Working It Read online

  Cover Copy

  Falling in love is always in fashion….

  With her trust fund and coveted job at Christian Dior, Fanny Moreau believes she has it all. But when her best friend finds a fulfilling new career abroad—and a dreamy relationship with a great guy, Fanny’s fabulous life suddenly feels empty. Inspired to find her true purpose, she trades her cushy lifestyle in San Francisco for an adventure in the Alaskan wilderness.

  Everyone thinks Fanny has gone off the deep end. What’s a girl with a Ph.D in Prada doing teaching in an Inuit village? Even Fanny is wondering, especially when she comes face to face with Calder MacFarlane. The Scottish search and rescue pilot is everything Fanny is not—selfless, heroic, and used to living on the edge. He’s also the man who once loved her best friend. Yet something in Calder’s sexy gaze has her believing that she’s a woman capable of great things—a woman who might just find her own happily-ever-after, in a place where she least expects it….

  “Leah Marie Brown has a wily way of bringing her stories to life with sharp dialogue and drop-dead sexy characters.”

  —Cindy Miles, National Bestselling Author

  “When it comes to crafting clever, intelligent, wonderful escapist fiction with a heroine every woman wants to know, Leah Marie Brown is a new voice to watch. Prepare to fall in love!”

  —Renee Ryan, Daphne du Maurier Award-Winning Author

  Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Books by Leah Marie Brown

  The It Girl Series

  Faking It

  Finding It

  Working It

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  Working It

  A It Girl Novel

  Leah Marie Brown

  LYRICAL PRESS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Copyright

  Lyrical Press books are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2016 by Leah Marie Brown

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  All Kensington titles, imprints, and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund- raising, and educational or institutional use.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Special Sales Manager:

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Attn. Special Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  Lyrical Press and the L logo are trademarks of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  First Electronic Edition: June 2016

  eISBN-13: 978-1-61650-811-1

  eISBN-10: 1-61650-811-6

  First Print Edition: June 2016

  ISBN-13: 978-1-61650-815-9

  ISBN-10: 1-61650-815-9

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  We all need two a.m. friends – people we can call late at night, when the world is dark, and we need a little light. Thank you to a few of my two a.m. friends:

  Kurt Bauer, who reads everything I write and declares it brilliant. I am glad you have stayed in fashion far longer than lady loafers. Lori Lee Bacon, who is the most uplifting and reliable person I know. Trevin Larkin and Ernie DiDomizio, my beloved brothas from otha mothas. Robert Hurst, who doesn’t do meth, but would definitely shank a man for me.

  Author’s Foreword

  I am Live Out Loud kinda gal. I frequently update my social media accounts and blogs with random trivia about my life. If you follow any of my accounts, you might have noticed Vivia and I share a few personality quirks: we both enjoy champagne cocktails on the beach, brushes with celebrities, and rock music. We both love the color pink, sometimes speak without thinking, and have best friends named Stéphanie. The similarities end there.

  It would be ridiculous for me to say that Fanny Moreau is a figment of my imagination. I based Vivia’s sophisticated BFF on one of my BFFs, Stéphanie Mounts. Both are competitive, sharp-witted Frenchwomen who adore adventure, counting calories, and their slightly-outré best friends. The fictitious Fanny Moreau’s resemblance to my very real Fanny ends there. They have had different journeys. Stéphanie Mounts’ journey is very much her own – except the bits she has been generous enough to share with me.

  Stéphanie Moreau’s journey, on the other hand, is very much public. I hope you enjoy embarking on Fanny Moreau’s journey as much as I have enjoyed sharing Fanny Mounts’ journey.

  Part One

  A woman’s perfume tells more about her than her handwriting.

  Christian Dior

  Chapter 1

  A Stinky Pussycat

  The worst day of my life started with an unfortunate spritz of perfume.

  Every tragedy can be traced back to one fatal mistake, one seemingly insignificant miscalculation that sets into motion a series of small blunders resulting in utter catastrophe.

  Take James Cameron winning the Oscar for Titanic over Gus Van Sant for Good Will Hunting. If the Titanic’s wireless operator had known how to work the Marconi efficiently, he might have translated the warning messages about ice in the area, the unsinkable ship would have remained afloat, and James Cameron wouldn’t have won the Oscar for a hopelessly insipid movie.

  If Christian Lacroix had added jet beads to his pared-back coat dresses and peplum skirts, his ’09 Fall Collection might have been the buzz of the season; instead, fashion editors and snarky bloggers lamented the loss of his talent.

  One seemingly insignificant snowball-sized mistake starts its journey down the mountain, and before you know it, a shit avalanche is descending upon you.

  My best friend, Vivian—her name is Vivia, but I call her Vivian because it’s more glam—coined the phrase “shit avalanche.” It’s an unpalatably graphic and overblown phrase and not one I use often, but it superbly describes my situation.

