The Fashionista and The Geek - The Complete Series Bundle [Ebook]

from Boring Is The New Black

There was no busier week for a fashion designer than the second week in February.

Designers, models, celebrities, and industry professionals of every variety swarmed New York, and it was no time for Nicole Bissette to be dawdling in a coffeehouse, sitting down even, when there were outfits to final check, lighting and music to run through. Problems to fix, fires to put out.

Except even during the busiest week of the year, there was time for very good friends. Best friends who’d dropped everything to come and lend moral support.

But only five minutes.

Gia unwound the pink, orange, and brown scarf from around her neck and said, “You only scheduled in five minutes for us to talk you off the ledge?”

She licked the whipped cream from off the top of her hot cocoa, and Nicole hadn’t even known they served whipped cream. In New York. During fashion week.

“I can maybe push it to ten.”

Victoria crossed her high-heeled black boots, smoothed her black ankle-length pencil skirt, blew on her extra-hot black coffee, and said, “We can do it in five.”

“Thank you. Thank you for coming so quickly.”

“What else are we going to do when our friend puts on her very first runway?” Gia squealed under her breath, her excitement uncontainable. “The friend who got us front-row seats for tomorrow!”

Nicole thought of everyone who was going to be sitting front row tomorrow. Critiquing her creations, comparing her to those who came before her that week.

Last year.

Twenty years ago.

She said, “I think I’m going to vomit.”

“No, you’re not.” Victoria assessed the green pallor of her friend’s skin. “Well, maybe you are. But then you are going to brush your teeth and redo your makeup, and have the best show New York has ever seen.”

“It won’t matter. How good it is. They’ll say it’s just because of her. And then if it’s not good, it will be all my fault.”

Gia puckered her eyebrows. “No one will say that.”

Victoria nodded. “Yes, they will. So, what?”

Gia glared.

“Victoria!”

“They will say it. And they will think it. And there’s nothing she can do about that except give up.”

Nicole put her head in her hands.

Gia rustled around in her large handbag.

“Who cares if her mother is Nikita! She’s her own person.”

Nicole had never been her own person. She’d always been the daughter of. Always been the lesser of.

Her mother had been the trailblazer. Coming to America and first rocking the modeling world and then transitioning into a fierce fashion designer.

She’d fought her way to the top, tooth and nail. She’d worked for everything she had.

Nicole had never had the opportunity.

Doors opened without her having to even knock. Room was found without her having to even ask.

She was the daughter of fame. She was the daughter of money and power.

Everything had been handed to her since the day of her birth, and she couldn’t undo her connections.

Victoria understood. Victoria Edward knew what it meant to be the daughter of someone. Knew how to live in the shadows of the mighty. Knew how to fight for her own sun.

Gia finally found what she was looking for, pulling out a little bag of brightly colored candy and popping it open loudly before pushing it over.

“Take two handfuls and call me in the morning.”

Nicole lifted her head to stare incredulously at her friend.

“You have candy in your bag?”

“Of course I do. Candy makes everything better. Or to be more specific, sugar. Sugar makes everything better.”

Victoria drawled, “We wouldn’t know. Sugar is not something we’re overly familiar with.”

Gia eyed Victoria’s coffee and her size two skirt. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

Nicole pushed the candy away and sipped her small non-fat sugar-free vanilla extra foam cappuccino.

“Why did I become a designer? I’ll always be her daughter, I’ll always be competing against her. I should have gone into banking.”

Victoria choked back her laughter. “You know this is your world. You’re just afraid you will come up short. And you will. Accept it, embrace it. And look forward to that day when you won’t. Now that will be an accomplishment.”

Gia glared again. “Has anyone ever told you, Victoria, that you could use a little sugar?”

“Has anyone ever told you, Gia, that you could use a little less?”

This fight was as old as they were, though the sugar description was new. Since Giada Abelli had entered their exclusive boarding school on a scholarship, Victoria had been trying to get her to toughen up.

And Gia had been trying to get Victoria to soften up.

Gia picked up the bag of candy and waved it at Victoria.

“There are two kinds of people in this world: gummy bears and Sour Patch Kids. I think we know which of us is which. And I think we know which one is liked better.”

She popped a gummy bear into her mouth and chewed ecstatically.

