In New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer’s fan-favorite tale of unexpected passion, opposites attract when a wealthy mogul falls for his beautiful, secretive employee.

When Ivory Keene landed a job at a prestigious fashion house in New York, she could never have anticipated the challenges and excitement her new position would provide. Chief among them is her exasperatingly sexy boss, Curry Kells.

The older, experienced executive can’t help but be drawn to Ivory by a desire neither can resist. He sees only a talented young woman whose fresh, exciting designs might just make them both millions. But he soon discovers that Ivory is keeping secrets.

Now, just as Ivory’s wildest dreams are within her grasp, she’s tempted by the intimacies of a forbidden affair. But is achieving fame and wealth worth sacrificing Curry’s love?

Also available from Diana Palmer

Long, Tall Texans

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Heartless

Dangerous

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Courageous

Protector

Invincible

Untamed

Defender

Undaunted

The Wyoming Men

Wyoming Tough

Wyoming Fierce

Wyoming Bold

Wyoming Strong

Wyoming Rugged

Wyoming Brave

Wyoming Winter

Morcai Battalion

The Morcai Battalion

The Morcai Battalion: The Recruit

The Morcai Battalion: Invictus

The Morcai Battalion: The Rescue

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

All That Glitters

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08232-7

ALL THAT GLITTERS

© 2018 Diana Palmer

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Praise for New York Times bestselling author

Diana Palmer

“Palmer proves that love and passion can be found even in the most dangerous situations.”

—Publishers Weekly on Untamed

“You just can’t do better than a Diana Palmer story to make your heart lighter and smile brighter.”

—Fresh Fiction on Wyoming Rugged

“Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“The popular Palmer has penned another winning novel, a perfect blend of romance and suspense.”

—Booklist on Lawman

“Diana Palmer’s characters leap off the page. She captures their emotions and scars beautifully and makes them come alive for readers.”

—RT Book Reviews on Lawless

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

PROLOGUE

THE BRIGHT TEXAS sun was hot on Ivory Keene’s short, wavy blond hair. She’d only just had it cut. Its natural wave gave it golden highlights, adding to the soft radiance of her oval face with its creamy complexion and faintly tormented warm gray eyes.

Her youth made the woman standing on the porch, watching her, feel her age even more. It added to Marlene’s resentment toward her only child. She took an impatient draw from her cigarette with her too-red lips, wrinkled a little around the edges from years of smoking. She used concealers, but they were cheap and didn’t work. If Ivory had taken the modeling job Marlene had tried to push her into, she would have had money for expensive cosmetics. She’d coaxed and demanded and cried, but for once, she hadn’t been able to move the silly girl. Instead Ivory had managed to get a scholarship to a fashion design school in Houston and now she was determined to go there.

“You’ve been out of high school for two years. You’ll be older than most of the other students,” Marlene argued from the porch, still hoping to keep Ivory from leaving. “Besides, you don’t even know how to set a proper table or get along in polite society,” she added meanly.

“I’ll learn those things,” Ivory replied in her quiet drawl. “I’m not stupid.”

I’ll have to learn everything you never taught me, Ivory thought as she stood in front of the house, watching for the neighbor who was giving her a lift to the bus station. Her mother had never been sober long enough to teach her much except how to fetch glasses and bottles and wait on her boyfriends. She felt a chill, even in the hot sun. Come on, she called silently to her neighbor, please come on, before she finds some way to stop me!

“You don’t even own a decent dress,” her mother scoffed. She herself was wearing a nice dress, a present from her last boyfriend. Ivory’s was a homemade cotton one, an original design and nicely made, if cheap. The girl could sew, all right, but one needed more than a little talent to become a famous designer. It amused Marlene that Ivory thought she had the brains or the personality for such a career. Now, Marlene knew she could have done it herself when she was younger. Except that she’d never learned to sew, and she didn’t want to spend every waking hour working.

Ivory’s slender hands clenched the old suitcase. “I’ll get a job. I know how to work,” she added pointedly. Her mother had always made sure that Ivory had had jobs since she had been old enough to be employed.

The sarcasm didn’t faze Marlene, though. It was early morning, but she had already had her first drink of the day. She was moderately pleasant, for the moment. “Don’t forget to send me some of your salary,” she reminded Ivory. “You wouldn’t want me to tell all the neighbors how you walked out and left me to starve, would you?”

