I glance at him. “What was it?”
There’s a knowing smile on Nero’s face. “Agreeing to marry you.”
CHAPTER 23
CLEO
We pull up in front of a brick building in the Lower East Side. “We’re here,” Nero says. “Sit tight. I’m going to come around to help you out.”
“That’s really not neces—”
He’s already climbing out and slamming his door closed.
I sigh and try to clear my head. It’s my first day at work, and I need to focus on that instead of psychoanalyzing my husband, but Nero managed to confuse me even more. That was probably his intention.
The consigliere walks me to the front door of the shop and presses on the doorbell. “I’ll be nearby. Call when you’re ready to go home.”
“You’re going to wait around all day?”
“Just until Sandro gets here to keep watch so I can grab some lunch.” He gives me a very male grin. “I’ve got a friend in the area.”
I roll my eyes. “Just when I thought you might be more than a barbarian in a suit.”
“Wouldn’t want you to think too highly of me. Rafe might get jealous.”
The lock turns and a woman opens the door. She must be Loretta. Her hair is the same color as Rafaele’s—black with hints of hazel in the light. She and Nero share a quick embrace and greet each other in Italian, but the consigliere doesn’t stick around. He pats my shoulder as he brushes past me and walks back toward his car.
Loretta’s attention moves to me. She gives me a slow once-over and pops her gum. “You looked different at the wedding.”
I shrug. “Left the diamonds at home.”
She doesn’t laugh, and the expression on her face is not exactly friendly. She must be younger than Rafaele since she’s still unmarried, but the heavy makeup she wears makes her look older.
The wind picks up, and she tugs her sweater tighter around her.
I peek inside the shop over her shoulder. It’s filled with bolts of fabric, and there’s a crooked mannequin in a skirt and no top by the register.
“Are you going to invite me in?”
Her eyes narrow. She pops her gum again and then moves aside. “Come in,” she says.
I follow her inside and take in the dusty shelves. The place smells of mothballs and old leather. The register is near the front, and there’s a small desk in the back corner with a laptop, a printer, and a stack of invoices. Another desk beside it holds a sewing machine.
Loretta leans against the register. “Rafaele must really want me to fail if he sent you here,” she says, her tone riddled with mistrust.
Okay, rude. My jaw hardens, but I don’t take the bait. “What’s going on with this place?”
She gestures vaguely at the space around us. “Not enough customers. I bought up all this stock more than a year ago, and it’s been sitting on the shelves ever since. These are good fabrics. High quality, not the kind of polyester crap you see in stores these days. I thought there’d be demand for it, but it looks like everyone just wants to buy off the rack.”
I glance around again. “Do you have a catalogue?”
She shakes her head. “I have pictures of what I’ve made in the past. You can look at them over there.” She points toward the desk at the back.
I spend the next few hours poring over the photos. There are a ton of them, dating back as far as five years ago.
It’s clear Loretta is an exceptional tailor. The intricacy on some of the pieces rivals that of high-end fashion houses. But it’s not hard to see why someone would become overwhelmed. There are so many options here, and so many different styles. It’s almost impossible to choose.
I put the photos back in the boxes they came from and walk over to Loretta. She’s working on a skirt at the sewing machine. “Have you thought about creating a collection of styles? Maybe changing them out every season?”
She doesn’t look up from her work. “The vision for the shop is to create one-of-a-kind pieces. Everything custom-made.”
“You can still do customizations. People can select the fabric, buttons, make small adjustments to the styles. But it would help them understand what they can get from you.”
“Whatever they want. That’s the point.”
“Sometimes too much choice is overwhelming. Not everyone is a clothing designer. There are plenty of people who want high-quality clothes, but only a small subset of them know enough about fashion to tell you exactly what they want made.”