Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Katherine laughed when I didn’t respond to that and pulled me into the boutique. The Fifth Avenue shop was immaculate. Everything I would expect from a designer brand with a cult following. Brightly lit clothing racks lined the walls with only one or two sizes of everything on display. The woman in a smart skirt suit at the register brightened at the sight of Katherine Van Pelt in her store. Everyone knew who she was.
“Hello, Katherine,” she said cheerfully. “Anything I can help you with today?”
“No, thank you. We’re here for Harmony,” Katherine said as she continued through the store as if she’d done this a million times. Maybe she had. She’d been a model for the company for years, and the second floor had long held the design team.
Katherine opened the back door, and we climbed another set of stairs into the madness of high fashion. My eyes roamed the space filled with scurrying designers and assistants holding bolts of fabric, rushing to a nearby sewing machines and gesturing emphatically to the drape of material on various mannequins.
An assistant saw us standing there and smiled. “Katherine, what a pleasure. Harmony is this way.”
“Excellent,” she said, following the girl down to Harmony’s office.
Katherine seemed right at home, but I’d never been more out of my element. Even my short stint at a Fashion Week gala had resulted in a fistfight over me, and I’d sworn never to return. I would have been just as happy with a dress off the rack if Katherine hadn’t been so adamant that I let her handle it. And I trusted Katherine with my life.
“Prompt as ever,” Harmony said with a smile as she took in the sight of us. “I’ve been waiting for this.”
She instructed her assistant to bring champagne to the suite, and then we were walking past the harried designers and into a private dressing room larger than most New York City bedrooms. The assistant returned a minute later, offering top-shelf champagne to the room as Harmony walked over to the only article of clothing in the room, covered by the purple garment bag that Cunningham Couture was known for.
My stomach tightened with anticipation. That was my wedding dress. Everything that had happened up to this moment had been going through the motions. Even the bridal shower wasn’t all that different than a birthday party. I’d opened gifts and laughed with Gavin’s family about the wedding. The closest I’d come to feeling like this was real was months ago when Gavin slid that ring on my finger. Now, it belonged there.
I glanced down at it now. It was crazy to think how much I’d gotten used to this ring. But once I had that dress on, the wedding was going to get twice as real.
“Ready?” Harmony asked.
I nodded because I couldn’t get the words out. My emotions went haywire. I felt Katherine’s eyes on me, as if she were assessing my every movement. She always saw straight to the heart of things, and I was sure she was seeing it right now.
“All right. Let’s get this on.”
I stripped out of my work clothes as Harmony unzipped the bag and let the layers of white material fall forward onto the floor. I couldn’t get a good picture of what it looked like, but seeing the bright white color made my insides squirm. Harmony had me step into the dress, and as the bodice was fitted against me, the breath left my body.
It was perfect.
It was the most perfect dress I’d ever worn in my life.
Harmony was working on buttoning the dozen individual buttons up the back, but I was thunderstruck, staring at myself in the trifold mirror.
The balconette, corseted bodice had visible boning and tiny lace sleeves that widened slightly at the shoulders. My ample cleavage was visible, but not overwhelming. The corset held the girls in nicely, so I wasn’t about to pop out even if I was dancing the night away. The boning made my waist look way smaller than it was in reality, and the layers of tulle skirt that fell past my feet somehow even made me look tall.
“You’ll need heels,” Harmony said. “I planned for you to be a few inches taller.”
“I brought them last week,” Katherine said.
The assistant eeped and rushed out of the room. A minute later, she returned with a box of Christian Louboutins. My eyes rounded in wonder at the sparkly diamond heels with classic red-lacquered bottoms. Harmony’s assistant helped me into them, and they fit like a glove, lifting me off of the ground so that the dress barely grazed the floor.
Harmony finished with the buttons and pulled back to assess her work.
I was still too stunned to speak.
“Well,” Harmony said, “do you like it?”
“It’s …” I swallowed hard, trying to find the word to describe the fluttering in my stomach when I wore it.