Roman Spring. Sandra Marton

Not to think about the silly outfits you were wearing or the paint slathered on your face or hair that had been whipped and frothed into a lion’s mane.

      Instead, you held your head high and let a glazed look mask your eyes. You moved to the music in a way that the show demanded. And all the time you weren’t really there, you were somewhere else entirely, and the funniest part of it was that you ended up looking like a pro, like a model who lived for these moments in the public eye.

       “D’accordo!”

      Caroline started, then looked down again. Fabbiano was rising creakily to his feet, all smiles now that the crisis was over. Beaming, he clasped her shoulders and pressed kisses into the air on either side of her face.

      “It is done,” he announced. “You, signorina, are superb. Almost as beautiful as the dress you are wearing. Yes?”

      Caroline cleared her throat. “It’s—it’s quite unusual.”

      “Unusual?” he said, casting his entourage an amused glance over his shoulder. “It is beautiful, young woman. It is the most beautiful thing you will ever wear—until I surpass myself the next time!”

      “I don’t see how you could,” she said pleasantly. “You’ve just about gone the limit now.”

      The little man’s eyes narrowed momentarily, but then he smiled. Even if his English permitted him to understand her answer, his ego would not.

      “Enjoy yourself, signorina,” he said with a smile, and then he hurried off, his assistants trotting after him.

      “Fat chance of that,” Caroline said. “Well, it’s the thought that counts, I guess.”

      “Is that what’s supposed to keep me in this dress? Positive thoughts?”

      Caroline whirled around. Trish was coming toward her, her pretty face twisted in a grimace. She was wearing a chartreuse dress that looked as if it had been spray-painted on.

      “My God,” Caroline said with a groan, “what’s that?”

      “A good question.” Trish lifted her hair from her shoulders and turned her back. “Do me a favor, would you? See if you can zip me up.”

      “I can,” Caroline muttered as she inched the tiny plastic teeth shut, “if you can do without breathing. There. How’s that?”

      “Impossible—but who am I to complain?” Trish swung around and faced her. “It is beautiful,” she said coyly, “it is the most beautiful dress I will ever wear, until I surpass myself the next time.”

      Caroline laughed. “You heard?”

      “Yeah.” She stepped back, eyes narrowed, and surveyed her roommate dispassionately. “Too bad you couldn’t tell him the truth—that whatever class that dress gets it owes to you.”

      Caroline tugged at the thin straps that held the red silk up over the generous curve of her breasts, then smoothed down the skirt as if her touch might somehow magically make it extend beyond her thighs.

      “And you haven’t seen what I get to put on next,” she said with a shudder. “What the heck? Another hour or so, I can get back into my jeans and—”

      “Not tonight, old buddy.”

      “What do you mean, not tonight?”

      “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. The cocktail party after the showing? We’re expected to mingle.”

      Color rose in Caroline’s cheeks. “I don’t mingle.”

      “Hey! I don’t, either, remember?”

      “I’m sorry, Trish. I didn’t mean—”

      Trish sighed. “I know you didn’t. Look, tonight’s different. The party’s for charity. For kids.”

      “So? We’re here to show Fabbiano’s misbegotten collection, that’s all.”

      “Exactly. And he’s pledged five per cent of tonight’s take to the Children’s Aid Fund, which means—”

      “Which means the old boy’s one clever manipulator.”

      “Which means,” Trish said patiently, “that we’re on the books until the party ends. We have to smile pretty as we work our way through the ballroom so that the carriage trade will want to place orders.”

      “And the men can try to finger the merchandise.”

      Trish grinned. “I’ve never seen one of them manage that with you yet.”

      “You’re damned right,” Caroline said sharply. “It doesn’t say a word in our contracts about us having to put up with being hit on by every male who thinks he’s got the price of our bodies.”

      “Look, I agree. Some of these guys are jerks. And some of the girls—well, some of them seem to think the men are perks of the job.”

      “They’re one of the horrors of it.”

      “Uh-huh. But try telling that to Giulia. Or to Suzie. They’re both seeing guys who’ve promised to get them into films.”

      “And I,” Caroline said with conviction, “am seeing no one but the cabdriver who takes me home.”

      “Sounds good to me,” Trish said with a shrug.

      “Signorine.” The girls turned. One of Fabbiano’s assistants was standing on a low stool, clapping her hands. “Ladies,” she said excitedly, “e ora di farlo. We are about to begin.”

      Caroline felt a familiar knot forming in her belly. I hate this, she thought fiercely, I hate this!

      “Hey. Are you okay?”

      She looked at Trish, forced herself to smile. “I’m fine.”

      * * *

      IT WAS, he thought, one hell of a place for a man to spend a Thursday evening. Not that he didn’t like women. Nicolo Sabatini permitted himself a little smile. Damn, no. No one would ever accuse the Prince of Cordia of that.

      The trouble was, there were too many of them packed into this room. Beautiful ones. Homely ones. Young ones. Old ones. And all of them had one thing in mind.

      The Fabbiano Collection.

      Nicolo shifted unhappily in the little gilt chair that had certainly not been made for a man’s body. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t interested in what women wore, either. He liked the softness of silk, the slippery feel of it under his hands as he slowly undressed a woman in a shadowed bedroom.

      But to have to sit here and pretend interest in an endless parade of painted mannequins wearing bored looks and the ridiculous fashions he’d already glimpsed in the huge sketches plastered on the wall as decorations— Nicolo shifted again. No, he thought, no, he couldn’t do it, not even for la Principessa. He would do anything for his grandmother, his beloved nonna—hadn’t he proved that by accompanying her here tonight, to this benefit for her favorite charity?

      But to sit here, like one of the effeminate fools smirking over there or, worse still, like Antonni and Ferrante and the others he’d spotted, who boasted of the conquests they made of the long-legged girls who dreamed of jewels and furs and sold themselves so easily—to sit here, to even be in the same room with such men, made him feel filthy.

      And there was no reason for it. He could step out into the anteroom, smoke a cigar, even take a walk around the block, and still be back in plenty of time to escort la Principessa safely through the crowd and out the door.

      Nicolo leaned toward the elderly woman seated beside him. “Nonna,” he said softly.

      La Principessa looked up. “Si, Nico.”

      “Would you mind very much if I stretched my legs?”

      She