Rather than discussing that moral conundrum, they trade pleasantries, such as “How did you sleep?” and “It’s going to be a hot one.” It is a delicate dance of a conversation through which Dario doesn’t want to divulge too much for fear of upset or judgment.
After a while, Michelle pulls a sketchbook, not dissimilar to Charlie’s, out of a bag. She flips past hundreds of designs for gowns. Faceless women wear various corsets and veils. Some have long trains and others show a lot of leg. They whirl by in blurs of peach and pewter and eggshell until she stops on a page with the barest bones of what appears to be a wedding dress on a not-so-faceless figure. This individual is Michelle, and the hint she’s giving is unsubtle.
“That is astounding,” he says. Because despite how obvious she’s being, her designs are some of the most beautiful wedding gowns he’s ever seen, and he’s seena lotof them. Many of the operas his mother has starred in featured big wedding scenes. Even the work of top costume designers couldn’t compare to the work in Michelle’s book.
The illustrated Michelle on the page wears a jumpsuit with a train. The neckline plunges deep with an impeccably tailored waist from the back of which a tulle train fans out and flows to the floor. There are notes in the margins about velvet fabric and fuchsia accents.
“Thanks.” She smiles. “Ow.” Her still-healing sunburn crisps up a little more with her furious blush.
“I’ll try not to make you smile anymore today,” Dario says.
“That is impossible,” says Michelle with a laugh that rolls into a snort. She blushes harder. She ows louder. It is all painfully—pun intended—adorable!
Dario stands and comes around the table to claim the seat beside Michelle. “May I see more? How long have you been doing this?” he asks when she slides the book toward him, whichfeels like her first act of true vulnerability with him. He leisurely pages through.
“Since I was a girl. My mother was a seamstress, and her mother before her. My mother jokes I learned to sew before I learned to write properly. C’est probablement vrai.” Another laugh-snort combo comes out.
“Did they design clothes as well?” he asks.
“Non.” She shakes her head and some of her auburn hair falls out of her loose bun. “This was my, um, how do you say, secret?”
“You kept all of this to yourself?” Dario asks, disbelieving. Her pencil strokes are confident and create sensuous motion on the page. They are a far cry from the person Michelle presents herself to be. Perhaps on the page she releases her inhibitions.
She bites the end of her pencil, then says, “I came from a poor village and an even poorer family. Dreams like designing were not entertained. The seamstress business was good, steady work. I was told to stick to what I was good at.”
Dario stops on a dramatic design in a classical style with lace latticework up the clavicle. “You are very good at this.”
“I am working to be better,” she says. Her midnight blue eyes flitter over the page. A crinkle appears between her plucked brows. Her pencil taps the table as if itching to get back to it. “I am a bit of a slow crafter. I blame my upbringing. I would steal fabric scraps of dresses we’d hemmed and hand-sew them together late at night in my room trying to create something lovely.”
Her methodology reminds him of how he’s trying to utilize more of the cocoa fruit in his chocolate production. They have similar business minds.
“Surely you had sewing machines at your disposal,” Dario says.
“They were old and loud. I did not want to wake my parents. I couldn’t have them know. I submitted one of those scrap dressesto design school. That along with my story got me in and some financial assistance. I am still a long way from making any of this my career.” She knocks her knuckle against the side of her sturdy book.
Dario’s heart goes out to her, and her story mule-kicks some much-needed perspective into his head. All he has to do is marry someone to reap his life’s purpose, while Michelle and Charlie could use a financial boost to reach their potential. Sure, he doesn’t want the only reason someone marries him to be his money, but he’s not naive enough to believe it won’t be part of it. What good is wealth if it can’t be usedforgood? Maybe Michelle would go on to design costumes for operas and join April Cotogna on the road. It would be an interesting melding of worlds.
“How much longer do you have?” he asks.
“One more year of school and then I am on my own. Then I will have to make this work…somehow,” she says. He flips back to the work-in-progress page. A vision of her walking down the wedding aisle toward him in this striking number loops through his imagination. Any man would be lucky to entertain that fantasy.
But his stomach does not flip. Nor does his heart flutter. No curlicue emotions tower high in his throat.
Could those feelings come with time?
Time is in such short supply.
Monday is two days away. Thirty-two—his inheritance deadline—is fast approaching. So too is Charlie Moore, out from the villa, fresh and clean. All red cheeks and blue hair. An American dream in a six-foot-two frame.
Except he had vanished like a ghost come first light.
“Good morning,” Charlie says. He appears to clock Dario’s closeness to Michelle. Dario squirms beneath the scrutiny. Aclap of jealousy seems to cross Charlie’s features, so Dario shifts a bit. But not too much, so as to not offend Michelle.
Charlie asks, “What are we looking at?”
“Oh, nothing,” Michelle says, slamming her book shut.
“Michelle’s wedding dress designs,” Dario says at the same time, unaware these were secret.
