Revenge Wears Prada Read Free Page B

so tightly to Andy’s face that she could feel the plastic-lined rim pressing into the soft underside of her chin. “There, there,” Nina nasal-whined, oddly comforting nonetheless. “You’re not my first jittery bride and you won’t be my last. Let’s just thank our lucky stars you didn’t have any splash-back.” She dabbed at Andy’s mouth with one of Max’s T-shirts, and his smell, a heady mixture of soap and the basil-mint shampoo he used—a scent she usually loved—made her retch all over again.
    There was another knock at the door. The famous photographer St. Germain and his pretty young assistant walked in. “We’re supposed to be shooting Max’s preparations,” he announced inan affected but indeterminate accent. Thankfully, neither he nor the assistant so much as glanced at Andy.
    “What’s going on out there?” Max called, still banished to the bathroom.
    “Max, stay put!” Nina yelled, her voice all authority. She turned to Andy, who wasn’t sure she could walk the couple hundred feet back to the bridal suite. “We’ve got to get your skin touched up and . . . Christ, your hair . . .”
    “I need the necklace,” Andy whispered.
    “The what?”
    “Barbara’s diamond necklace. Wait.” Think, think, think. What did it mean? What should she do? Andy forced herself to return to that hideous bag, but thankfully Nina stepped in front of her and pulled the duffel onto the bed. She rooted quickly through its contents and pulled out a black velvet box with Cartier etched on the side.
    “This what you’re looking for? Come, let’s go.”
    Andy allowed herself to be pulled into the hallway. Nina instructed the photographers to free Max from the bathroom and firmly shut the door behind them.
    Andy couldn’t believe Barbara hated her so much that she didn’t want her son to marry her. And not only that, but she had his wife chosen for him. Katherine: more appropriate, less selfish. The one, at least according to Barbara, who got away. Andy knew all about Katherine. She was the heiress to the von Herzog fortune and, from what Andy could remember from her early rounds of incessant Googling, she was some sort of minor Austrian princess whose parents had sent her to board at Max’s elite Connecticut prep school. Katherine had gone on to major in European history at Amherst, where she was admitted after her grandfather—an Austrian noble with Nazi allegiances during World War II—donated enough money to name a residence hall in his late wife’s honor. Max claimed Katherine was too prim, too proper, and all-around too polite. She was boring, he claimed.Too conventional and concerned with appearances. Why he dated her on and off for five years Max couldn’t explain quite as well, but Andy had always suspected there was more to the story. She clearly hadn’t been wrong.
    The last time Max had mentioned Katherine, he was planning to call and inform her of their engagement; a few weeks later a beautiful cut-crystal bowl from Bergdorf’s arrived with a note wishing them a lifetime of happiness. Emily, who knew Katherine through her own husband, Miles, swore Andy had nothing to worry about, that she was boring and uptight and while she did, admittedly, have “a great rack,” Andy was superior in every other way. Andy hadn’t thought much more about it since then. They all had pasts. Was she proud of Christian Collinsworth? Did she feel the need to tell Max every single detail about her relationship with Alex? Of course not. But it was a different story entirely reading a letter from your future mother-in-law, on the day of your wedding, imploring your fiancé to marry his ex-girlfriend instead. An ex-girlfriend he had apparently been delighted to see in Bermuda during his bachelor party and whom he had conveniently forgotten to mention.
    Andy rubbed her forehead and forced herself to think. When had Barbara written that poisonous note? Why had Max saved it? And what did it mean that he’d