Allegra ’ s office. “ The rumors about China have been on the factory floor for weeks. ”
“ Really? ” Allegra turned to look at her great-grandmother. “ You didn ’ t think it was worth mentioning? ”
Ginevra flicked the fingers on her right hand, waving away Allegra ’ s annoyance. “ You were busy with Christmas. I didn ’ t want to bother you. ”
Before Allegra could say anything else, the ghost of her great-grandmother disappeared.
It is so annoying when she does that, Allegra thought, but it was not like she could complain to anyone without sounding nuts.
Chapter 2
Hugo Prince was frustrated. Despite handing over the reins of Prince Enterprises to Hugo the previous summer, John Morgan Prince had been fighting his son on every single change he wanted to make, from upgrading the spa on the top floor of their flagship Chicago store, to opening new stores in the Ala Moana Shopping Center in Hawaii.
John Morgan especially hated the idea of Hugo creating what Hugo called “ an affordable millennial shopping experience ” along the lines of Nordstrom Racks.
“ I have no wish to turn Prince ’ s into a discount store, ” John Morgan said haughtily. “ If people can ’ t afford our goods, they can shop at Target. ”
“ And they will, ” Hugo had shot back. Every single decision concerning the stores had become a battle to the death. It left Hugo exhausted. If he hadn ’ t had Bailey to lean on, it would have been impossible.
Hugo had met Bailey in college. She was five years older than the rest of the freshmen because she ’ d stayed at home to take care of her dying mother. While she was stuck in her small hometown, she ’ d learned the basics of day trading by reading The Motley Fool and watching YouTube videos. She ’ d organized local crafters into a group she called the OOK BOUTIQUE (One Of a Kind) and created a mail order catalogue and a marketing plan that relied heavily on local craft fairs and donations to local celebrities like the weather girl on the local NBC affiliate and the wife of the owner of a baseball farm team based in their town.
Bailey had turned her mother ’ s house into a store and her garage into a mailing center. She had eight women and three men working for her by the time her mother died, and she ’ d handed over the business to them when she left for college.
She ’ d paid her tuition in cash.
Bailey was tall and smart and strong and Hugo wanted to take her to bed. When she ’ d told him she preferred women, the rejection had been the catalyst for a warm friendship. By the time they graduated, Hugo and Bailey were as close as siblings. Bailey had been courted by a half-dozen companies but Hugo had told her she could create her own job at the Prince department store empire and she ’ d accepted the challenge. Her business cards called her a “ Commercial Conceptualist ” and although no one quite knew what that actually meant, no one wanted to ask her.
One of the reasons Hugo had wanted to hire Bailey was that she thought outside the box and she seemed to have an instinct, almost a sixth sense, for what was going to be trendy each season. “ I ’ m psychic, ” she always told him and he always laughed, not realizing she was actually serious.
Bailey had impeccable taste and she brought her aesthetic sensibility to every single thing she did. She ’ d blown through the store ’ s musty corporate office like a stiff Chicago breeze, introducing new promotions, hiring new people, and generally inspiring everyone to bring their A game. John Morgan had always made sure that Prince ’ s Department Stores had a philanthropic role in the city, but he ’ d always dispensed his largesse in a low-key, practically anonymous manner. He wrote checks. He sat on boards. When he ’ d been married to Hugo ’ s mother, he ’ d even attended fund raisers. But since his divorce, John Morgan had shunned the limelight, stayed in the background, remained quiet