  My shit avalanche started with an unwelcome spritz of Kitty Kat’s Purrfect. Kitty Kat, the bubblegum pop singing phenom, might know a thing or two about writing hit songs, but she doesn’t know a thing about the delicate art of blending scents to create an intoxicating perfume.

  How could a spritz of perfume cause a disaster?

  I will start at the awful beginning, but only because I hope my tragic story will serve as a cautionary tale. The Titanic. James Cameron. Christian Lacroix. Stéphanie Moreau. The world has suffered enough disasters. Read and learn, mon amie.

  Chapter 2

  Moonlight as a Tranny Hooker

  Text to Vivia Perpetua Grant:

  Help! I am wrapped in an unfashionable cloak of ennui. Bored with my job, my nonexistent love life, myself…San Francisco isn’t the same since you left.

  Text from Vivia Perpetua Grant:

  Girl, you need to shake up your life like a snow globe.

  “What is that ghastly stench?”

  Several of my subordinates perform discreet pit checks, sniffing their shoulders, but I keep my gaze fixed on my boss. I am the offender, and I know it. It’s only a matter of time before my boss knows it, too.

  My boss, Nicola Salupo, is the Executive Vice President f
or Aurèle L’Heure, Inc., North American Division. She’s chic, clever, driven, and a complete salope—that’s French for bitch. She thrives on humiliation—not her own, mind you, but on the utter mortification of her subordinates. Nicola feeds on humiliation the way vegans feast on tofu burgers.

  She begins walking around the Lucite conference table, slowly, like a vulture circling road kill. People shift in their seats, a timid intern dabs beads of perspiration from her upper lip, but I keep my chin lifted and my gaze fastened on the vulture in couture.

  “Someone reeks of”—she lifts her cosmetically sculpted nose high in the air and sniffs—“dimestore desperation.”

  She stops walking directly across from me and pierces me with her glacial blue gaze.

  “Mademoiselle Moreau?”

  “Oui?”

  “Either you’ve been moonlighting in the Tenderloin or you have grossly neglected your personal hygiene this morning.” She sniffs again and wrinkles her nose as if catching a whiff of a putrefied cadaver. “What is that stench?”

  “Kitty Kat’s Purrfect.”

  “Kitty Kat’s Purrfect?” She looks around the conference table with wide eyes. “Did I miss the memo? Has L’Heure Cosmetics created a line of fragrances for tranny-hookers?”

  Salope.

  I consider telling her my miserable tale—about how a snotty kid on the bus dropped his backpack on my foot and broke the transparent heel of my thirteen-hundred-dollar Dior calfskin pumps, how I had to superglue the heel while standing at the cosmetics counter in Walgreens, and how the salesgirl spritzed me with Purrfect—but Nicola is more of a bullet points person.

  “I had an unfortunate collision with an overeager salesgirl in Walgreens this morning.”

  “Walgreens?” Nicola gasps. “I always thought your makeup looked a little… I had no idea you purchased your cosmetics at Walgreens.”

  Salope. Salope. Salope.

  “I don’t purchase my cosmetics at Walgreens.”

  “Anyway,” Nicola continues as if I haven’t said a word, “it is a violation of corporate policy to wear competitor’s fragrances.”

  I snort. “I would hardly call Kitty Kat a competitor of Aurèle L’Heure.”

  The nervous intern chuckles.

  Nicola narrows her gaze.

  “You have violated corporate policy. I have no choice but to draft a formal letter of reprimand and attach it to your personnel file. In the meantime, you are relieved of your duties today.”

  “But, I am presenting my projection report to Monsieur Henri this afternoon.”

  “I’ll present your report.”

  Of course you will.

  Monsieur Henri Bousson is a veritable god in the L’Heure Universe. Impress Monsieur Henri, and your future in fashion is as solid gold as Louboutin’s lock on the luxury high heel market. Since he is based out of Paris and rarely makes it to California, this might be my only opportunity to impress him.

  “I worked hard on my presentation. I conducted independent market research, gathered supportive data for my forecasts….”

  I don’t bother saying that impressing Monsieur Henri is just one more step in my climb up the career ladder toward a position at my dream house, Christian Dior, and I would shank Nicola with L’Heure’s Divine Eyeliner before I would let her knock me off my wrung.

  Nicola stares at me coldly, unmoved by my appeal.

  “What about my sketches?”

  “Email them to me along with your presentation.”

  Putain!

  In the last few months, I have logged over two hundred unpaid overtime hours, working on sketches of shoes, purses, coats—original designs—in the hopes of impressing Monsieur Henri enough to offer me a position on his Parisian-based design team. Now, a stupid Walgreens employee and her tawdry perfume sample are threatening to knock me out of the running as I make my final lap toward the finish line. A promotion at L’Heure would pretty much guarantee me a position at Dior, and working at Christian Dior’s head offices in Paris has been my dream since I was old enough to play dress up in my grandmère’s closet.