Victoria was unimpressed. “Who cares about being liked?”

“I do. And Nicole does.”

Victoria made a face. “No, she cares about being respected. There’s a difference.”

Nicole watched the little bag of candy swing in her friend’s hand. “If Gia’s a gummy bear and Victoria’s a Sour Patch Kid, what am I?”

Gia swallowed. “You’re a Sour Patch Kid.”

Victoria sipped. “You’re a gummy bear.”

Gia guffawed at Victoria. “She never smiles! How is that a gummy bear?”

Nicole never smiled because when she did she looked like her mother twenty years ago and no one let her forget it.

Straight brown hair that was somehow exotic on her mother and plain on Nicole.

Brown eyes that laughed and jabbed on her mother and were guarded on Nicole.

Full lips that were welcoming and sensual on both of them. When they smiled.

“That’s just my thing,” Nicole said.

Gia popped another gummy bear into her mouth. “You’re proving my point.”

Victoria said, “I don’t know what smiling has to do with it. I smile.”

Victoria smiled then—a large beauty queen smile. Her straight white teeth gleaming, her brown eyes sparkling. Her long brown hair full and sexy.

And if anybody was stupid enough to fall for that smile, they would realize their mistake fairly quickly.

Gia nodded. “Okay. You’re right. You smile an awful lot and no one would confuse you with a gummy bear.”

“Thank you,” Victoria said and meant it.

Gia rolled her eyes. “But Nicole is still not a gummy bear.”

Nicole didn’t want to be a gummy bear. But she didn’t want to be a Sour Patch Kid, either.

Because no matter how much she looked like her mother, and no matter that she’d modeled like her mother, and now designed like her mother, Nicole wasn’t her.

Wasn’t like her mother at all.

Or much at all.

Her mother was a Sour Patch Kid and proud of it, just like Victoria.

Or something even more pucker-worthy than that.

Maybe a Hot Tamale or an Atomic Fireball, except that implied a sweetness under the spicy and right about there the whole candy reference fell apart.

Her mother was a firework. Pretty to look at, hot to the touch, just waiting to blow your arm off.

Nicole had been happy to get away from her to go to boarding school. Had been relieved to be on her own, even if it was amidst a pack of teenage girls.

Teenage girls were nothing compared to her mother.

Nicole had even been surprised to find a friend in Victoria.

Another refugee from a gilded, war-torn life and they’d joked about what a vacation school was from real life.

But not everyone had been prepared for the claws. Not everyone had been hardened in the crucible of drugs, sex, and money.

Some girls came from happy homes, with loving mothers and fathers. Family dinners.

Some girls were too nice for an all-girls boarding school.

One girl had been unprepared for a pack of hyenas to circle around, laughing and pulling at her too-frizzy hair, poking at the baby fat spilling over her skirt.

Gia had sucked in her stomach and patted her thick, brown hair, and said like she was repeating what some kindhearted grandmother had told her years ago, “A bird loves her nest.”

The blond, blue-eyed ringleader had chirped a laugh. “Nest is right. Let’s get some eggs, girls!”

Victoria, never afraid, had stepped inside the circle, pushing girls away left and right and smiling that smile. “Back off, Barbie.”

Nicole had watched, nervous and wide-eyed.

Was she supposed to follow her friend? Into the middle of that circle?

But with someone fierce beside her, Gia had stuck her hands in her hair, shaking it wildly and saying, “Every bird must hatch its own eggs!”

The blond barbie had backed away, tossing her hair and smiling-slash-sneering, and when everyone was gone except the three of them, Victoria had turned to Gia.

“That made no sense.”

“That was my plan.”

And that had been it. It had been the three of them through three years of boarding school and then four more years of college.

Gia, her hair still corkscrew curly, wild and untamed, studied a bear between her fingers.

“Maybe there are three kinds of people: gummy bears, Sour Patch Kids, and Sour Patch Kids who think they’re gummy bears.” She waved the bear around. “Maybe even more than that. Gummy bears who wish they were Sour Patch Kids, Sour Patch Kids who wish they were gummy bears, Sour Patch Kids who love being a Sour Patch Kid, and Sour Patch Kids who don’t know they’re Sour Patch Kids, gummy bears who—”

Victoria closed her eyes. “Please, stop.”

