And there it was, the real reason for this show she was putting on. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the dress. The dress was perfect. Christ, it was magic. What she wanted was to pay less than we’d agreed, and that meant she wasn’t just a snobby bitch; she was a cheap one, too.
“A… discount?” I asked, “But, we already agreed on the price.”
“And you have been paid half of what we’d originally agreed,” she said, “However, you haven’t entirely delivered on your part of the transaction, though, have you?”
“I haven’t?”
She turned to the mirror again. “You promised this dress would make me younger.”
“No, I said the dress would make you look and feel younger. I also promised it wouldn’t lose its shimmer for over a hundred years, I promised the seams would never break, and I promised it would be hand-stitched to fit your exact shape. I’ve made good on all of those promises, so far, so I don’t understand why you want to pay less?”
“You forget yourself, girl,” Dawn barked. She was sneering at me from the door, like a Pitbull guarding its owner. “You are addressing Madame Lydia Whitmore, Mistress of the Whitmore Academy of Ballet, and you will address her with the respect she deserves.”
I glared at the heavyset woman by the door. “I’m not being disrespectful, but I don’t think it’s right to change the terms of a deal.” I turned to face Lydia again. “With all due respect, I spent weeks making this dress for you. My family is grateful for your business, but I didn’t come here to haggle over a price that had already been agreed upon. I don’t think you’re the kind of person to go back on your word, are you?”
Lydia cocked a quizzical eyebrow… and then promptly kicked me out of her academy. Dawn, the Pitbull, escorted me downstairs and practically shoved me into the cold, wet London street. Honestly, I was lucky to have walked out of that place with even the twenty percent of what Madame Whitmore owed me in my hand.
I’d pushed the limits of what she would take from a human, and I’d blown it. Mother Helen was going to be furious. We needed the money the dress was going to bring in, we were counting on it, and I was coming back home with only a fraction of it.
I slid the envelope with the money in it into my backpack as I walked and zipped it shut. I wanted to get back home quick, thinking maybe if I got home fast enough, Mother Helen could sort this mess out.
I was so in my own head, so eager to rush home, I didn’t notice the guy I’d bumped into until I was already halfway to the floor.
My backpack went one way, and I went another. I was lucky I’d shut it, otherwise its contents would’ve spilled all over the sidewalk. I, however, wasn’t so lucky. I went down hard, falling arse-first into a puddle because, of course, there were puddles everywhere.
I was about to get up and apologize for running into the guy, when someone walking past my backpack kicked it into the road—maybe absentmindedly, maybe on purpose. This was London. It was hard to tell.
I scrambled toward it on all fours and stretched for it, managing to barely grab and pull it out of the path of a black cab that came rushing by. But the cab rolled over a dip in the road as it trundled by, a dip filled with water.
I was instantly soaked, from my head to my toes.
“Fantastic,” I sighed, clutching the backpack to my chest, water dripping down my face.
Then a hand appeared next to my head. I took it, not really thinking about who the hand belonged to before taking it and got myself back on my feet. When I turned around, I found myself staring into the eyes of an angel in a fitted suit.
He was easily the most beautiful, most intense looking man I had ever laid eyes on. His hair was as black as the night, slicked back around the front but pulled into a bun at the back and long at the sides. His beard, his lips, his eyebrows; everything about his face screamed brute strength, except for his eyes. His eyes were gray and sharp, and sparkled with a kind of cold, cunning intelligence that made my heart hammer inside of my chest.
Those same eyes narrowed and fixed on mine.
I returned the stare, becoming instantly aware that I probably looked like a drowned rat. I also realized I hadn’t yet let go of his hand. I tried to pull away, but his grip on it tightened and, in fact, he started pulling me toward him.
“Excuse me—” I started to say, but he plunged his nose into my hair before I could get the words out.
Breathless I stood as this man took a deep whiff of my hair, then abruptly pulled away, a look of stunned shock in those crystalline eyes.
“Belore…” he said, the word spilling from his lips on the back of a sigh.
My skin prickled. “What did you say?” I asked, even as my breath caught in my throat.
I’d never been sniffed like that before. Part of me was desperate to get the hell away from him, but another part was still tingling all over. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. But something was happening to me. It was as if, deep inside of me, something was waking up; something ancient and primal, something written.
Belore.
I felt his grip slacken, and I took the opportunity to yank my arm away from him and start backing off. “Thanks for helping me up,” I called out, and heading directly for the nearest London Underground station as quickly as I could.
He simply gawked at me, confusion written all over his face—his perfect face.
I got a chance to take one last look at him before entering the Underground, before the masses of tourists and Londoners alike became too thick that we wouldn’t be able to see each other. I didn’t think I’d ever forget him, or the way his suit so tightly clung to what I suspected was one hell of a body.
Who the hell was he? Some kind of high-powered executive, probably. He probably drove a Bentley, or a Mercedes. One thing was for sure, he wouldn’t have given me a second look if I hadn’t literally smashed into him on the street.
I moved into the Underground station, losing sight of him completely. It was time to go home and face the music, face reality, face my mothers.
CHAPTER TWO
I didn’t have one mother—I had three.
Mother Pepper.
Mother Evie.
And, of course, Mother Helen.
They weren’t my biological mothers. I wasn’t grown in a tube, but I had been adopted. My real parents were gone. Not dead, necessarily. Just gone. I didn’t know who my real parents were, or how I came to fall into the laps of the three caring, amazing women who raised me.
To be honest, I didn’t need to know anything else. They had given me the life I had. The only life I could ever have wanted. I owed everything to them, and that was why coming home with my tail between my legs stung as bad as it did. I felt like I’d failed them.
My mothers owned and operated a haberdashery in Carnaby Street, in London. For the everyday human, we sold the fabrics, the tools, and all the other knickknacks a person looking to make their own outfits would ever need.
Everyone who walked through our doors was made to feel welcomed, and like they’d made the right choice in deciding to wear the things they could make instead of buying the kinds of mass-produced, massively overpriced, low quality clothes you’d find at a shop.
Of course, there was more to the shop than that.