Ivory wanted to ask her mother if she could possibly do any more damage to her reputation in the community than Marlene had already done, but there was no point in starting an argument now. She was so close to freedom that she could almost taste it!

“You’ll be back,” Marlene added smugly and took another puff on the cigarette. “Without me, you’ll fall flat on your face.”

Ivory gritted her teeth. She would not reply. She was twenty. She’d managed to finish high school in spite of having to work and in spite of her alcoholic mother. She’d tried to understand why Marlene was the way she was; she’d tried to encourage her mother to get help with her drinking problem. All her efforts had failed. There had been one or two incidents that would be hard to forgive, much less forget. In the end, she’d taken the advice of the family doctor. You can’t help someone who doesn’t think she has a problem, he told her. Get out, he said, before she destroys you, too. Ivory hadn’t wanted to desert the only relative she had in the world. On the other hand, her mother was more than she could handle. She had to leave while she still could. If she could manage to get through design school, her talent might help her rise above the poverty she’d endured all her life.

She looked down the road and thought back to her school days, to the children who had laughed at the way she lived, made fun of her clothes and her ramshackle house and her poor, sharecropper father’s illiterate drawl. They had all heard that her mother had been forced to marry Ivory’s father because she’d gotten pregnant when she was just fourteen, and that knowledge had damaged her own reputation in the community. Marlene had boyfriends, too. A little while after Ivory’s father died, her mother had taken up with one of her lovers, the town’s richest citizen, and painted her child as an immoral, ungrateful thief. Marlene had gained some respect because of her lover’s financial power; but even so, little Ivory was never invited to other children’s parties. She was the outsider. Always, it seemed, people here had laughed about her, gossiped about her. But she was young and strong. She had one chance to escape all of it and make a fresh start somewhere she wasn’t known. She was going to take it.

“You’ll be back,” Marlene said again, with cruel satisfaction, as a car appeared on the horizon.

Ivory’s heart leaped. Her hands were sweaty on the handle of the suitcase. She looked behind her at the dilapidated old house with its sagging porch and peeling paint, her mother in a fancy dress and high heels with too much makeup on her thin face and black color on her thin hair. Marlene had been pretty once, but now she looked like a caricature of her old self, and her blue eyes were glazed most of the time. Since her lover’s death earlier in the year, she’d started to drink more heavily. The money he’d left her was running out, too. Soon, it would be gone and she’d want someone to support her, namely, her daughter.

Ivory was going to escape, though. She was going to get away from the smothering dependence of her mother and the contemptuous attitude of her community at last! She was going to make a name for herself. Then, one day, she’d come back here dressed in furs and glittering with diamonds, and then the people who’d made fun of her would see that she wasn’t worthless!

The late-model Ford stopped at the front gate, raising a cloud of dust on the farm road. Their neighbor, a middle-aged man in a suit, leaned across and pushed the door open.

“Hop in, girl, I’m late for my flight already,” he said kindly.

“Hello, Bartley,” Marlene said sweetly, leaning in the window after Ivory had closed the door. “My, don’t you look handsome today!”

Bartley smiled at her. “Hello, honey. You look pretty good yourself.”

“Come over for a drink when you have a minute,” she invited. “I’m going to be all alone now that my daughter’s deserting me.”

“Mother,” Ivory protested miserably.

“She thinks she wants to be a fashion designer. It doesn’t bother her in the least to leave me out here all alone with nobody to look after me if I get sick,” Marlene said on a sigh.

“You have the Blakes and the Harrises,” Ivory reminded her, “just up the road. And you’re perfectly healthy.”

“She likes to think so,” Marlene told Bartley. “Children can be so ungrateful. Now, you be sure to write, Ivory, and do try to stay out of trouble, because other people won’t be as understanding as I am about...well, about money disappearing.”

Ivory went red in the face. She’d never been in trouble, but her mother had most of the local people convinced that her daughter stole from her and attacked her. Ivory had never been able to contradict her successfully, because Marlene had a way of laughing and agreeing with her while her eyes made a lie of everything she said. At least she’d get a chance to start over in Houston.

“I don’t steal, Mother,” Ivory declared tensely.

Marlene smiled sweetly at Bartley and rolled her eyes. “Of course you don’t, darling!”

“We’d better go,” Bartley said, uncomfortably restraining himself from checking to make sure his wallet was still in his hip pocket. “See you soon, Marlene.”

