Unconventional (The Manhattanites #4) Read Free Page B

career highs and lows I have, and battling breast cancer I wouldn’t get that stressed out—not anymore. After all, this is Death Star Galactica. Only fashion, not world peace. Regardless, I was indeed stressed.
    Sì , it was the fourth worst day of my life. For sure.
    I stood in front of my colleague’s desk, Lex Easton. The day before, she’d flown in from Manhattan to help me with the fashion show.
    “This is…horrible.” Slouched over the keyboard, she glared at the local newspaper and shrieked for the umpteenth time, “Horrible!”
    Oh, all right. I should be honest and state it wasn’t only Debauchery magazine which had slammed my latest work. No, my darlings! How about the Milano News, New York Times, London Herald, and Paris Tribune to boot. Pretty much every blog, newspaper, magazine, and TV station from New York to Timbuktu had ripped my latest creations to pieces. I’m ruined. Ruined, I tell you.
    “Say something!” I shouted around the room at everyone, resting my eyes upon Taddy Brill.
    Strikingly gorgeous. Think Rita Hayworth. Unusually tall. The woman radiates beauty even during moments of high client drama, such as this one. Figures. That’s why she works in public relations.
    Taddy owns the PR firm the Girasoli Garment Company retains to promote our brands, Easton Essentials and Jemma Couture. In hopes of saving me from the catastrophe, she’d jetted in from New York after the Milan show tanked with her business partner, Blake Morgan. Miracles do happen, so per favore, God, I for sure need one.
    “Give me a minute. I’m...thinking.”
    She wouldn’t even make eye contact with me.
    You know it’s bad when your own publicist can’t even stand the sight of you. I’d love to curl up into a ball right now, stuff my face with a fist full of Mint Milano cookies, and die. Just die, I tell you.
    She hid behind her thick, wavy, gorgeous red hair, and picked at her long acrylic nails. I wanted to shake her like a piggybank but instead of coins falling out, I’d be loaded with ideas on how to fix my fashion line.
    “Tsk. Tsk.” Blake, Taddy’s cohort, stood next to her. He kept making this annoying noise, shaming me with his beautiful lips as if I were a poodle who’d just taken a whiz on the carpeting. I was tempted to smack his cute face.
    I couldn’t take it anymore. The silence was choking me, so I had to ask.
    “Are you going to fire me?”
    Air caught in my throat the second that question left my mouth. In fear my legs would buckle, I leaned against the edge of Lex’s desk and crossed my arms. I was either going to black out or vomit. Hopefully not pass out in my own vile. God, that would suck.
    Girl, brace yourself.
    While I waited for Lex’s reply, the room started to spin and my peripheral vision blurred. I could already hear her saying, “Fuck yes, you stupid cow.”
    The woman has a major potty mouth, FYI.
    Without notice, Lex inhaled so loudly, I thought her nostrils might snort up the ivory damask wallpaper decorating the office. Then she said, “If you weren’t my hubbies life-long friend, a woman I respected, and cared for as family…then yes, Jemma, I’d have no choice but to terminate your role as the lead designer on Jemma Couture.”
    “On the very label I created?”
    She nodded. “If Perry Ellis can fire Marc Jacobs for his grunge collection, we can definitely terminate you over Death Star Galactica.”
    “Jil Sander has left her own line three times already,” Blake added.
    “That’s by her own accord,” I clarified, wondering if she’d been pushed out of her own company. Sure, I’d heard of it happening in our industry. But to me? I mean really!
    This was complete and utter malarkey. I called bullshit.
    Jemma Couture had been a huge hit when it launched a few years back. It had all started on a scandal: a see-through, nude dress bedazzled in thousands of Swarovski crystals which Lex had worn the night she got caught screwing Prince Massimo by paparazzi.