Read Online Project: Runaway Heiress by Heidi Betts - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Heidi Betts
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they were none of those things. Other times, the opposite was true. You met someone and didn’t care for them at all, only to discover hidden aspects of their personality later that caused you to end up becoming close friends.
So the fact that she was finding Nigel Statham more handsome, more charming and more enticing the longer she knew him—even after only two short days—could go either way. She’d started out certain he was a thief with questionable business ethics. Could she have been completely and totally wrong about that? Or was she letting his intense good looks and honeyed accent blind her to the truth?
She’d expected to come to Los Angeles, go to work for the big, bad CEO of the U.S. branch of his family’s company and immediately begin finding evidence to shore up her arguments about his involvement in the theft of her designs.
Instead, she’d found nothing. None of her poking around in his files—or his former personal assistants’ files, at any rate—had turned up a single thing or question mark. If anything, she was less convinced of his involvement.
But the theft had occurred, so there had to be evidence somewhere. A thread she could find, pick at and follow back to its source.
The elevator she was riding down to the fourth floor stopped with a small jolt and she straightened, pushing away from the rear wall where she’d been leaning to wait for the doors to open.
She’d lied to Nigel when she’d told him she’d never visited a design-room floor before. Sometimes she felt as though she lived on one, especially when she and both of her sisters were in their home studio together, all working in tandem.
Which was probably why she was so looking forward to visiting the one here. Not only was she curious to see how things worked at a company of this size, but it would be comforting to be back in the thick of the creative side of the fashion business again. Even temporarily.
As she stepped off the elevator, the click of her heels on the slick polished floor mixed with the sound of voices and the hum of sewing machines. Not a dozen running all at once, but one here, one there, being used as needed, much the way they were in her shop.
She loved it. A noise that would probably grate on anyone else’s nerves after a while soothed hers and helped her to take her first deep, comfortable breath since leaving New York.
She was smiling as she made her way down the main hall. This floor was made up of large, open-area rooms filled with long tables, dress forms, sewing equipment and plenty of fabrics and supplies. And most of the rooms she passed had their doors open so she could see the people working inside. Design teams, most likely, each assigned a different look or aspect of whatever collection they were currently putting together.
What Lily wouldn’t give for this kind of setup. Not only the work space—which was like comparing a football field to a foosball table—but the employees. Extra creative minds, extra hands, twice or probably even quadruple the work accomplished in half the time.
Of course, in order to put something like this into effect, she would also need a lot more money. And that would mean either asking her parents for another, more substantial loan, or winning the lottery.
But a girl could dream, couldn’t she? And one day, Zaccaro Fashions would be this big, this efficient. They would be a huge, world-renowned brand name in their own right, and she wouldn’t need her future inheritance to make it happen.
She wanted to stop at each doorway and take a good, long peek inside. She wanted to know what everyone was making, see their work, listen in on their conversations. Especially since it was possible they were once again ripping off her designs.
There wasn’t a lot of time for poking around, though. She was supposed to find a man named Michael Franklin, the head designer for this particular collection, and get a progress report for Nigel.
Despite his comment that she
So the fact that she was finding Nigel Statham more handsome, more charming and more enticing the longer she knew him—even after only two short days—could go either way. She’d started out certain he was a thief with questionable business ethics. Could she have been completely and totally wrong about that? Or was she letting his intense good looks and honeyed accent blind her to the truth?
She’d expected to come to Los Angeles, go to work for the big, bad CEO of the U.S. branch of his family’s company and immediately begin finding evidence to shore up her arguments about his involvement in the theft of her designs.
Instead, she’d found nothing. None of her poking around in his files—or his former personal assistants’ files, at any rate—had turned up a single thing or question mark. If anything, she was less convinced of his involvement.
But the theft had occurred, so there had to be evidence somewhere. A thread she could find, pick at and follow back to its source.
The elevator she was riding down to the fourth floor stopped with a small jolt and she straightened, pushing away from the rear wall where she’d been leaning to wait for the doors to open.
She’d lied to Nigel when she’d told him she’d never visited a design-room floor before. Sometimes she felt as though she lived on one, especially when she and both of her sisters were in their home studio together, all working in tandem.
Which was probably why she was so looking forward to visiting the one here. Not only was she curious to see how things worked at a company of this size, but it would be comforting to be back in the thick of the creative side of the fashion business again. Even temporarily.
As she stepped off the elevator, the click of her heels on the slick polished floor mixed with the sound of voices and the hum of sewing machines. Not a dozen running all at once, but one here, one there, being used as needed, much the way they were in her shop.
She loved it. A noise that would probably grate on anyone else’s nerves after a while soothed hers and helped her to take her first deep, comfortable breath since leaving New York.
She was smiling as she made her way down the main hall. This floor was made up of large, open-area rooms filled with long tables, dress forms, sewing equipment and plenty of fabrics and supplies. And most of the rooms she passed had their doors open so she could see the people working inside. Design teams, most likely, each assigned a different look or aspect of whatever collection they were currently putting together.
What Lily wouldn’t give for this kind of setup. Not only the work space—which was like comparing a football field to a foosball table—but the employees. Extra creative minds, extra hands, twice or probably even quadruple the work accomplished in half the time.
Of course, in order to put something like this into effect, she would also need a lot more money. And that would mean either asking her parents for another, more substantial loan, or winning the lottery.
But a girl could dream, couldn’t she? And one day, Zaccaro Fashions would be this big, this efficient. They would be a huge, world-renowned brand name in their own right, and she wouldn’t need her future inheritance to make it happen.
She wanted to stop at each doorway and take a good, long peek inside. She wanted to know what everyone was making, see their work, listen in on their conversations. Especially since it was possible they were once again ripping off her designs.
There wasn’t a lot of time for poking around, though. She was supposed to find a man named Michael Franklin, the head designer for this particular collection, and get a progress report for Nigel.
Despite his comment that she
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