“You do that, Bartley, honey,” she drawled. She patted Ivory’s arm. “Be good, dear.”

Ivory didn’t say a word. Her mouth was tightly closed as the car pulled away. Her last sight of her mother was bittersweet, as she thought of all the pain and humiliation she’d suffered and how different everything could have been if her mother had wanted a child in the first place.

Houston might not be perfect, but it would give Ivory a chance at a career and a brighter future. Her mother wouldn’t be there to criticize and demean her. She would assume a life of class and style that would make her forget that she’d ever lived in Harmony, Texas. Once she made her way to the top, she thought, she’d never have to look back again.

CHAPTER ONE

THE NOVEMBER AIR was brisk and cold. The stark streetlights of the Queens neighborhood wore halos of frosty mist. The young woman, warm in her faded tweed overcoat and a white beret, sat huddled beside a small boy on the narrow steps of an apartment house that had been converted into a shelter for the homeless. She looked past the dingy faces of the buildings and the oil-stained streets. Her soft gray eyes were on the stars she couldn’t see. One day, she promised herself, she was going to reach right up through the hopelessness and grab one for herself. In fact, she was already on the way there. She’d won a national contest during her last month of design school in Houston, and first prize was a job with Kells-Meredith, Incorporated, a big clothing firm in New York City.

“What are you thinking about, Ivory?”

She glanced down at the small, dark figure sitting at her side. His curly brown hair was barely visible under a moth-eaten gray stocking cap. His jacket was shabbier than her tweed coat and his shoes were stuffed with cardboard to cover the holes in the soles. A tooth was missing where his father had hit him in a drunken rage a year or so before the family had lost their apartment. It was a permanent tooth, and it wouldn’t grow back. But there was no money for cosmetic dentistry. There wasn’t even enough money to fill a cavity.

“I’m thinking about a nice, warm room, Tim,” she said. She slid an affectionate arm around him and hugged him close for warmth. “Plenty of good food to eat. A car to drive. A new coat...a jacket for you,” she teased, and hugged him closer.

“Aw, Ivory, I don’t need a coat. This one’s fine!” His black eyes twinkled as he smiled up at her.

She remembered that smile from her first day as a volunteer at the homeless shelter, because Tim had been the first person she’d seen when she came with her friend Dee, who already worked there. Ivory had not been eager to offer her services at first, because the place brought back memories of the poverty she’d endured as a child in rural Texas. But her prejudice hadn’t lasted long. When she saw the people who were staying at the shelter, her compassion for them overcame her own bitterness.

Tim had been sitting on these same steps that first day. He and his mother had been staying at the homeless shelter along with his two sisters. It was a cold day and he wore only a torn jersey jacket. Ivory had sat down and talked with him while she waited for Dee. Afterward, when Dee had asked casually if Ivory would like to volunteer a day a week to work there with her, she had agreed. Now, she almost always found Tim waiting for her when she came on Saturdays. Sometimes she brought him candy, sometimes she had a more useful present, such as a pair of mittens or a cap.

Tim’s mother loved him and did all she could for him; but she also had a toddler and a nursing baby, and her situation, like that of so many, was all but hopeless. She had a low-paying job and the shelter did, at least, provide a home.

“I would like a room,” Tim mused, interrupting her thoughts. He’d propped his face in his hands and was dreaming. “And a cat. They don’t let us have cats at the shelter, you know, Ivory.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I made a new friend today,” he said after a companionable silence had passed.

“Did you?”

“He stays at the shelter sometimes. His name’s Jake.” He sighed. “He used to be a bundle boy in a manufacturing company. What’s a bundle boy, Ivory?”

“Someone who carries bundles of cut cloth to be sewn,” she explained. She worked in the fashion sector. It wasn’t the job she’d dreamed of, but it paid her way.

“Well, the place he worked closed down and they moved his job to Mexico,” Tim told Ivory. “He can’t get another job on account of he can’t read and write. He shoots up.”

Her arm around him tightened. “I hope you don’t think that’s cool,” she said.

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that. My mama says it’s nasty and you can get AIDS from dirty needles.” He glanced at her with a worried look that she didn’t see. “Is that true, Ivory?”

“Hmm? Oh, AIDS from needles? Well, if you used a dirty needle, maybe. That’s something you shouldn’t have to worry about,” she added firmly, thinking how sad it was that an eight-year-old should know so much of the bad side of life.

