Shopping With the Enemy Read Free Page B

will
hate
you!’

Chapter Three
    New York
    Elena means business:
    Black linen short-sleeved button down dress (Perfect Dress sample)
    Gold and black pendant on chain (Gift from Seth)
    Mock-croc heels (Nine West)
    Glittery hair pin for up-do (Duane Reade drugstore)
    Total est. cost: $85
    ‘FLOOR 47?’ THE elevator attendant asked, obviously remembering that this was where Lana worked.
    ‘Yes, thank you.’
    It didn’t matter that on floor 47, Lana, Elena and Gracie shared the smallest office that three people could possibly squeeze into. The important thing was that the teeny tiny office was a foothold in this dizzying skyscraper right at the heart of Manhattan’s famous Fifth Avenue.
    It meant that fledgling fashion company, Perfect Dress, had a Fifth Avenue presence, a Fifth Avenue letterhead and that all-important, Fifth Avenue address.
    In the mirrored elevator wall, Lana checked herself over discreetly. Her long, dark hair fell smoothly past her shoulders, although there was now a perky new fringe cut high above her elegantly tweezed eyebrows. She was fully made up, but in the light and glossy way of the super-groomed New York girls she was making a huge effort to copy. Lana was deeply in love with every single detail about New York. She planned to stay in this amazing city
for ever
.
    Today, she was wearing a bright white blouse and a puffy above-the-knee skirt with the highest heels she could bear and sheerest tights. April was drawing to a close and it was already warm enough to go bare-legged, but no high-aiming New Yorker would risk bare legs at the office. Way too unprofessional.
    Opening the door to the office, Lana saw that Svetlana’s 23-year-old daughter, Elena, was already at her desk, on the phone, firing off questions in her distinctive Eastern-Europe-meets-Manhattan accent. Just like her mother, Elena was unfairly blonde and beautiful, but unlike Svetlana, she didn’t exploit her looks. She always wore sober, professional outfits and pulled her golden mane into chic ponytails or grown-up chignons.
    ‘Yes of courrrrrse … do you have some time to speak with our PR manager?’ she asked the caller and looked at Lana with a smile.
    As it was a pocket-sized company, with only three people actively involved in the day-to-day running, they all pitched in with the PR, design, product development and sales, although Elena was definitely the boss.
    ‘All set,’ Lana said, reaching for her phone.
    ‘Well?’ Elena asked once Lana’s call was over, ‘did she go for it?’
    ‘Um … she’s thinking about it,’ Lana admitted, immediately worried that she hadn’t given the journalist at the other end of the line enough of a dazzling sales pitch to get a Perfect Dress featured in her fashion spread.
    ‘Please don’t worry. Really, I hate that magazine,’ Elena told her. ‘We just move on and find somewhere else. There are always new opportunities: my mother say this, I think she hear it from one of her husbands, maybe Igor.’
    Lana smiled. Igor was the most famous of Svetlana’s ex-husbands. He was the father of Svetlana’s two boys, owned gas fields in Russia and was richer than anyone could imagine, so his nuggets of advice were usually followed.
    ‘Oh my goodness, Gracie has been busy,’ Lana exclaimed, spotting the pile of clutter strewn across the third desk in the cramped office: drawings, photos of models, photos of dresses, clippings of fabric and everything stapled, scribbled on, clipped together. A creative frenzy had obviously been going on since Lana had been in the office yesterday.
    ‘Yes, we were here until late last night putting together the plans for the big presentation to the mothers in London. I am very serious about our new ideas,’ Elena added. ‘The latest sales figures came in yesterday and in New York, London, Paris and Milan we are 20 per cent down for the last two months and according to Svetlana, our new autumn/winter collection will look like this–’
    Elena