Love in New York ; Cherish My Heart

by Shirley Hailstock

  Coffee had been fun. André was easy to talk to. That’s probably why she had stayed longer than she’d intended. She knew she needed to be careful. André had celebrity status. While the paparazzi didn’t follow him night and day, he made the news several times a year. And if she made a habit of being with him outside the House of Thorn, her name—her real name—could make those papers, and she’d be hounded again.

  Taking another breath, Susan centered her attention on the bedroom section. Pastels next to vivid reds. Susan frowned at the color combinations. There was a good amount of foot traffic, but if the arrangement was different and the colors were coordinated better, the aesthetics would cause an unconscious trigger that made people stop and think about what their own homes could look like.

  She knew this was true, both from her previous framing business and from long conversations with Jerome, the photographer she had met while living in Italy. She’d accompanied him on various photo shoots, and had watched and listened as he’d explained why he combined or eliminated certain elements.

  Taking another breath, Susan looked in the direction of one of the bedroom setups. The first thing was the bed, she thought. It needed to be moved to the other side of the display. She pulled the coverlets off and stood the mattress and box spring on their sides. Then she began to walk the frame to the opposite side.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” someone shouted from behind her. She heard running feet on the wooden floor, before they reached the carpet, which then muffled the sound. She knew exactly who it was. She’d been expecting him since they’d had coffee together.

  Startled, she dropped the end she was holding. It went thunk as it made contact with the rug. André Thorn came up beside her.

  “What are you doing? We have staff to move furniture. You could get hurt.”

  Susan felt heat flash inside her. Being caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar—and by the owner of the company—was above and beyond an infraction of the rules.

  “I think this bed would be happier in that display.” She pointed to the place she wanted it, keeping her voice steady and calm, although it was a note or two higher than its usual pitch.

  André followed her gaze. For a long moment, he said nothing. She was sure he’d tell her the designs needed approval from the department head. But instead he said, “Let me give you a hand.”

  After taking off his suit jacket, he hung it over the arm of a chair and moved to the front of the headboard.

  “Be careful,” he said. “It’s heavy.”

  Susan’s shoulders dropped in relief. Her body became cold and then hot with sweat at being caught doing something she shouldn’t. Her hands felt clammy and buttery. She wiped them down her pants and lifted the foot. André did the same with his end. Together, they crossed the floor and set the frame where she wanted it. With an unspoken mutual consent, they silently replaced the box spring and mattress, and he helped her remake the bed.

  “Anything else you want moved?” André asked.

  She could hear the humor in his voice. It made her relax a little.

  “Are you sure you want to ask that?”

  He raised his brows in response to her question.

  “We have to put something else back there.” She indicated where they’d left an open gap in the floor plan.

  “And...?”

  “And I want to change that room.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “It will draw people into the department.”

  “People who stop on this floor are coming to this department.”

  “Not all of them,” she said. “Many people go to the sheets and towels. They don’t think of needing a bed, but if there is a display that catches their eye, they may stop and take a look. If they don’t buy then, they might come back.”

  Again an eyebrow rose. “You think you can do that with a bed?”

  The way he said bed made her pulse race. “Not only with a bed. It’s the entire picture of the room that they’ll see, and like a book, they’ll fill in the rest.”

  He said nothing, but the expression on his face had her wondering what he was thinking. She wondered if his mind was seeing a couple on the bed.

  Seeing them on the bed.

  “Could you help me with one more?” Susan tried to cover her feelings with the question.

  André gestured for her to lead on. She put together another room mock-up, and they stood back, looking at it.

  “This is it?” He spread his hands.

  Susan could see he wasn’t convinced.

  “Not quite,” she said. “I have a few other things to do, but I won’t hold you. I’m sure someone is waiting for you. And I promise I won’t move any more furniture tonight.” She hoped he hadn’t heard the opening she’d left in her comment or the way her voice had broken when she’d suggested he was heading out to meet a woman.

  “I’m waiting to see how this pans out. I want to see a bedroom that draws people in.”

  It wasn’t the ending she’d hoped for. Susan waited a moment, then smiled.

  “Just wait here.” She rushed off to the bedding department and found the comforter and pillow shams she’d had her eye on for a week. After gathering it all up, she went back, barely able to see above the packages. André took some of them just before they all fell to the floor.

  “Could you do me a favor?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “I need some photos. Could you go to the framing department and get me three or four? Use different sizes and preferably ones with family-type photos in them.”

  He cocked his head, obviously trying to figure out her plan. Then he nodded and turned to go.

  Susan worked diligently while he was away. She knew the framing area was at the back of the art-supply department, on the first floor. He must be having a hard time making a decision. Making use of the time, she rushed to housewares and grabbed a few things before returning to the furniture department. Moments later she heard André’s footsteps. Turning, she saw him carrying several frames. Thankfully they looked to be the perfect size. Then he put them down on the new bedcovers.