He sighed. “Ivory, this is a real bad time to be poor.”

She smoothed a wrinkle in his cap and wished for the hundredth time that she could do more for Tim and his family. After paying the rent and utilities for her own apartment and sending money home to Marlene, there wasn’t a lot left. Even though she was comfortable now, she remembered the hopelessness of being poor, with nothing to look forward to except more deprivation.

“There’s never a good time to be poor, I’m afraid, but, listen, Mrs. Horst down the hall from me gave me a plate full of gingerbread and I brought some today. Would you like a slice of it, and some milk?”

Tim’s face brightened. “Ivory, that would be nice!”

* * *

KELLS-MEREDITH, INCORPORATED WAS on Seventh Avenue in the garment district. It was an old business that Curry Kells, the newest mover and shaker in the New York financial world, had bought out and redesigned. Ivory had never seen him in person, but the senior design staff held him in awe. He didn’t have much to do with the day-to-day working of the company, spending most of his days at his corporate office on Wall Street. He looked in occasionally, to see that everything was in working order; but since Ivory had been working for the company, she hadn’t been around during his rare visits.

She wondered what it would be like to ride around in stretch limousines and eat at the finest hotel restaurants. She had worked hard to improve her speech and her table manners, but she hadn’t had much chance to test her new social graces in high society. Her dreams of becoming an overnight sensation in the New York world of fashion had gone awry from the day she arrived in town, fresh out of design school. Winning first place in the design contest had, indeed, secured her a job as a sketcher-assistant to a designer at Kells-Meredith. It was a far cry from the junior design position she’d hoped for. She knew that years of hard work were required for even the smallest promotion, but she’d dared to hope that she was talented enough to go right to the top.

The big designs, the ones that would be shown in seasonal fashion shows, however, were those of the top in-house designers. Ivory wasn’t permitted to submit designs of her own because the senior designer, Miss Virginia Raines, felt she hadn’t enough experience to think up usable ones. Ivory’s job was to do freehand illustrations of Miss Raines’s designs. She also accessorized outfits for fashion shows—such as the spring showings that had just finished—and made appointments for Miss Raines. Because Ivory was only twenty-two, Miss Raines considered her too young to make contact with buyers and kept that chore for herself. Nor was she receptive to suggestions from Ivory on any designs, despite the fact that nothing new or particularly original ever came from Miss Raines’s mind.

Ivory was walking briskly to work one morning carrying a portfolio of drawings. She had some ideas for the summer line that would be shown in January—if only she could get Miss Raines to take a look at them. Ever the optimist, she was cheerful even if she knew her cause was probably hopeless.

She came to a halt in front of the church half a block from Kells-Meredith. A man sat on the wide stone steps, wrapped up in what appeared to be a fairly expensive gray overcoat. He stared straight ahead at nothing with his one good eye. The other was covered by a black eye patch held in place by a band that cut across his lean, handsome face. He looked like a film star, she thought idly, with his wavy black hair and smooth olive complexion and even features. He had nice hands, too. They were clasped on his lap, the nails very flat, very clean. On the right little finger was a ruby set in a thick, oddly Gothic gold ring. A thin gold watch peeked out from the spotless white cuff over his left wrist. His black shoes had a polish that reflected the sheen of his gray slacks. He was leaning forward, as if in pain, and although people who walked by glanced curiously at him, no one stopped. It was dangerous to stop and help anyone these days. People got killed trying.

Ivory looked at him indecisively, her portfolio of drawings clutched to the front of her buttoned old overcoat. Her jaunty white beret was tilted just a little to the right over her short, wavy golden blond hair. Her gray eyes studied him quietly, intently. She didn’t want to intrude, but he looked as if he needed help.

She approached him slowly, dodging the onrush of people on their way to work, and stopped just in front of him.

He glanced up. His one eye was black as coal, and it glittered with anger and coldness. “What do you want?” he demanded.

The abruptness of the question caught her unawares. She hesitated. “Well...”

He sighed roughly, sizing up her lack of financial wherewithal in a cold scrutiny that took in her shabby coat with the spots she couldn’t erase on the lapel, and her scuffed, old shoes with their worn heels. He dug in his pocket and handed her a five-dollar bill.

“Get yourself some breakfast,” he said shortly. “You look like a starved kitten.”