Nicole eyed the bag. “Maybe sugar does make everything better. Gia is pretty happy.”

Really, she was the only one. Victoria was too intense to endure a mild feeling like happiness and Nicole was… just not.

Maybe it was the lack of sugar.

Victoria stood abruptly, grabbing the bag of candy and marching over to the nearest garbage can.

Gia cried out, “Hey,” as Victoria threw it in and then marched back to the table.

“Nicole is already stressed and exhausted. She doesn’t need to start eating candy on top of it and have to add more hours in at the gym.”

Nicole nodded gratefully. “You’re right. And it’s already been eleven minutes. I have to get back anyway.”

Gia shook her head. “Something is wrong with you two. Seriously.”

Victoria checked her phone, eleven minutes as long as she could be away from her business as well.

“It’s nothing a great runway won’t fix.”

Nicole stood, gathering her coat and shrugging into it. “We’ll see. Anything better than ‘It made me want to slit my throat’ and I suppose I’ll survive.”

Gia said, like she wished she could believe it, “Your mother wouldn’t say that about your runway.”

Nicole and Victoria just looked at her and then at each other.

Victoria drawled, “It must be nice to grow up with loving family members who insist on not preparing you for real life.”

Nicole nodded.

“Must be. Now, was I talked off the ledge? I can’t tell.”

Gia stood, hugging her hard. “Enjoy your show. This first time will only come once.”

Victoria shook her head in disgust. “Enjoy the memories. Now, go back to work and get it done.”

There was so much work to be done and Nicole waved as she headed to the door, pausing before opening it to the cold and the wind, and then hurrying out before she could change her mind.

Through the glass window, Gia was waving at her enthusiastically and Victoria was smiling her beauty queen smile.

They’d be front and center tomorrow, along with half of New York.

And the other half would read about it the next day.

Nicole hugged her coffee cup to her chest, happy to be invisible right now in the crush of the crowded sidewalk.

Wishing she could be invisible tomorrow, too, and wondering what madness had come over her to think she could do a runway when her last name was Bissette.

Flynn Redmond frequently wondered how he’d ever come to work for a fashion designer. For Nicole Bissette.

A celebrity, a debutante. The daughter of a supermodel.

But six months ago, she’d been hiring an IT Specialist (at an entry level salary), and that’s what he was.

And what man wouldn’t think that working with celebrities and models who frequently pranced around in an undressed state wouldn’t be the most badass job ever?

He’d been wrong.

And he’d been surprised to learn that a lot of them were really young. They were overworked and underpaid. They were bored.

They were photoshopped, almost always.

And he could have done the photoshop but that wasn’t his job.

His job was to keep the computers working. And the tablets. And the printers.

To update software and keep the website running.

To keep the wifi connected, the phones working.

No one wanted to be in a room full of bored models whose phones weren’t working.

“It doesn’t work. Make it work.”

Flynn held out his hand for the phone, keeping his eyes off the semi-nude model sitting in her chair getting her hair and makeup done not because he was a decent human being but because it had only taken a few months before the allure of so much flesh had become completely and utterly normal.

In quiet moments, Flynn shook his fist at a cruel and unjust god. He couldn’t look without knowing what parts had been nicked and tucked, photoshopped and retouched, and it was a sad day indeed when a healthy, red-blooded man got tired of nudity.

He said, “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

She wasn’t listening to him and didn’t answer and wouldn’t have got the reference anyway, and he turned the phone off and on again.

He handed it back to her with a “voila” and went back to watch from the sidelines.

He was just here to make sure everything was plugged in and turned on. If something wasn’t working—and for some reason even when it wasn’t technology related they called for him—it was his job to fix it.

This is what he’d spent four years in school for. What he’d accrued thousands and thousands of dollars of debt for.

A job full of naked women requiring him to drop whatever he was doing at any hour because no one in the fashion world had ever heard of nine to five.

Regular hours. He’d love regular hours.

Before Flynn had made it back to his watching position, he’d taped down a few cords that had worked their way loose, turned off and on two more phones, and changed the batteries in a microphone.

He was a regular jack-of-all-trades. A MacGyver!

Averting disaster and potentially explosive situations with duct tape and his thumb!

And no one here would get that reference either.

