that it was Alana. Alana, who she was prepared to deal with at least. They’d talked a little bit during the week, and while she hadn’t broken the pregnancy news, her friend had guessed that Alex was the reason for the wedding no-show and had been nothing but supportive.
“I have to take this. In an authentic manner.” She hit the green button on the screen. “Hi. What?”
Alana was talking so fast that Rachel could hardly decode what she was saying. “A huge order. Like...huge, and I can’t fulfill it if I can’t buy the materials—I’m only getting half paid up front. And you’re not even going to believe this! A pipe burst in the shop upstairs and flooded me completely. I have ruined inventory, things that I can’t just replace and my insurance thinks her insurance is responsible and vice versa and it’s just absolute madness!”
“What can I do?”
“There’s the obvious but I hesitate to ask.”
“Well, since I’m part owner in the business, it makes sense that I help, especially since— What is this huge order?”
“It’s costume stuff, which I don’t love to do, but I’d get a film credit. It’s for a really big French film and—”
“Say no more. I’m coming over. We’ll get it all worked out.”
“You don’t have to come if you’re still deep in issues with your mystery man.”
Rachel looked up at Alex. “Let me worry about that.” She hung up. “I have to go to Cannes.”
“What?”
“My friend Alana has a boutique there. Technically, I have a boutique there. I own most of it. But I’m a silent business partner, as it were.”
“How is it I didn’t know that?”
“No one knows that,” she said. “Not even Ajax. And yes, I felt a little guilty about it, but I believe in her skills as a designer and I wanted to support her. So I set her up with a boutique. And we’ve been turning a decent profit the past few years. She’s having a crisis now, though—burst pipe upstairs—and we have damaged clothes. So I need to go and see what all happened, and try to help her get everything put back together.”
“That’s easy,” he said. “Throw money at it.”
“What? Like just pay someone to go and fix it all?”
“Why not?”
“I have a budget. What? I do. I have a trust, yes, but I have to live off of it. And I just stopped living in the apartment my father paid for. And I’ve just burned some bridges, so all things considered, I should throw a mop at it, not money. It needs to get done quickly because she has a chance to pick up a major client, but not if she’s underwater. So to speak.”