Chapter Seven

“You’re too short,” Fen remarked crossly as he examined Ornette as she stood on a pedestal in his design room.

‘Surely you didn’t need to strip me down to my underwear to see that,’ was what she wanted to say, but she couldn’t say anything that antagonized him. They would cut anything that embarrassed him from the final cut of the show and she did not need to make an enemy of him.

She didn’t say anything, she just stood there admiring the cut of his shirt. It was transparent, made of thin gauzy material that made his skin under it look all the more dark. The contrast between his dark skin and the white material showed how well the shirt he was wearing was made. It was perfect and it was much easier for Ornette to look at his shirt than at the bulging muscles of his body underneath. Men that ripped terrified Ornette. If he hit her across the face, her skull would break.

“I will have to design something new,” he lamented. “I have nothing that would suit a woman as petite as you.” He sent a few of his underlings scurrying to bring him his tablet and other design tools. Then he looked at Ornette and followed her eyes down the length of his shirt. “See something interesting?” he asked her, drawing her attention to his face.

“Your shirt is so exquisite,” she said dreamily, thinking about the stitches in the gauzy fabric rather than his face.

Fen cocked his head. “My shirt is magnificent, but why do you think it is?”

She reached out for his cuff and he gave her his hand. Ornette was experienced at handling people when she fitted their clothing and shifted into that mode so that Fen was not a man she found repulsive, but a figure she had to dress. “Every single thread has been woven in. The entire thing was stitched by hand, wasn’t it? Every edge has been properly finished and hidden. When I look at you, the shirt covers your body in a way that makes sure I see the shirt, but I don’t at the same time. It makes me look under the shirt, hides anything about your torso and arms you want to hide while at the same time draws someone in. They want to look at you and your clothes, but they don’t know why. They’re lost in a swath of white sky over dark mountains. And they never want to leave…” She trailed off, mesmerized by his shirt and his skin and the powerful effect of a brilliant designer who also had a fantastic body.

Fen kissed Ornette.

He placed his hand on the back of her neck and drew her to him in an elegant motion reserved for dancing. He did it because he was allowed to touch her. Ornette took the whole thing to mean that any of the men she was with were allowed to treat her as they wished.

Ornette let him kiss her. As far as forced kisses went, it was on the pleasant side, very respectful. He did not thrust his tongue in her mouth or say disgusting things to her, so she let him kiss her and when he was finished, he pulled her into his arms for a soft embrace.

Then he whispered in her ear. “I sewed this shirt myself. I wear it often in situations like this, when I am designing clothes for important clients. No one has ever told me it was special, but I’ve always known it was. Your description moved me. Shall I make you something that accomplishes the same thing? Something that turns the dress into a sky and your skin into the mountains under it?”

She whispered into his ear. “Is that even possible with a body like mine?”

He backed off and looked at her again. She was still in her underwear. It was white filmy underwear almost the same color as her skin. She was skinny. She had been on a calorie-restricted diet for a long time, so she didn’t have a luscious body. Her hips jutted out because that was how her skeleton was built, and her breasts had a little too much curve to them due to her age. It would have been better if she had been a little more boyish on top. Clothing designers liked that—evenness throughout the figure—hips and bust with the same measurement. She was in an odd place where she knew she was too fat to be one thing and too skinny to be another.

Why had Desmond told her that she had to aim to impress the businessmen? They all wanted runway models to showcase their products. That wasn’t her.

Fen was looking Ornette over. “What kind of mountain and what kind of sky? We can give you anything. What do you see for yourself? Mermaid vibes?” he asked, touching the bluish spot under her eyes.

“No. I want to look like Venus.”

“Very traditional,” he replied, turning away from her like he was bored. “Doesn’t everyone want to look like the Goddess of Love?”

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Ornette shook her head. “No. I mean, I want to look like the planet Venus.”

Fen turned back. “Huh?”

“My name, Ornette, means baby eagle. What about a golden eagle? Could I become something like that?”

“What kind of sky will you fly through?” he asked, a touch of amusement in his tone.

“Venus’ sky. An eagle has never flown through the sky here before,” Ornette said.