  The gasp came involuntarily. Susan’s hand went to her mouth. “These...” She hesitated. “Aren’t these your personal family photos?”

  She stared at each photo, following the order in which he had laid them out on the bed. There was one of a wedding. The couple smiled in happiness at the camera. It was so real, she could almost hear the guests in the background. Instantly she wondered who the photographer was.

  “It’s my brother’s wedding. Blake and Elliana—we call her Ellie. They were married last spring.”

  “They make a beautiful couple,” she said, surprised to find emotion in her voice. She glanced over the others. There was a photo of three boys dressed in swimming trunks, with their arms hooked together as they stood on a beach. Pre-teens, there was only a little height difference between them. They looked about twelve, all resembling each other. “Your brothers,” she stated.

  “Just after that was taken, we had a sand fight.”

  Susan heard the pride and happiness in his voice. She knew the memory he’d shared was far more crystal clear in his mind.

  “You must have had a wonderful time as a child.”

  “Like most kids, I guess.”

  This time there was an undercurrent of regret in his words.

  “I can’t take these,” she said, beginning to gather them up. “They’re too personal, and you wouldn’t want anything to happen to them.”

  She turned and pushed the frames toward him. His hands covered the metal and glass, but they didn’t take them. He held on, with his fingers wrapped around the photos and imprisoning her hands. Lightning bolts shocked her bloodstream.

  “It’s all right.” André took the frames. “I’d like to see the room with them displayed.” He laid a
ll but one of them back on the bed.

  Susan wanted to check her hands to see if they were singed. Instead she looked up at him. She didn’t know what she expected to find in his face—maybe assurance or a question asking for agreement—but what she saw was touching. It flustered her. Her throat went dry and she knew she should look away, but she didn’t want to. André was the first to drop his gaze.

  “Why don’t we try this one over here?”

  He took the photo of the three boys and set it on the top of a dresser. Susan looked at the remaining frames. She picked them up and set them about the room, in places she thought would give them the best advantage. Her movements felt stilted. Susan could feel André’s eyes following her around as she arranged the room. She had already been disconcerted by his appearance, but his gaze on her back made her even more nervous.

  After placing the last photo, she picked up the tray she’d pinched from housewares, along with a coffee cup and saucer, and placed them at the foot of the bed. It was the last touch. She stepped back, but bumped into André’s warm body. More heat went through her, even though she froze in place.

  “You’re right,” André whispered. “People will probably be enticed here or at least stop.”

  His hands were still on her arms. And his voice was close enough to her ear for her to feel his breath. She hoped he couldn’t feel the tremble that was going through her.

  “Breakfast in bed. I could go for that.”

  Susan turned and stepped back, forcing herself out of his touch. “You’ve had breakfast in bed before.” She stated it as a fact.

  “Not unless I was ill.”

  “Well, you’ve got time,” she quipped, trying to dislodge the images in her head. Images of them. Images that had no right to be there. “It will also help when we have real food on the tray. Something from the bakery that has a wonderful aroma.”

  Susan lifted her head as if she could smell the sugary air prevalent in the bakery.

  “You intend to have real food on the bed?”

  She could practically hear him thinking that people would want to eat the food or that the kids coming through would sneak something and make a mess in the bed.

  After laughing at his discomfiture, she said, “The pastries would be in jars—sealed jars. It won’t be real, but it will look real.”

  André looked at the room scene and had to agree it was inviting. However, the day had been long and he could just be tired.

  “You know this is against company policy,” André stated. “There are crews to move furniture, rules to follow and safety measures to adhere to.”

  Susan wanted to drop her eyes, as someone who’d been caught doing wrong usually did, but she refused to conform. If he was going to fire her, she’d take it.

  “I understand,” she said. After a long moment, she spoke again. “Am I fired?”

  André looked as if he hadn’t expected that question.

  “I don’t usually get involved in overseeing the store at this level. The department manager is responsible for hiring and firing personnel.” He paused, looking over the room setup that Susan had rearranged. “It’ll be up to Jessica Cresswell to deal with this. But my suggestion is you don’t do it again without her permission.”

  “Of course not,” Susan agreed, but crossed her fingers behind her back.

  * * *

  André purposely avoided the furniture department the next day. He’d done his usual morning walk through the departments, but by the time the staff began to arrive, he was back in his office. However, he wondered how Susan’s experiment was going. By three o’clock he’d done little more than sign a few letters. It was time to talk to Jessica Cresswell.

  Ten minutes later she stood in the doorway to André’s office.

  “You wanted to see me,” Jessica said.

