Chapter 1 - The Sixth Dress
Fay Harwick clutched the red gown against her chest and whispered, “Please don’t come in.”
Conrad Harwick stopped outside the locked dressing-room door with the returned receipt crushed in his hand.
One number had been circled at the bottom.
Size 8.
Conrad looked at the number again.
The problem had never been the dresses.
For several seconds, he did nothing.
That alone would have surprised almost anyone who knew Conrad Harwick.
Conrad was a man accustomed to solving problems before other people had finished explaining them. He was thirty-nine, broad-shouldered, dark-haired, impeccably dressed, and intimidating without needing to raise his voice. Tattoos disappeared beneath the collar of his black shirt and continued beneath the cuffs of the burgundy suit he favored for important evenings.
People often mistook silence for patience when it came from Conrad.
Usually, it wasn't.
But Fay was behind that door.
And Fay was crying.
That changed everything.
“Fay?”
“Go downstairs.”
Her voice was steady enough to fool somebody who didn't know her.
Conrad knew her.
Eight months of marriage might not have been enough to teach him everything about his wife, but it had taught him the difference between Fay being angry and Fay trying desperately not to let anyone know she was hurt.
Tonight, she was hurt.
He looked at the receipt again.
Six gowns.
Six returns.
For weeks, Conrad had interpreted them as rejection.
The first had been emerald green.
The second midnight blue.
The third black silk.
Then champagne, burgundy, and finally the red gown delivered that afternoon in an enormous black box.
Every dress had been expensive.
Every dress had been selected by people who assured Conrad it was exactly what a sophisticated woman would wear to the events he attended.
And every single dress had disappeared from their home within days.
Refunded.
Returned.
Rejected.
Conrad had finally confronted Fay three nights earlier.
“You returned the Marchetti dress.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I didn't need it.”
“It was for the fundraiser.”
“I have clothes.”
“You have clothes from when you ran a diner.”
He had regretted the sentence almost before he finished saying it.
Fay had closed her book.
“What exactly does your wife need to look like, Conrad?”
“Appropriate.”
“For your world?”
“Yes.”
“And I'm not?”
“That isn't what I said.”
But it had been too late.
The hurt had appeared in her eyes before she looked away.
Now Conrad stood outside another door, realizing he might have misunderstood far more than an argument.
“Open the door,” he said quietly.
“No.”
“Fay.”
“I said no.”
He rested one palm against the wood.
Normally, a locked door was merely an inconvenience to Conrad.
This one was a boundary.
He could hear Fay moving inside.
Fabric rustled.
A hanger struck the floor.
Then came a tiny broken breath.
Conrad closed his eyes.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Then tell me what's wrong.”
“I don't want to.”
That answer unsettled him more than anger would have.
Fay always told him what she thought.
When his chef put too much rosemary on lamb, Fay told him.
When Conrad's driver parked across a handicapped access ramp, Fay made him move the car herself.
When Conrad bought a fourteen-thousand-dollar dining table without asking her, Fay stared at it for ten seconds and said, “Congratulations. You bought an airport runway.”
He had nearly laughed.
Fay Donahue Harwick had never seemed intimidated by him.
That was one of the reasons he had become fascinated by her.
Their marriage had begun as an arrangement.
Fay's father had accumulated debts large enough to threaten the family property and the diner Fay had spent fifteen years keeping alive. Conrad had business reasons for helping the Donahues, and marriage had stabilized an alliance between families whose financial interests had become dangerously tangled.
It had sounded efficient.
Cold.
Simple.
Then Fay moved into his house.
She remembered the housekeeper's birthday.
She learned which security guard had a daughter applying to college.
When Conrad's mother, Elena, caught pneumonia, Fay spent four nights bringing her soup and arguing with doctors.
At formal dinners, she ignored the powerful people competing for Conrad's attention and talked to the exhausted servers instead.
She was forty-three.
Warm.
Stubborn.
Funny when she wasn't trying to be.
And unmistakably herself.
Fay was also a plus-size woman.
She had full arms, a soft stomach, broad hips, thick thighs, and the kind of round, expressive face incapable of hiding irritation for long.
Conrad liked every inch of her.
The possibility that Fay didn't know that had never occurred to him.
Until now.
He looked down at the receipt.
Size 8.
Something cold moved through his stomach.
“Fay.”
“Please.”
“Did I order the wrong size?”
Silence.
Conrad stared at the door.
“Fay?”
“Go away.”
That was an answer.
He stepped back.
For one dangerous second, frustration rose inside him—not at her, but at himself, at the situation, at whatever invisible mistake he had somehow repeated six times.
He reached for the handle again.
“I'm not coming in,” he said. “But I'm not leaving you alone while you're crying.”
“I am not crying.”
“You're terrible at lying.”
“I've had very little practice.”
Despite everything, his mouth almost moved.
Then he heard another broken breath.
“Fay.”
“What?”
“Tell me what I did.”
She said nothing.
Conrad waited.
Finally, the lock clicked.
The door opened three inches.
Fay stood behind it wearing the pale pink dress she'd had since before their marriage.