He got to his feet. She hadn’t realized how big he was until then. His size was intimidating, but not as much so as the look he gave her.

“I didn’t want anything,” she said, trying to give back the money. “You looked as if you were in pain. I wanted to help...”

“Sure you did,” he scoffed. He rammed his hands into the pockets of his overcoat and strode off down the sidewalk, muttering every step of the way.

Ivory smiled ironically. “Well, I guess that puts me in my place,” she murmured to herself. “I really will have to get myself a new coat!” She pocketed the five-dollar bill; she could give it to Tim when she went to the shelter on Saturday.

When she saw the stranger go into the building where she worked, she hung back a little before she entered. She didn’t want him to think she was following him!

Ivory worked on the first floor of a converted warehouse where seamstresses on an assembly line sewed sample garments. Pattern-makers, markers and junior designers had small offices there; Miss Raines’s office and those of the two other senior designers were carpeted and more luxurious. The executive offices—art, promotion and production—were on the second floor. That was where the vice president and manager of this division, Harry Lambert, worked.

Adjoining the elegant room occupied by Miss Raines was Ivory’s small cubbyhole. The space was cramped and furnished with cast-off pieces that had apparently been designed to depress the most optimistic of workers. One of the two straight chairs had a loose leg, and the desk had a rough finish marred by careless hands with sharp implements. The curtains were windowless; not that it mattered, because the view was of a rough red brick wall less than twenty feet away. At least Miss Raines had a view of the street outside. She never looked, though, because she said it depressed her. No doubt she hadn’t paid much attention to the furniture in Ivory’s office, or she’d have discovered real causes for depression!

Ivory had sorted out the accessories that she’d been told to match with the simple outfits for the upcoming summer fashion shows. She was trying to decide which of two scarves to pair with a nice silk suit when her door opened.

“Miss Keene,” Miss Raines said formally, her cold eyes unblinking behind her stylish glasses, “why were these designs placed on my desk?” She waved the portfolio at Ivory.

Ivory paused with the scarves held before her like a shield. She hesitated, and then rushed ahead before her courage gave out. “I’d hoped you might like one of them,” she began.

Miss Raines put the portfolio on Ivory’s desk with the air of someone disposing of nasty garbage. “Hardly,” she said. “As I’ve told you already, the other two senior designers and I make up our new lines each season. Junior designers may contribute, but not someone on your level. Perhaps when you’ve been here a few years, we might consider something of yours. However, you will have to prove yourself first.”

Ivory wondered how she was going to prove anything by matching scarves and suits. She studied the older woman from her short hair and simply cut but very expensive mauve dress to her polished calf pumps. Miss Raines had never married, and the business was her life. Perhaps it was all she had, Ivory thought, trying to be kind.

“Kindly keep your...drawings...out of the way,” Miss Raines added as she left, and Ivory’s impulse to be kind vanished at once. “And do clean this place up,” she added as an afterthought. “Mr. Kells is in the building.”

The door closed firmly behind her. Ivory stared at it with resignation. She’d been here six months, and it felt like six years. Mr. Kells might be in the building, but she was hardly likely to get to see him. She’d had no contact with anyone except Miss Raines, Dee Grier, who was the head seamstress, the seamstresses who made reality of the mental creations of the designers and the various salesmen who frequented the office. Mr. Kells had no reason to come here. There was no suggestion box. Wages were paid, frugally, every other week. Insurance was bare bones. Holidays were, apparently, few and far between. Hard work was the order of the day.

Ivory toyed with the label of the silk scarf in one hand. Gucci. She wondered how it would feel to be able to walk into an exclusive department store and buy several of these. Even one was far beyond her means, and the outfits that carried the Kells-Meredith label, even in the casual line, were so expensive that the price of one leisure dress would pay Ivory’s rent for a month.

She put the scarf down and opened the portfolio. She’d designed a collection based on sixteenth-century Tudor costumes, having become intrigued with them when she’d first seen them in her local library back home. Her adaptations had a definition that was like a signature, and everyone she’d shown them to had exclaimed over them. Everyone, that is, except Miss Raines, who had the power to bring them to the attention of those in charge of the company’s lines. She released a long sigh over her favorite, a heavily embroidered gown with mutton-leg sleeves and a square neckline. Ideally, it would be done in silk for summer and a heavier fabric, perhaps satin, for winter evening wear. The long sleeves might be too hot for summer. But, then, nearly every building was air-conditioned now and silk was so summery.

