Read Online Heidi and the Kaiser by Selena Kitt - Free Book Online Page A

satisfaction, actually a little frightened. It was an expression she probably wasn’t used to conveying, but Andrea looked as if someone had just walked in on her while she was going to the bathroom. She also looked unbelievably beautiful—
    her dress was short and stylish, a sexy green velour just-low-cut-enough to avoid being inappropriate. She was perfectly made up and coiffed, her honey-blonde hair like spun gold falling around her shoulders.
    Heidi remembered her own afternoon in the salon, touching her usually-mousy locks with a smoothing hand, and was glad she looked at least a little more presentable than usual.
    “Hi, Andrea.”
    “What are you doing here?” Andrea looked terrified, and she also looked like she was trying to cover that fact. The irony of their meeting here, now, wasn’t lost on either woman.
    “I work here,” Heidi replied simply.
    “With Kaiser?”
    With Kaiser. For Kaiser. Was there a difference? Heidi just nodded.
    “Are you part of the show?”
    Was she part of the show? She had helped plan it down to the last button and bow. Did that make her part of it? Sadly, she knew it didn’t, and for the first time, she really felt that, a deep, sharp pain in her side when she drew a shaky breath. She wasn’t part of the show, not really. She would be on the sidelines, watching models flaunt other designers’ clothing. She would be in Paris in a few weeks, watching Andrea Paxton receiving accolades for designs that she, Heidi, had created.
    Just how many designs had she dared to copy, Heidi wondered, giving Andrea a long, cool look. She had seen at least four on Kaiser’s desk that belonged to her that day. Her sketchbook had been full of them. Something felt lodged in her throat, burning there, something old and stuck and impossibly huge.
    “I know what you did.” The words were out of her mouth before Heidi could stop them, as if the stuck thing had suddenly been liberated somehow.
    Andrea glanced over her shoulder as if she were being followed, and then narrowed her eyes at Heidi. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “I’ve seen the designs,” Heidi went on, her voice growing louder even as Andrea shushed her. “They’re mine and you know it.”
    “Prove it,” Andrea hissed, her already rosily made-up cheeks flushing a deeper shade of red.
    And there it was. Heidi couldn’t prove anything, and they both knew it. At least, Heidi knew it. But Andrea might not, Heidi mused, the thought just occurring to her.
    Maybe, just maybe…
    “I intend to,” Heidi bluffed, her spine straightening, and the look of fear in Andrea’s eyes was the sweetest thing she thought she’d ever seen.
    “Did you find the coffee, Andrea?” Kaiser’s voice coming down the hall startled them both. “I don’t know where my secretary has gotten off to, she—oh. There she is.
    Heidi, get Andrea some coffee and come to my office.”
    He stood in the doorway, looking between the two women, a frown Heidi knew well starting at the corners of his mouth.
    “Secretary…?” Andrea’s mouth curled into a slow, Cheshire-cat smile. The smug look in her eyes was enough to turn Heidi’s stomach. So much for her bluff. Now Andrea knew—Heidi wasn’t a designer. She wasn’t anything—just a secretary.
    “Heidi?” Kaiser inclined his head, his frown deepening as he stepped further into the kitchen and Heidi knew she was a secretary in big trouble. Exasperated, he motioned between Andrea and the cup in Heidi’s hand. “Coffee?”
    Like the thing that had been stuck in her throat flying free, it all happened very quickly. Heidi’s trembling hand jerked impulsively, the spontaneous movement splashing dark brown liquid down the front of Andrea’s four-thousand-dollar Armani dress. Andrea yelped, more in surprise than from pain—the coffee was now just lukewarm—and swore loudly, glaring at Heidi and pulling her wet dress away from her skin with thumb and forefinger.
    “Enjoy your