  “Come in.” André rose from his chair and walked around the desk to meet her. He offered her a chair and she sat down, while he leaned against his desk.

  Jessica ran the furniture department. A fifty-seven-year-old woman, she barely crested at five feet tall. Yet she was agile. He’d seen her once turning cartwheels in the fitness center. She had a winning smile and dark brown eyes that always seemed to be happy. She’d started in the children’s department fifteen years ago. For the last five years, she’d been the department head in furniture.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Susan Dewhurst.”

  André paused, checking Jessica’s expression. Her face changed—it fell a little. André tensed.

  “She’s certainly enthusiastic,” Jessica said, with caution evident in her tone.

  “In what way?”

  Sighing, she leaned forward. “I was very surprised this morning to find the rearrangement she’d made in the department. Don’t get me wrong. Her heart is in the right place, but she could have gotten hurt moving all that heavy furniture.”

  “I helped her,” André admitted.

  Jessica’s mouth dropped open and her face showed the surprise he expected.

  “I found her moving the bed and feared she might get hurt.” He waited a moment for her to recover. “What did you think of the arrangement?”

  Jessica swallowed. “It’s not what I would have done, but it does set a mood. That was how she explained it. And the photographs were a nice touch.”

  André saw the knowing mischief in her eyes.

  “I’d never seen them before.”

  He glanced at the place on his étagère where they had once sat. “Has anything sold?”

  She shook her head. “But people do stop and take long looks.”

  Somehow that made André feel better. He knew it shouldn’t, because the emotion didn’t really involve the placement of dressers, beds or photographs. It had to do with Susan, with the way her hair seemed to swing when it was down. The way her waist dipped in as if waiting for his hands to curve around it.

  André blinked and changed positions in his chair. Jessica was still sitting in front of him. He hoped his face didn’t reveal anything. There was nothing between him and Susan, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t thinking about her in the most carnal way.

  “I told her to make sure she clears things with you before making any other changes.”

  Jessica’s nod was barely visible, but André knew she felt better knowing that decisions in her department rested with her, and no one was infringing on her responsibilities.

  Last night, when Susan had assured him she would comply with the rules of the store, somehow André hadn’t felt there was a lot of backing behind that statement. Susan struck him as a woman who was used to getting her way, and a little thing like moving furniture wasn’t going to hinder her.

  “Thanks.” She hesitated a moment, and André felt she had more to add. “I won’t say I’m against what she did. I think it looks better than it did before. Maybe we should think more outside the box than in it.”

  Susan was an outside-the-box person. André agreed with that. He was just unsure if he wanted her in a box, and did he want to be in that box with her?

  * * *

  While André hadn’t asked Jessica to keep him informed about Susan’s work, her reports on the furniture department always included specifics about Susan.

  André purposely avoided the seventh floor, which housed the furniture department. He was getting too interested in the brown-eyed beauty and knew it was time to back off. Even though he’d usually date a woman before dropping all association, he’d only been present at the same wedding as her. The two had exchanged only a few words and a tray of champagne that ended up covering his jacket, shirt, and pants.

  Her upsetting the tray had been an accident, so he couldn’t really fault her for it, but when she had showed up in the store, something inside him had snapped. And while he knew it and acknowledged it, he could not—would not—act on it.

 
André got on the escalator going down. He’d skipped breakfast that morning and was in the mood for a chocolate éclair that was only available in the Thorn bakery. After pairing the pastry with a cup of coffee, he spotted Jessica waving him over. He both wanted and didn’t want to go. For all intents and purposes, he owned the House of Thorn store in New York. It was prudent to know everything that went on. Yet he felt as if he was breaking a trust by listening to Jessica relate details about another employee.

  “Running late today?” she asked, then indicated his coffee and pastry.

  André acknowledged it with a nod as he took a seat at the table. “Skipped breakfast. And I had a taste for this.” He lifted the éclair and took a significant bite.

  “We sold three of the bedroom sets,” she said, without his inquiring.

  André stopped chewing. “Today!”

  “Two yesterday, one this morning.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean—”

  Her head was shaking while André spoke. He stopped.

  “They said it was because they felt that bedroom display spoke to them.”

  André had no comeback.

  “And that’s not all,” she went on. “She’s changed two more room configurations.”

  “She promised me she wouldn’t do that.”

  Jessica put her hand up to stop him. “I know I was a little hesitant at first, but you have to see what she’s done.”

  They both got up. André carried his cup and pastry, although he was no longer hungry.

  The furniture department had more people browsing than André had seen in several years. Although the department had always held its own, André couldn’t help doing calculations in his head. It was his nature. The department always made money, but if only 10 percent of the people who came in the department eventually bought, the sales would triple.