“Mr. Niarxos!”
“You honor us!”
“Sir! We are so happy to...”
He cut them off with a gesture toward Daisy: “This is my—” future wife...baby mama...lover... “—dear friend, Miss Cassidy. She needs a new wardrobe. I trust you can help her find things to her taste.”
“Wardrobe!” Daisy gasped. She immediately corrected, “I just need a coat.”
The assistants turned huge, worshipful eyes to Daisy. “Welcome to Bandia!”
“Miss Cassidy, may I get you some sparkling water? Fruit?”
“This way, if you please, to the private dressing suite, madam.”
Perfect, Leonidas thought in approval. Just as he’d expected. He’d send the CEO of Bandia a note and let her know he approved of staff training levels.
“Madam, what type of clothes do you prefer?” The store’s manager hurried to pay her obeisance as well. “Our newest releases for the fall line? Or perhaps the latest for resort?”
Daisy stared at them like a deer in headlights. “I just...need a coat,” she croaked.
“Bring everything and anything in her size,” Leonidas answered. “So she can decide.”
They were both led to the VIP dressing suite, which had its own private lounge, where Leonidas could sit on a white leather sofa and drink champagne, as salesgirls brought rack after rack of expensive, gorgeous clothing for Daisy to try on in the adjacent changing room behind a thick white velvet curtain.
“I don’t need all these clothes,” she grumbled to Leonidas. “Why should I try them on, when I don’t need them?”
“Market research?”
“Fine,” she sighed.
Reluctantly, she tried on outfit after expensive outfit. Each time she stepped in front of the mirrors in the lounge, the salesgirls joyfully exclaimed over her.
“You look good in everything!”
“Beautiful!” another sighed.
“I hope when I’m pregnant someday I’ll look half as good as you!”
It was true, Leonidas thought. Daisy looked good in everything. As she stood in front of the mirrors in an elegant maternity pantsuit, he marveled at her chic beauty.
“Do you like it?” he called.
Glancing back at him, she shrugged. “It’s all right.”
“Just all right?”
“It’s not very... comfortable.”
He frowned. That wasn’t something he ever worried about. “Comfortable?”
“I prefer my T-shirts and stretch pants,” she said cheerfully.
“Keep looking.”
Rolling her eyes a little, Daisy continued to try on clothes for the next hour, as Leonidas sat on the leather sofa, sipping complimentary Vertigris champagne—one of Liontari’s other brands, from a two-hundred-year-old vineyard in France. His company was nothing if not vertically integrated.
Every time she stepped out of the changing room, to stand in front of the large mirrors in the lounge, Leonidas asked hopefully, “Do you like it?”