He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Nicole Bissette huddled beside the AV cart, her knees tucked under her chin and her eyes staring vacantly at a spot on the floor.

And then he shook his head in unsurprised resignation. The stress, the drugs, and he had no doubt the hunger, got to them all eventually.

To be fair, Nicole had never flown off the handle around him, and despite knowing that she had modeled for a few short years, he couldn’t see her ever doing it.

Couldn’t see her strutting around and being watched.

She was the watcher, staring at those around her as if she could see every ugly thought in their head.

And Flynn wondered again how he’d ever been hired. And why he hadn’t been fired yet.

He inched closer.

“Are you okay?”

Her eyes flicked to his, then back down. She wiggled her fingers at him to go away.

He said, “Should I get someone… else?”

She shook her head.

“Are you on something?”

Oh, no. She was tripping, right here. Geeking out, going to start screaming and ripping her hair out in chunks.

She whispered, “No. I just saw…”

Bugs burrowing out of her skin? A demon laughing at her from the back of someone else’s head?

Flynn told himself once again that he really needed to find another job. Maybe in a library. He could like working in a library.

“My mother.”

Flynn abruptly stopped worrying about her being on drugs. She had seen a demon smiling.

Nikita was known the fashion world over, though Flynn had luckily never had the opportunity to meet her in person.

There were perks to working in the utility closet sometimes. It was easy to hide.

He looked behind him, letting out a breath when Nikita wasn’t there.

Nicole was watching him when he turned back around and she jerked her head toward the crowd. “Out there.”

“You want me to pull up the video?”

She nodded her head, then shook her head, then nodded her head.

He waited for her to make a decision and then… just pulled it up.

He flipped through the cameras until he found who he was looking for. “Here you go.”

Nicole didn’t get up, just said, “Is she smiling?”

“Yes.”

“The How did I ever get talked into coming to this fiasco smile or the Let’s see what kind of disaster this is going to turn out to be smile?”

“Uh, I don’t know.” He squinted at the screen, then shrugged. “Now she’s laughing.”

Nicole closed her eyes. “Oh, god. Dear god.”

His walkie-talkie crackled and a frantic female voice said, “Has anyone seen Nicole? Nicole? We need you at the front.”

He said like she hadn’t heard, when anyone within a ten foot radius could have, “They need you. They’re starting.”

She held her hand out to him to be helped up and Flynn suddenly remembered this woman was his boss.

He grabbed her hand and pulled gently.

She nodded her thanks, smoothed her pantsuit, and then glanced at the screen.

She took in the filled seats, her mother front row and center, and said, “That’s the She’d better not embarrass me smile. And the I’ll skewer her if she does laugh.”

Flynn watched Nicole walk away, looking put together and like she hadn’t just been huddling in a corner, and he heard her mutter, “I really should have become a banker.”

Hair. Makeup. Top. Bottom. Shoes.

Hair. Makeup. Top. Bottom. Shoes.

Model after model, Nicole checked one last time to make sure everything was perfect. Or as perfect as she could get it in these final moments.

The runway was a performance—the clothes the lines, the girls the actors.

This was art.

Colors and patterns and shapes that would be stocked by retailers in the fall and winter season, if she was lucky.

The music gave its cue, the lighting changed its color, and Nicole nodded because she couldn’t say it.

Go.

The first girl went out and Nicole was too busy to check the TV for the audiences reaction. She’d watch the video after.

She was too busy to remember her own modeling days, not that she’d been any good at it. Too guarded and stiff. Too uncomfortable with everyone looking at her and comparing her.

The comparison could only be unfavorable.

She liked being behind the curtain. She liked being the one making decisions and bringing her visions to fruition. She liked being in charge.

And she was too busy to worry much about having to come out from behind the curtain to receive her applause.

Please let there be applause.

But the last girl was walking down the runway and the girls were lined up for their finale walk and Nicole was getting checked and finalized. Brushed and patted and manhandled. And she remembered another reason why she’d hated being a model.

Didn’t like to be touched.

The final outfit of the collection was hers—a pale vanilla pantsuit topped with a chocolate peacoat—and when the last girl passed her, she waited three extra beats then followed.

Nicole lifted her head, staring fiercely at nothing and strutting out behind her girls.

She moved with quick staccato steps, concentrating on staying far enough behind the last girl and ignoring the crowd.