  “Go home and clean up, Mademoiselle Moreau.”

  “This is ridiculous. It was one spritz.”

  “Be gone, Mademoiselle.” Nicola waves her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Be gone.”

  I consider snapping my translucent heel off my shoe and repeatedly jamming it into her eye socket until she stops looking at me with her patronizing expression, but I have sacrificed too much to risk an assault and battery charge. So I gather my notebook, stand, and walk out of the conference room with my head held high.

  Chapter 3

  Cunning Linguistics

  Thirty minutes later, I have returned several phone calls, drafted a memo, and grudgingly emailed my presentation to Nicola. I am standing outside the sleek frosted glass Aurèle L’Heure Flagship Store in Union Square, staring up at a vertiginous network of scaffolds. The ten thousand-square-foot store is still under construction, but when it opens later this year, it will contain luxury items from one of the most iconic couturiers in the world.

  It’s a jewel box of a building, and it’s my job to fill it with treasures to delight discerning fashion-savvy consumers.

  I shift my gaze to the crane hoisting a shiny gold “L’Heure” sign onto the roof, and a coagulated lump forms in my throat.

  What is the matter with me? Why am I letting Nicola Salope and her petty maneuverings get in my head?

  Because you worked your ass off to become the Regional Director of Aurèle L’Heure Boutiques and she just marginalized you in front of your new staff.

  And because, deep down, you’re not as happy as you thought you would be.

  My Blackberry begins vibrating. I pull it out of my trench coat and stare at the small photograph above the words Incoming Call from Vivian. The image is of my best friend standing in a stream in Scotland, the water spilling over the tops of her pink Wellies, a beaming grin plastered across her pretty freckled face. The lump in my throat thickens.

  “Coucou, Vivian.” I have always called her Vivian because I think she is as glamorous as an old-time movie star and Vivia Perpetua is just not glam. “Comment ça va?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “En français, Vivian!”

  “Que pasa?”

  “That’s Spanish.”

  “Merde!”

  “Voila.” I try to laugh, but the lump makes it come out as a croak. “Now, you’re speaking French.”

  “French-schmench. What’s up? You sound sad.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Bull merde. You don’t fool me—”

  The line crackles and I lose some of her words.

  “—about your presentation. Chill, girl. You got this one. You got this one like Andrew Neiman had ‘Caravan.’”

  “Yeah, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Whiplash.”

  “Whip what?”

  “Whiplash.” She exhales audibly. “Academy Award-Winning film about Andrew Neiman, an ambitious, talented young drummer attending a prestigious music school who is harassed by his professor.”

  “Ooo-kay.”

  “The professor kept making Andrew play this difficult piece of music—‘Caravan’—and even though he mastered it, the D-bag rode the kid like Kim Kardashian riding Kanye in the Bound2 vid.”

  I shake my head and blink my eyes. I feel as if I have just tumbled down the rabbit hole and am lost in Wonderland. It’s a sensation I experience often when I listen to Vivian speak. I head west down Post Street, toward Union Square Park.

  “Fanny? Are you still there?”

  “Oui,” I say, rubbing my temples. “I am trying to get my bearings in this conversation, but I fear I am hopelessly lost, way back on Andrew Newman.”

  “Neiman,” she sighs. “I am saying you have mad skills, girlfriend. You pick up those drumsticks and bang your little heart out because you g
ot this one. Okay?”

  “Thanks, but…” My voice catches and I pause to swallow the ever growing lump.

  “What’s going on? You’re starting to freak me out.”

  I enter the park, take a seat on an empty bench, and tell my best friend about my mangled heel, the rancid spritz girl, and Nicola’s bitchy attack.

  Vivian whistles. “Man, I was on target with my Whiplash analogy. You’ve got a Fletcher.”

  “No more movie analogies, Vivian, s’il vous plâit.”

  “Fletcher, the brutal professor,” she says, ignoring my heartfelt plea. “Nicola the Salope is a Fletcher. She’s abusing her power to subjugate and humiliate you, because she is secretly threatened by your brilliance.”

  “Or she’s just a salope.”

  “Or she’s a salope. A soulless plastic-nosed über-salope who probably spends her free hours cruising the Tenderloin in Forever 21 daisy dukes. Mama’s gotta pay for the Botox somehow, right?”

  “Ouch. That’s brutal.”

  “Sorry, nobody fucks with my best friend. You’re Type-A, got it all together, competitive, self-contained Fanny. It’s freaking me out to hear you so…”

  “So what?”

  “Vulnerable.”

  I inhale and square my shoulders. “I am not vulnerable.”

  “You sound vulnerable.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  Yes, I am.

  “Yes, you are,” she astutely argues. “You worked your size-two Armani-clad ass off on your Monsieur Henri presentation because you hoped it would gain you the recognition you deserve, and your boss just took that hope, squatted down, and shat all over it. You’re allowed to be sad, Fanny.”