She exhaled loudly. The students needed to make the grades for their course work and it gave them a showcase for their work. She could not let them down now, especially when some of them had helped make the clothes for her collection.
And now Hal Langdon was going to turn up in person and add even more stress!
No pressure, then. None at all. Whimper.
She was exhilarated, exhausted and more excited than she had been for months.
Her mind kept wandering all by itself to
Hal Langdon. The sexy way his amazing eyes creased around the edges as he smiled. That sensuous mouth.
It totally infuriated her that he had wormed his way into her brain like that.
It all went to prove one thing: she really should get out more!
But not now. Not when she was so close to achieving her dream.
Birdsong from the cherry trees rang out clear, sweet and invigorating through the open window and Mimi looked out into the faint sunshine and smiled.
In the same way that the trees broke out from their winter hibernation into fresh green buds of new growth, she needed to move forward to a new season in her life.
Poppy Landon might have given her a chance, but now it was her turn to prove that she knew what she was doing.
She was going to show Hal Langdon that she was capable of handling any challenge that he could throw at her. They both wanted a great show and that was what they were going to create. She would listen; she would give her suggestions, help him understand how important elegance and sophistication were to her designs, and everything was going to be fine.
She was going to have to trust him. Because one thing was becoming so very clear: whether she was prepared to say it out loud or not, there were simply not enough hours in the day to do everything she needed to make this show a success. She needed Hal and Poppy even more than ever.
She had promised her mother that she would prove to the world that Mimi Ryan was as fine a designer as any other member of the Fiorini family.
But she was not just doing this for her mother. No. This was for her. She needed this boost to break her out of the past six months of painful grief and save her business.
Mimi turned to face a silver-framed photograph of a stunningly pretty dark-haired woman which was propped up by a cushion on the table, and raised her glass of orange juice in a toast.
‘Happy birthday, Mum,’ Mimi said. ‘What do you think I should wear today? Any ideas?’
Hal Langdon steadied himself on his left crutch and raked the fingers of his right hand back over his scalp, pushing his hair away from his forehead. Maybe one of Poppy’s stylist pals could give him a haircut after the show.
If they were not too exhausted by then.
He chuckled to himself at the thought of what he had just left behind in Poppy’s apartment. His little sister had assembled a top team to make sure there would be enough models available for all of the clothing in Mimi’s collection—namely her flatmates Lola and Fifi and their many friends who had agreed to give up a precious Saturday for a good cause.
This meant that his breakfast had been disturbed by an assortment of leggy fashion models bickering over yoghurt and cranberry juice while they planned their assault on the London shops in search of shoes, bags and luxury spa products—apparently all necessary preparation for a weekend of full-on pampering in advance of the big day.
Some men would have found being surrounded by gorgeous, leggy girls a sweet start to the day, but he had been through this process way too many times and the attraction had definitely worn off. There were only so many times you could tell a girl that her knees did not look fat in micro shorts—and the sound of excited females competing for attention while he was still in his boxers under a duvet on Poppy’s sofa had been exhausting. Especially when they had decided to tease him about the new grey hairs on his chest, forcing him to decline the offer of both eyebrow tweezers and a free waxing-session.
They would enjoy seeing him suffer far too much.
Back in France, he had forgotten a few essential details about his sister’s apartment—such as the fact that it was on the second floor and there was no lift. Oh, and that it only had two spare bedrooms and that both of them were fully occupied by girls who managed to make the rooms feel even smaller. Hence his very uncomfortable night on the sofa with his leg propped up on the scatter cushions while he’d fought the urge to be outside under wide skies, all the while knowing that was not an option.
Cramped living space and several flights of stairs he could just about cope with. But he had not been prepared for the constant reminders of his life working with Tom Harris which had assailed his senses throughout the flat.
Tom Harris and Hal Langdon had made a name for themselves filming in the most dangerous and adrenaline-inducing locations on earth. Their photographs of the high mountains and the people who lived to climb them had been published in magazines and newspapers all over the world, vivid, sometime stark but always exciting and dramatic. They had won awards and prizes on every continent. And they had loved every second of it.
They had been champions of the universe, indestructible and fearless, destined to succeed at everything they set their mind to do. And they had succeeded time and time again.
The evidence of that success was captured in those photographs, which were everywhere he looked in Poppy’s apartment.
She was so proud of her big brother and what he had achieved.
How could she know that now they only served as constant reminders that he had lost his best friend and probably his career at the same time? The doctors and specialists had made their prognosis quite clear—he had destroyed his ankle and broken his leg very badly. Even with ten surgical pins and two metal plates, the bones and supporting tendons and ligaments would never be the same again. His mountaineering days were over.
Every photograph and every image screamed out one message: failure. He had failed. Failed Tom, failed himself.
He had tossed and turned most of the night, and every time he had opened his eyes there was his best friend Tom grinning back at him from every wall, slim, rugged, happy and clever. A natural sportsman whose love of the high places and sense of humour had carried them through every hardship in supposedly inaccessible places photographers could not get to.
Their life had been a constant buzz of travel from one remote location to the next, until Tom had fallen in love with a supermodel who had brought him to his knees when she had returned his love. She’d even given up her career to show Tom what true happiness was like.
And then he had watched Tom die.
He was so angry with Tom. With himself. With the absurdity of life.
Lying on Poppy’s sofa in the cool light of a London dawn, the constant reminders of his failure and his guilt threatened to overwhelm his determination to see his friend’s legacy through to the end.
He had promised Poppy he would take care of the event and that was what he was going to do. Because if he didn’t …? There was a limit to the number of failures a man could take in his life.
His little sister had been devious enough to call him back to work on a project she knew full well he would not be able to refuse. It had occurred to him several times as he’d tossed and turned that perhaps this emergency trip to Florence was just a little too convenient. Poppy had always adored working in Italy when she’d been a model. He suspected she had always planned to spend a few fun days with her friend in total indulgent luxury, finalising the no-doubt amazing wedding they had planned together. Leaving him to hold the fort.
Clever; very clever. She had lured him back to work in the full knowledge that once he had committed to the project he would