She closed the portfolio reluctantly and picked up the scarf again, only to be interrupted by Miss Raines, who asked her to take three sample gowns to the showroom where models were doing a special showing for some society matrons. Ivory did as she was told, and in her absence Mr. Kells walked through the sample room. He stayed only briefly and left before Ivory returned.

“I told you to clean this mess up,” Miss Raines said impatiently when Ivory entered the room. “Let me tell you, Mr. Kells wasn’t impressed. He said that even a sketcher-assistant should have more to do than pile accessories on desks. I agreed with him that you have too much free time, even with my work, so I’m going to let you do alterations, as well. You sew of course?”

It was like a sudden demotion. Ivory felt sick to her stomach. “Well, yes, but...”

“Then we’ll get you started first thing tomorrow,” she said. “The regular girls have too much contract work to stop for repairs. This will work out nicely. Mr. Kells thought it would.”

“Miss Raines, I came here to do design work,” Ivory began.

“Yes, yes, and you will, one day,” she promised indulgently. “But we must crawl before we can walk, Miss Keene.”

Ivory sat down at her desk with an expression of pure anguish. If she had to do repairs as well as accessories and illustrations, she was never going to have time to work on her own designs. But what was the use, anyway? Miss Raines was doing everything in her power, apparently, to make sure that Ivory didn’t have any successes. And so was the elusive Mr. Kells.

Miss Raines had admitted to Ivory early on that she had disagreed with Mr. Kells’s decision to offer a job as a first prize in a nationwide design contest. It had all been a stunt, a promotion, to bring a fading design house back into the limelight. Ivory felt cheated. She’d expected more, somehow, from the description of the prize when it was given to her at graduation.

“You’ll have a dream job in New York at Kells-Meredith,” Mr. Wallace, the president of the school, had assured her after the award was presented at the school’s graduation exercises. “And a nice apartment, rent-free for the first month until you start drawing your salary!”

“I’m very honored that I won,” Ivory had told him.

“And so are we, young lady. It’s a feather in our cap to have one of our graduating seniors do so well.” He’d looked around curiously, because Ivory had come to the awards ceremony alone. “Didn’t your, uh, family care to come tonight, to see you get your design diploma?”

She hadn’t blinked an eye. “My mother is ill and couldn’t make the trip,” she had lied. “My father died years ago.”

“You’re an only child, then?”

She’d studied her feet. “Yes.”

“Sad for you, especially at holidays, I guess.”

She’d composed her face and looked up. “The job...how soon will I start?”

“As soon as you like,” he’d said, beaming. “Next week?”

“That would be fine,” she had assured him.

The dream job was less than dreamy, and the promised apartment too expensive for her to keep on her salary. Her present apartment, while clean and comfortable, was hardly a penthouse. It was in a nice part of Queens, though, and not too long a bus ride from work. There was a kitchenette, a living room and a small bedroom with a double bed. It was a furnished apartment, but Ivory didn’t really like the faded yellow-flowered sofa. With one of her first purchases, a sewing machine, she’d made slipcovers for the sofa and chair and a tablecloth for the small round table.

Ivory had scraped together enough moderately priced dinnerware and silverware to use, and she now had a small, refinished coffee table. It was the best accommodation she’d had in her twenty-two years. Someday, she’d promised herself as she looked around her living room, she would have new wall-to-wall carpeting.

Even if the apartment was less than elegant, the neighbors were something special. Mrs. Horst was an elderly German widow who had immigrated to the United States just before World War II. She made wonderful breads and cakes and liked making them for Ivory, whom she considered delightful company. Two doors down from Mrs. Horst lived Mr. Konieczny from Wisconsin, who worked as a bank clerk and had a small poodle for company. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson occupied a third apartment. He was a World War II veteran who had to get around in a wheelchair. He had lost his legs at Guadalcanal, but he was cheerful and liked to make wooden toys for the three small children who lived on the same floor down the hall with their parents.

It would have been nice to have a handsome young bachelor in the building, Ivory had mused wistfully, but she liked her neighbors very well.

A tap on the door interrupted her thoughts. Dee Grier stuck her blond head in and grinned. “Did you catch hell, too?” Ivory, disconcerted, just stared at the head seamstress.

“Mr. Kells,” Dee explained. “He came. He saw. He grumbled for fifteen minutes. Everybody caught hell. Miss Raines was almost on her knees trying to placate him.”

