Page 78 of Denim & Diamonds

“Are you at least wearing the green dress that slits almost all the way up to your hoochy-coochy and dips down to your tater tots?”

“I was just going to wear the black one I wore to the Dolce & Gabbana fall launch party.”

Oliver’s nose crinkled. “That’s high fashion, not hello f-me. It’s your ex marrying your friend, not me and Antonio renewing our vows. You want to steal all the attention from the bride.”

When I’d mailed back the invitation and said I would attend, I’d hopedmyattention would be stolen tonight—by the sexy lumberjack who’d volunteered to go with me. But I dreaded the thought of going at all now, much less alone.

“I’ll think about it.”

Oliver walked to the door. “I’m going to return a few calls and then pick up the new leather samples we ordered. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help get ready for the meeting later.”

“Thank you.”

***

“This was just delivered for one of the board members.” Later in the afternoon, Oliver walked into my office holding a package. “Do you want to take it with you,or should I bring it up?”

“Which board member is it for?”

He scanned the plastic FedEx wrapper. “Arthur Connolly.”

Ugh.The leader of the witch hunt. I despised that man. Sadly, he reminded me of my grandfather. Not because he was old, though; he was probably in his late sixties. But because of the way he talked down to women—like I should be getting his coffee rather than running a company. I lifted my chin, motioning to the corner of my desk. “Just put it on top of that pile I’m bringing, please.”

Oliver was almost out of my office when something on the package he’d set down caught my eye. I reached for it. “This package is from Lucchi?”

“How do you know that?”

I pointed to the top right corner of the address label. “This is their logo.”

Oliver walked back and looked over my shoulder. “You’re right. It is. I didn’t notice. Why is a board member getting something delivered from our biggest competitor?”

Unease grew in the pit of my stomach. “I have no idea.”

“Have you discussed Lucchi at any of your board meetings?”

I shook my head. “Definitely not.”

“Well, let’s open this baby and find out.”

“We can’t. That’s an invasion of privacy.”

“To you maybe…” Oliver plucked the package from my hands and ripped it open before I could even finish objecting. He grinned. “Oops!Silly me. I wasn’t paying attention and assumed it was part of our mail since that’s usually the only thing that gets delivered here. I’llapologize to Mr. Connolly.” Oliver pulled a thick stack of documents out of the envelope and eyed the letter on top. “You’re selling part of Amourette to Lucchi?”

“No, of course not.” I took the documents from my assistant’s hands. Flipping through the pages, my eyes widened when I saw the amount listed as the purchase price. “Oh my God.Thisis what the board meeting today is really about.”

“What?”

“A few months ago, I told the board I wanted to expand our manufacturing facility so we could produce faster to keep up with trends. Arthur Connolly is a banker, so he volunteered to look into where we could get the best loan terms. These documents are for theexactamount of the loan I wanted to take. That bastard is going to try to get the board to sell part of my company to Lucchi, rather than take on debt.”

“He never mentioned anything to you about it?”

“No, and I would’ve told him not to waste his energy. Because I willneversell anything to Lucchi. I regret selling a piece of the company to the investors I brought in during our last expansion. They’re the ones who made me answer to this horrible board of directors. There is no way in the world I’d ever answer toTobias Lucchi. It’s bad enough I hate-screwed him more than once.” I whipped open the top drawer of my desk, yanked out my purse, and started marching to the door.

Oliver called after me, “Where are you going?”

“To get some answers.”

“But the board meeting is in forty-five minutes.”

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