She knew when she passed Gia and Victoria because they both stood and Gia’s rambunctious clapping almost made Nicole smile.

She knew when she passed Nikita from the dip in temperature.

The applause grew louder as she turned the first corner, a few more members of the audience stood up as she swept by them, and then suddenly everyone realized.

That this was Nicole Bissette. Walking in one of her own outfits.

And then a roar of applause. An explosion of camera flashes.

The models in front of her continued their fluid march until only Nicole was left at the end.

She stopped. She posed. She waited.

Then she spun around and strutted after her girls. Still staring fiercely at nothing, her walk smooth and strong, her chin up.

Just like she was a supermodel’s daughter.

“It. Was. Brilliant!”

Gia’s glowing outburst wasn’t exactly unbiased—she’d have said it was brilliant no matter what—and though Nicole was certain her show hadn’t been bad, she wasn’t certain it had been any good.

She raised her eyebrows at Victoria and braced herself for the untarnished truth.

“I’d fund you,” Victoria said, her highest compliment, and Nicole took a deep breath for the first time in days.

Gia clapped. “Now can we celebrate?”

“If you whip out a bag of candy…”

“Alcohol! Dancing!”

The room quieted abruptly and Nicole knew before turning around that her mother had entered.

“Nicole,” the older woman said, then waited for her daughter to turn around before continuing. “Very daring. I loved it.”

Everyone in the room started breathing again.

“Thank you, Nikita.”

She’d always been Nikita. Not Mama or Mommy or Mom or Mother. She was Nikita, the one and only, to one and all.

And as if they were only recently introduced acquaintances, Nikita offered her cheek for an air kiss.

“I don’t usually go out of my way to congratulate a debut designer,” she said, smiling to those gathered around. “But I thought I could make an exception in this case.”

Everyone laughed at her little joke.

“And your outfits were… interesting. Classic.”

She took Nicole’s hand and held it out to the side, studying the look she was still wearing, and Nicole said, “Thank you, Nikita.”

Her mother smiled magnanimously, dropping Nicole’s hand and then exiting the room.

Victoria said, “Now we can celebrate.”

Nicole said, “With alcohol.”

Flynn spent the next morning checking equipment to be returned.

When that was done, he wandered around turning on computers and updating software, browsers. No one was going to come in today, he already knew. He doubted any of them were going to wake up today.

He ordered a new scanner and found someone’s phone.

He changed a lightbulb. Not really his job but the buzzing drove him crazy enough to borrow a ladder from maintenance.

And then he went back to his closet to watch a few episodes of The IT Crowd with his feet up on his desk and his door open.

Yeah, this was the life.

He woke with a start, his chair shifting forward with his weight, and he flung his arms out in reflex. His stomach churned, his pulse raced, and then he was all the way awake and everything was okay.

He started laughing and then noticed Nicole Bissette watching from the doorway.

Flynn jumped to his feet.

“Sorry! Fell asleep.”

She looked at him and he smiled nervously. She always made him nervous with the looking.

He patted his still thumping heart. “I didn’t think anyone was here.”

“It’s okay.” She looked into the small room, his desk flush against one wall and his chair against the other.

It was a tight squeeze.

She said, “Do you have the video from yesterday?”

“Yeah, sorry. I didn’t think you were coming in today. You know, celebrating?”

She nodded. And looked. And Flynn grabbed a thumb drive from his drawer and took one big step toward her to drop it in her hand.

“Thank you.”

She turned and left and Flynn blew out his breath silently.

He froze with his mouth in open duck face when she came back into view.

“You can leave the door open. I’m the only one here today.”

He closed his lips, then said, “Oh, okay. Thanks.”

She nodded again, waiting and looking at him, and he finally realized what the problem was.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and said, “Flynn. My name.”

She blinked, then her eyes softened. She looked like she was thinking about smiling.

And she said, “I know.”

It was weird being here alone with her.

It was weird having his door open.

Normally, there was hustle and bustle. Designers and seamstresses and models, and today there was no one.

Nicole had also kept her door open and Flynn could hear the audio of her runway playing, over and over.

Format: EPUB
Length: 133,000 words, ~484 pages
Publication dates: April 13, 2016; May 14, 2018; April 10, 2022