A smile touched his lips. “Then you shall be the first.”

Fen took his tablet from his assistant and started sketching. First, he drew a form and explained to Ornette that he was seeing her wear a gold bodysuit for the underlay. The suit would have feet and go directly into sharp-edged high heels. The bodysuit would cover her arms completely and the cuff would point out beyond her knuckles. The sharp edges at her feet and hands would give the impression of claws.

“The neckline must be quite open,” he explained as they sat on the carpeted stairs leading to his showroom. “If you were a man and gave me the brief you’ve given, I’d make a cravat for him that gave the impression of feathers, but that’s not right for you. You’re a woman and your breasts are unusually large for a runway model. We may as well make the most of it. You’re not shy, are you?”

Ornette brought her head so low she almost placed her head on his lap as she said to him gently, “I will wear anything you give me with pleasure.”

It was the sort of thing Ornette was used to saying to her masters, but it felt a little different on her tongue when she said it to Fen. He was a skilled designer and she had probably never worn anything in her life as finely made as the shirt on his body. If he was going to make her something to wear, it would be more amazing than Ornette could take.

He looked at her lovingly. “Are the other girls like you?” he asked, as his hand moved his stylist in swift strokes against his tablet screen to capture his idea for the outer layer of the dress.

“They’re probably better,” she said, trying to angle herself so she could see what he was sketching. “They probably have better bodies and better brains. In short, they're hotter than me.”

“Why do you think you aren’t as good as them?” Fen asked, making a motion with his hand to swish away his employees.

The room was empty before Ornette could reply.

“There are a lot of reasons. You’ll understand them better when you meet more of them,” she whispered.

“I can’t take you to bed,” he said suddenly. “That’s against the rules of the competition.”

“Oh?”

He chuckled. “You didn’t know. Please tell me you weren’t trying to sleep your way to the top.”

She didn’t change her body language. She stayed exactly where she was on the stairs, close to him, gazing up adoringly at him. “I would fail if I tried at such a thing. I just want to enjoy this time I have with you when I can watch you make clothes.”

Fen swallowed. “Here’s the dress,” he said, turning his tablet toward her and showing her his initial sketch.

The dress was like his shirt, cut in a way that made them twins. The cuffs were the same, the neckline the same, the tails of the shirt fell down her frame, and became something that circled her body in a way that was exactly what she had told him she loved most about the shirt he was wearing.

When she saw it, her eyes were aqua jewels on the verge of tears. “It will be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever worn.”

He kissed her again. Then he got to work ordering the fabric. It would arrive the next day. When he was finished, he took Ornette into his design studio where he showed her his work. He asked her what she thought of it and when he heard her responses, he drew her close to him and held her like she was made of polished glass and he couldn’t let her out of his sight.

When their time together was over, Desmond came to collect her. He was wearing a helmet that covered most of his face, but he got in the back of the helocarrier with Ornette and put on a headset.

“Did you have to let him get that handsy with you?” he asked, getting more worked up than Ornette thought he had any right to be.

By the time Desmond said those words to her, she had already put Fen completely out of her mind. She was thinking about dinner. Fen had not fed her lunch even though she had been with him from eleven in the morning until five in the afternoon. It didn’t bother her. People like him kept their eating habits a secret. They didn’t want people to know what they ate or how much. Except, she was starving.

She turned to Desmond and said, “I offered you more than I offered Fen. Don’t you remember?” She was referring to the time they met and what she said to him before she got back into her cryochamber. She asked him if he wanted to kiss her. He kissed her hand and put her back to sleep.

Desmond looked at her quizzically in the back of the helocarrier like he didn’t really understand something about what she said.

“I offered you more,” she reiterated. “You turned me down and the moment passed.” She had not asked Fen to kiss her. She didn’t know why what she said to the designer had such a profound impact on him that he wanted to kiss her. At the very least, it had not been terrifying. He handled her carefully and respectfully. He was also going to make a beautiful dress for her. Since her mind had already moved on from Fen and Desmond, she asked, “Will I get to keep the clothes after this?”

“They’ll be auctioned off for charity,” he said coldly as he went back to the front seat.

They landed and picked up Yilin.