Chapter 7
Charles reached for the sample sheet.
Luca moved it out of his reach.
“Leave it there.”
Charles looked offended.
“I brought that from my company's records.”
“And Margaret says she didn't sign it.”
“She may have forgotten.”
Margaret's face changed.
I felt my stomach tighten.
She was seventy-one, but there was nothing uncertain about the way she'd remembered the wedding pattern, the seamstresses, or Katherine Harper's unfinished gown.
Luca leaned forward.
“Be careful, Charles.”
Charles raised both hands.
“I'm simply saying it was months ago.”
Margaret quietly opened her notebook.
“Claire, would you hand me the pencil beside that plate?”
I gave it to her.
She turned to an empty page and wrote her name.
Margaret Bellini.
Then beneath it, she wrote:
Margaret Dawson.
She pushed the notebook toward Eleanor.
“Look at the capital D.”
Eleanor leaned forward.
Margaret pointed toward the sample sheet.
“That isn't how I write it.”
The difference was small but unmistakable.
On Margaret's notebook, the letter curled inward.
On the sample sheet, it was perfectly straight.
Vanessa stared at both signatures.
Her breathing changed.
Luca noticed.
“Vanessa?”
She looked up.
“I don't know what you want me to say.”
“The truth.”
She swallowed.
“I thought we had permission.”
Margaret turned toward her.
“From whom, sweetheart?”
Vanessa couldn't answer.
Eleanor placed the sample sheet on the table.
“Charles, who gave this to you?”
Charles looked toward Vanessa.
“She brought it to the showroom.”
“When?” Luca asked.
“August.”
Vanessa stared at her father.
“You told me you'd handle the paperwork.”
“And I did.”
“That doesn't answer Eleanor's question,” Luca said.
Charles rubbed his forehead.
“Vanessa brought the design. She said Margaret wouldn't object.”
Margaret stared at him.
“You never asked me.”
Charles looked uncomfortable.
“I assumed Vanessa spoke for you.”
Margaret closed her notebook.
“That's been the trouble all night, hasn't it?”
Nobody answered.
“Everybody speaks for me,” she continued. “Everybody decides what I think. Where I should sit. Whether I should come.”
She looked toward her daughter.
“Even whether I'm alive.”
Vanessa began crying again.
But Margaret didn't reach out this time.
Luca placed the sample sheet beside the brochure.
“Until Margaret decides what she wants, you have no permission to keep selling her design under somebody else's name.”
Charles gave a bitter laugh.
“You think it's that simple?”
“No.”
“Twenty-eight orders. Eight seamstresses. Suppliers waiting for payment. A showroom lease.”
“I understand the problem.”
“Then understand what happens if you pull your family's name.”
Luca looked at him.
“What happens?”
Charles hesitated.
“We could lose everything.”
Margaret answered before Luca could.
“Those women could lose their wages whether the business survives or not.”
Charles turned sharply.
“You always did see the worst in everything.”
Margaret's expression changed.
“I spent seventeen years waiting for you to come home, Charles.”
He stopped speaking.
She lowered her eyes.
“I wasn't always expecting the worst.”
Nobody moved.
For the first time, Charles looked ashamed.
Eleanor reached for his hand.
He didn't take it.
Luca turned toward Patricia Harper.
“Mrs. Harper, would your daughter prefer a refund or a finished dress?”
Patricia looked startled.
“I don't know.”
“Then she deserves an honest choice.”
Eleanor nodded slowly.
“We can explain the delays.”
“And the designs,” Margaret added.
Eleanor looked toward her.
“Yes. And the designs.”
Vanessa suddenly spoke.
“If we tell everybody tonight, the collection collapses.”
Luca looked at her.
“Maybe.”
“People will cancel.”
“Some will.”
“And the women lose their work.”
Margaret gently shook her head.
“Honey, they already did the work.”
Vanessa fell silent.
“They've been waiting to be paid for it,” Margaret continued. “Don't use their jobs as a reason to keep lying.”
I watched Luca look at Margaret.
There was something in his expression I recognized.
Respect.
He wasn't treating her as a helpless woman who needed rescuing anymore.
He was listening to someone who knew exactly what she was talking about.
Eleanor slowly removed her diamond bracelet.
She placed it beside her plate.
Charles stared.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking about what we can sell.”
“Eleanor.”
“My grandmother gave me this. I've kept it in a drawer for twenty years.”
She looked at Margaret.
“I was so busy protecting a business with my name on it that I forgot whose hands were keeping it alive.”
Vanessa looked at her stepmother.
“Eleanor, you don't have to—”
“Yes,” Eleanor replied. “I do.”
For a moment, I believed something might finally change.
Then Eleanor turned toward Charles.
“Last August, when we discussed using Margaret's patterns, I approved a design fee.”
Charles looked away.
Luca frowned.
“What fee?”
“Four thousand dollars. It was supposed to go directly to the original designer.”
Margaret looked stunned.
“Four thousand?”
Eleanor nodded.
“I thought you'd received it.”
Margaret slowly shook her head.
“I haven't received a penny.”
Eleanor stared at Charles.
“Where did the money go?”
Charles looked toward Vanessa.
Something in his expression made her straighten.
“Daddy,” she whispered.
He rubbed his jaw.
May you like
Then spoke with the impatience of a man who wanted everyone to stop asking questions.
“Why don't you ask Vanessa? She's the one who accepted Margaret's design fee.”
