"You haven't mentioned any travel coming up."
"Things are covered."
She glanced out the window, as if engrossed in the passing scenery. "Once you replace Peter you'll have to go back to Europe, I imagine."
"Eventually. I'm handling things from here well enough for now."
"Is that what you want?'' She needed to keep the question easy, for both of them. "To stay here?"
He was as cautious as she. "Why do you ask?"
"You've never stayed in one place for long."
"There was never a reason to."
Her lips curved. "That's nice. But I don't want you to feel tied down. Both of us have to understand that the other's business has demands. If Pretenses continues to do well, I'll have to start making buying trips."
He'd considered that, had already begun working on a solution. "Where did you have in mind?"
"I'm not sure. Local estate sales won't do. And for the clothing end of it, I want to try my contacts first. I could probably pitch a better ball in person. L.A. certainly, and New York, Chicago. And if it all keeps rolling, back to Milan, London, Paris."
"Is that what you want?"
"I want the shop to shine. Sometimes I miss Milan, the being there, the feeling of being in the center of something. Of having it all buzzing around me." She sighed a little. "It's hard to let go completely. I'm hoping that if I can visit there a couple of times a year, do business there now and again, it'll be enough. Don't you miss it too?" She turned to face him. "The people, the parties?"
"Some." He'd been too busy changing his life, and hers, to think about it. But now that he did think, he could admit that the whirl was in his blood. "There's no reason we couldn't coordinate your buying trips with my business. Just takes a little planning."
"I'm getting better at planning." When he pulled to the curb in front of Pretenses, she leaned over to kiss him. "It's good, isn't it? This is good."
"Yeah." He cupped her neck to linger over the kiss. "It's very good."
All they had to do, she thought, was keep it that way. "I'll take a cab back. No, I mean it." She kissed him again before he could protest. "I should be there by seven, so try not to work too late. I'd love to go somewhere fabulous for dinner and neck over champagne cocktails."
"I think I can arrange that."
"I've never known you to fail."
He caught her hand as she started to alight. "I do love you, Margo."
She tossed him a brilliant smile. "I know."
Chapter Twenty
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It was a smug feeling, spending the day in her own shop, among her own things, reaping the rewards of her first successful reception. And so she told her mother when Ann dropped by in the middle of the day with a box of Margo's old favorite. Chocolate chip cookies.
"I just can't believe it all happened," Margo said over a greedy bite. "People have been coming in all day. This is the first break I could manage. Mum, I really think I have a business. I mean I wanted to believe it all along. I nearly believed it after the first day went so well. But Saturday night." She closed her eyes and shoved the rest of the cookie into her mouth. "Saturday night I really believed it."
"You did a good job." Ann sipped the tea she'd brewed in the upstairs kitchen. Though she raised an eyebrow at Margo's choice of champagne—champagne at lunchtime!—she didn't comment. "You've done a good job. All these years…"
"All these years I've squandered my life, my time, my resources." Margo shrugged her shoulder. "The old ant and grasshopper story again, Mum?"
Despite herself Ann felt a smile tug at her lips. "You never listened to that story, never stored your larder for winter. Or so I thought." She rose to walk to the doorway, glanced into the tastefully decorated boudoir. "It looks as if you've been storing up after all."
"No. That's a different adage. Necessity being the mother of invention. Or maybe it's desperation." Since she was working hard on honesty in the new Margo, she might as well start here. "I didn't plan it this way, Mum. Or want it this way."
Ann turned back, studied the woman who sat on the fussy ice cream chair with its hot-pink cushion. Softer than she'd been, Ann thought. Around the eyes and mouth. She wondered that Margo, who had always been so aware of every inch of her own face, didn't seem to notice the change.