“This is the chance of a lifetime, Allie.”
“Uh-huh.”
“How’d you like to spend a week in the Adirondacks on Lake George? Or two weeks?”
“Your family’s summer house?” She’d heard about the place and had seen a few pictures—beautiful house, beautiful lake. The temptation was immediate, even as she was formulating her no-thank-you speech. Leave hot, smelly New York in July for a luxury oasis? For a wonderfully cool, breezy, relaxing week...or two? It would be impractical, irresponsible, and serve as needless encouragement for the Great Horned Predator, but who wouldn’t be tempted?
“Yes, our cottage in the woods.”
Allie snorted. If that enormous place was a cottage, she was the queen of planet earth. “So, Erik, we’re talking a week up there, just the two of us?”
Julie shook her head emphatically no.
“Oh. Well... Wait, I haven’t gotten to the best part.”
“I’m listening.” She was a little afraid of the best part.
“My grandmother and great-grandmother were total fashionistas and they never threw anything away. The attic is full of their clothes. In mint condition.”
Allie came to full attention. Antique clothes. Her passion. “Really.”
“Here’s the best part. Mom wants to get rid of them before we sell the house.”
“You’re selling that place?”
“Yeah.” His voice thickened. “Since Mom and Dad moved to Germany they can’t get back here often enough to make it worthwhile. I’ve been after my brother to buy it with me, but so far no good. I’d buy it myself, but it’s too much for one person to keep up. And they’re right, the house deserves to be used and lived in.”
“Erik, that’s terrible.” She knew how much he loved the place.
“It is. But back to the clothes. There are at least four trunks. You’ll get first rights to everything.”
“I’ll— Everything?” Allie stood there, blinking at Julie’s curious stare. Erik’s grandmother and great-grandmother would mean clothes from the 1920s and ’40s. This could be an amazing collection. It could be fashion nirvana. “Wow. That sounds incredible. But, Erik...it’ll just be you and me up there?”
Julie waggled her finger urgently, no, no, no.
“Allie, Allie, Allie. You still don’t trust me?”
“Nuh-uh,” she said pleasantly, her heart still pounding at the thought of all those clothes. Would she sell her body for this chance?
Umm...not quite.
“I’m not going to try anything. I swear.” He was trying very hard to sound sincere. Or maybe he was sincere. It was frustratingly hard to tell with Erik. “I figured you’d want first shot at the clothes. Plus, you being in a tough spot and all, I thought the break would be nice, too.”
“I don’t know...”
Julie drew her finger across her neck. Cut!
“Yeah, so, anyway.” Erik cleared his throat. “It won’t be just me there.”
Allie narrowed her eyes. “Now you’re telling me this?”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
She waited. Nothing. “So...who else will be there?”
Julie frowned skeptically.
“My brother, Jonas. And his girlfriend.”
Hmm. Allie narrowed her eyes, ignoring the jump in her pulse at the mention of his brother, the hottest man in the Northeast if not the universe. “Are you making this up?”
“No, I’m not making this up. What makes you think I’m making this up?”
“The way you never hesitate to make things up.”
“I’ll prove it to you. I’ll have Jonas email you saying he’s going. That okay?”
“I’m not even sure I’m going.”
“How could you not go? A whole attic full of clothes, Allie, yours for the taking. Gowns and hats and shoes and I don’t know, they probably even kept underwear. How can you pass this up?”
She didn’t think she could. Not only would the break do her good, but somewhere in this treasure trove of history, there might be the seeds of a new business or career. All her life she’d been obsessed with clothes of the past, watched old movies obsessively, worshipped Edith Head, who’d costumed the greatest stars from the golden age of cinema—the 1920s to the 1960s. When Allie was a little girl, she’d designed outfits for her dolls on her mom’s old sewing machine, and started designing her own clothes in high school.
Reality hit her when she graduated from college. She needed a stable, well-paying career, because unlike Erik, she couldn’t count on her family for support or inheritance. Three of her five brothers had gone to community colleges to learn trades, but Allie had wanted more from the minute she was old enough to understand the difference between the haves and have-nots. Which, not coincidentally, was when her father had met La Richesse Bitchesse and left them to live on the Upper East Side. He’d moved into a fabulous full-floor condo with his new wife and her two snotty kids, while his real family had moved to Kensington in Brooklyn. All seven of them had crammed into a three-bedroom apartment located in a borderline neighborhood at best. Mom had started drinking in earnest then.
A few times a year they visited their father in his luxury digs, and were sneered at by his new children and ignored by his wife, Betsy. Allie had vowed that someday she’d live well enough to get back at him for what he’d done to them. And that she’d never make the same mistake her mother had, and depend on a man for her livelihood. Nor would she make the same mistake her father had, and go crawling after money she hadn’t earned.
“I’ll pick you up on Friday after work.”
“Erik...”
“Jonas will be emailing you as soon as I can get in touch with him.”
“Erik.”
Julie threw up her hands.
“We’ll have fun. More than fun. We’ll have a blast. And you’ll come back with a truckload of the most fabulous clothes you’ve ever seen.”
“I haven’t decided yet.” Except she sort of had.
“C’mon, say you’ll go.” Mr. Account Executive, trying to close the sale.
“Give me an hour to think about it.”