Indiscretions - Elizabeth Adler [11]
PARIS
Amadeo Vitrazzi was only fifteen minutes late. Not bad for an Italian, thought Paris, pouring Scotch for her guest and Campari and soda for herself. She stole a glance at him from under her lashes as she arranged the glasses on the black lacquer Japanese tray. Amadeo was leaning against the massive center support beam of her attic studio, gazing around him with an amused smile on his lips. He was an attractive man, smoothly sun bronzed from a summer at his villa in St. Tropez, smoothly spoken and smoothly dark haired, with sharp greenish eyes that were missing nothing as he examined her combined home and workplace. How old? Paris wondered. It was hard to say; he was slender, but it wasn’t the slenderness of youth, more the well-worked-out fitness of a man concerned with his appearance. Maybe forty, maybe forty-five, decided Paris, giving him the benefit of that smile again as she walked toward him with the drinks.
“Scotch with ice and soda, signore.”
Amadeo Vitrazzi’s glance was appreciative. He enjoyed pretty women and this one was exceptionally pretty … not exactly his type, though. He preferred them a little rounder, with lusher curves, more fullness to the bosom, like Gina when he’d married her. Gina had been perfection then, a ripe, almost plump, young Italian girl, but that was twenty-five years ago. Gina was more than plump after five children, and now there was a grandchild on the way. Their first. Amadeo was forty-eight and nervously aware that that was awfully close to fifty. His smile to Paris was intimate as he reached for the glass she offered. It felt good to be with a young woman like this; even if she were a little too lean for his taste, that sexy smiling mouth could do things to a man.
“I like your home, Paris. It has charm.” He leaned back against the black wooden beam and glanced again around the room. White walls, black beams, a crisscross of exposed pipes lacquered a startling emerald green. Nothing of any value in the room—except the old sleigh bed. “A nice piece, that.” He gestured toward it with his glass.
Paris shrugged. “My sister’s choice. She knows about these things. I only know about fashion.”
Their eyes met, hers deeply blue, intense, and slightly wary. She licked her lips and Amadeo caught the hint of nervousness. He was surprised. What could Jenny Haven’s daughter have to be nervous about?
The black Italian lamp that curved across the drawing table left the rest of the work area in shade, and automatically his attention was drawn to the sketches that littered its surface.
“Would you like to see my designs now?” Paris’s hand lay lightly on his arm and he smiled again into her eyes.
“Why not, cara? Let’s see what you’re up to.” His tone was indulgent, and Paris quickly led the way across the bare wooden floor to her table. This was her true world, the place of her hopes and her dreams, of her flights of imagination and inspiration, her fantasies of fashion and concepts of style. And her driving ambition. Paris knew she had talent. She knew her capacity for solid hard work. She believed in herself infinitely. All she needed now was someone else to believe in her as much as she believed in herself.
Amadeo was aware of her light breath on his cheek as together they leaned over the table while she placed the sketches in front of him. They were clever, there was no doubt about it. And original—sometimes too much so. His expert eye calculated the retail possibilities of such a line … risky but exciting. “You might get the smart, younger boutiques to take some of these. Those on the Place des Victoires, for instance, or one or two in Les Halles. You should make up samples and take them round, cara. I’m sure they’ll be pleased to try them.”
Paris’s deep, dark blue eyes widened in horror. “Oh, but it’s a couture line. I must do the whole collection. Don’t you see, Amadeo, it all goes together, the colors, the fabrics, the entire feeling.”
Amadeo flung back his head and laughed. “You want to start at the top, then, Paris Haven?”