Her eyes were red.
The red evening gown hung over one arm.
Conrad's gaze moved from her face to the gown.
Then to the tag.
He didn't need to touch it.
The number was visible.
He looked back at Fay.
“What size did they send before?”
Her expression hardened.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I'm beginning to think I made the same mistake six times.”
“You didn't personally order them.”
“I paid for them.”
“That isn't the same thing.”
“It is when they're hurting my wife.”
Fay's jaw tightened.
“Don't.”
“Don't what?”
“Turn this into something you can fix with money.”
Conrad became very still.
Fay opened the door farther.
“You want to know why I returned them?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
She held up the red gown.
“This doesn't fit me.”
Conrad said nothing.
“Neither did the green one.”
His eyes dropped.
“Or the blue one. Or the black one. Or the champagne one. Or the burgundy one.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Fay laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Because the first time, I assumed somebody made a mistake.”
She placed the gown over a chair.
“The second time, I thought maybe your assistant hadn't updated my measurements.”
Conrad's face changed.
“The third time?”
“I started wondering whether it was intentional.”
“Intentional?”
She finally met his eyes.
“Whether somebody was trying to tell me something.”
Conrad's voice became quiet.
“Who?”
“You.”
The word landed harder than any accusation shouted at him ever could.
Fay folded her arms.
“Every box came with your name on the card.”
Conrad remembered them.
For my wife.
C.H.
He had thought the simplicity was elegant.
Now it seemed grotesquely impersonal.
“I didn't choose the sizes.”
“I know that now.”
“You thought I did?”
“I didn't know what to think.”
Conrad stepped closer, then stopped when Fay instinctively pulled back.
That tiny movement hurt more than he expected.
“Fay, look at me.”
“No.”
“I have never wanted you smaller.”
Her eyes immediately lifted.
Conrad continued before she could interrupt.
“I have never looked at you and wished there was less of you.”
For the first time, Fay seemed speechless.
“I thought I was buying you something beautiful,” he said.
“And when I returned it?”
“I thought you hated gifts from me.”
“That was your conclusion?”
“Yes.”
“Not that maybe your wife couldn't fit into something selected for a woman half her size?”
His jaw tightened.
“When you say it like that, I sound like an idiot.”
“You said it. Not me.”
A tiny spark of the old Fay appeared.
Conrad almost smiled.
Almost.
Then she looked at the dress again.
“My whole life, people have assumed my body is a problem waiting to be corrected. Restaurants where strangers watched what I ordered. Stores where clerks told me there was nothing ‘for my shape.’ Women who complimented my face and then suggested what I'd look like if I lost thirty pounds.”
Conrad listened.
“I learned a long time ago not to apologize for taking up space,” she continued. “I like myself, Conrad. It took years, but I do.”
“Good.”
“But marrying you put me into rooms where everybody is photographed and measured and discussed. Then dresses started arriving that couldn't possibly fit me.”
She looked at him.
“And you kept sending them.”
Conrad lowered his eyes to the receipt.
For perhaps the first time in years, he had no defense.
So he didn't manufacture one.
“I was wrong.”
Fay blinked.
Conrad Harwick didn't say those words often.
“I should have asked what you wanted,” he continued. “I should have known your measurements before buying clothes for you. And after the first return, I should have asked why instead of assuming.”
Fay's expression softened slightly.
“That's surprisingly normal of you.”
“Don't spread it around.”
A reluctant laugh escaped her.
It lasted barely a second.
But Conrad heard it.
Then he noticed something.
The red gown wasn't from the boutique he'd instructed his office to use.
He lifted the tag.
“Where did this come from?”
Fay frowned.
“The same place as the others.”
“No.”
“What?”
Conrad turned the label.
He knew the boutique his assistant used.
Maison Valette.
This label was different.
A smaller stitched tag read:
VALERIE HOUSE PRIVATE COLLECTION.
Conrad's eyes narrowed.
“Did all the dresses have this label?”
“I didn't check.”
“Who delivered this?”
“Courier.”
“What time?”
“Around three.”
Conrad took out his phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“My assistant.”
“Conrad, don't turn this into—”
His phone buzzed before he could dial.
A message had arrived from his financial manager.
Conrad opened it.
His expression changed.
Fay noticed immediately.
“What?”
He didn't answer.
She stepped closer.
“Conrad.”
He turned the phone toward her.
The six refunds had never gone back to Conrad's account.
Every returned gown had been refunded somewhere else.
Same destination.
Same private account.
Fay stared at the screen.
“I didn't give them another account.”
“I know.”
“Then whose is it?”
Conrad scrolled down.
His financial manager had included the account holder's name.
For the first time that evening, the sadness disappeared from Conrad's face.
Something much colder replaced it.
Fay whispered, “Who is it?”
Conrad looked toward the hallway.
Footsteps were approaching.
Someone stopped outside the bedroom.
Then a woman's voice called Fay's name.
Conrad recognized the voice.
So did Fay.
May you like
The dressing-room door slowly opened wider.
And the woman standing outside was holding the receipt from the very first returned gown.