“Did you...?”

“I hid out in the bathroom,” Dee chuckled. “But I heard him. What a temper! Apparently, we’re sluggish, uninspired and hopelessly straitlaced. Our clothes are being passed over for fresh designs by new designers. Miss Raines actually sputtered trying to think up excuses.”

“It isn’t my fault,” Ivory pointed out. “I have some designs, new and original, that Miss Raines won’t even consider.”

Dee recognized the hurt in the younger woman’s voice and smiled reassuringly. “Cream always rises to the top,” she said. “Don’t give up.”

“She says it will take years,” Ivory groaned.

“If she has her way, it will. She knows talent when she sees it. She’s afraid of you, so she’ll hold you back if she can. Go over her head,” Dee advised. “Take your sketches to Kells himself.”

Ivory’s eyes widened. “She’d fire me.”

“Not if he likes your work.”

“All or nothing, huh?” Ivory murmured.

Dee nodded. “No great risk, no great reward, and something about ‘daring greatly.’” She frowned. “Who said that? I can’t remember.”

“Helen Keller and Teddy Roosevelt, I think, but not at the same time.”

“Well?”

Ivory sat down. “I’m not brave enough yet,” she said with a rueful smile. “I have a job and an apartment and Christmas is next month.”

Dee laughed. “Okay. How about in the spring?”

“Good enough. The homeless shelter should be pretty warm by then.”

“You idiot. A woman of your talents won’t have to go on the streets.”

“I can name you three people who felt that way, and they ended up there,” Ivory said solemnly. “You ought to remember, too, because you introduced them to me at the shelter. Two of them had five-figure salaries and the third worked in real estate. They went from Lincolns to park benches in a few weeks.”

Dee shuddered. “It’s scary.”

“Scary, indeed,” came the reply. “What does Mr. Kells look like, do you know?” she asked Dee curiously.

“I caught only a glimpse of him. He’s tall and visually challenged. I’ll ask around, if you’re really curious.”

Visually challenged. Did Dee mean that he wore glasses? Probably. “I just wondered if he was old and set in his ways or young enough to entertain new ideas,” she replied.

Dee fingered her collar. “He took over the company months ago, just before you came, and he hasn’t fired Miss Raines yet,” she said firmly. “What does that tell you?”

“That he admires loyalty to the company and that he doesn’t like change, even though he would like to see some originality.”

“Bingo.”

“Then why did you suggest that I take him my designs?”

“Because you’re talented. And I think any man brave enough to take on a failing design firm is brave enough to stick out his neck for something different.” Dee added a remark about a two-man team of Italian designers who’d just burst onto the fashion scene with some romantic Spanish-inspired designs that were selling like hotcakes. “Who’d have backed them last year when women’s suits looked like those communist Chinese uniforms?”

“They did not!” Ivory protested.

“Plain straight-skirted suits with scooped-neck blouses of various colors, and no trim. Yuck! I wouldn’t be caught dead in one!”

“Beats miniskirts.”

Dee reluctantly agreed. “Especially with my legs...”

“Miss Grier!” a strident voice called. “You are not paid to converse with other employees!”

“Yes ma’am, Miss Raines, I was just asking Miss Keene if she wanted to have lunch with me at the new Japanese sushi place.” She smiled sweetly. “You could come, too, if you like.”

“I never eat fish, especially raw fish. God alone knows what pollutants are in the water where they’re caught.” She kept walking, her back like a poker.

Dee’s face reddened as she tried not to laugh. She looked at Ivory, and it was fatal. Mirth burst the restraints, to be quickly disguised as coughing.

Ivory watched her retreat and turned back to her own work before Miss Raines had time to notice that she wasn’t doing what she’d been told. Would it be worth a trip to Mr. Kells’s office to show him those designs? Or would she lose her job? If only she weren’t so afraid of being out of work.

But she was. A homeless shelter was a poor accommodation in November, when snow flurries had already come calling, along with subfreezing temperatures. No, she decided. It might be better to wait just a little longer before she risked everything on such a gamble. Besides, Dee’s description of Mr. Kells as visually challenged niggled at the back of her mind. What if she meant that he only had one eye? It would be just her luck to walk into his office and discover that he was the same ill-tempered, despondent man who’d mistaken her for a beggar and handed her a five-dollar bill for a meal!

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