CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

But his temper was on full display after they settled in his office. He was fine at first, even though Vivian was uneasy. And not just because of Nayla and her foolishness. But because they were in the same huge office she had wandered into seven months ago, and had had what felt like a screaming match with him. That wasn't lost on her either.

But he motioned for her to take a seat on the leather couch against the wall while he sat behind his desk. At first he seemed awkward, as if certain feelings were flooding back. Then he swerved around in his swivel chair and turned away from the piles of papers on his desk and began looking out of the big window behind his desk. And he stared out of that window for nearly an hour. Vivian wanted to ask if he was okay, but she didn't bother him. She allowed him to have his quiet time.

But she couldn't just sit there. She was, she guessed, on the clock. That was why, when Rhonda arrived and he was still sitting there in whatever mood he was in, Vivian went out to Rhonda's station and asked what she could do with those piles of papers on his desk.

Rhonda liked her initiative. She liked that she wanted to help. "Sort them in two piles," she said. "One pile for the papers that need his signature. You'll see the signature line at the bottom. The other pile for the papers that don't. The signature pile is always the priority."

"Yes ma'am," Vivian said, went back into Giorgio's office, and began sorting the paperwork.

Giorgio could hear her scrambling papers on his desk as if she was tidying up, and he appreciated her help, but it was as if a ton of bricks fell on him when he sat behind that desk. He'd already missed one season for the first time in his career. Now a new season was on the horizon. Fashion weeks around the world were coming up. He had to get his act together and get back into the grind or he just might miss the new season. But he didn't know if he could go through it another year. He hadn't been to work in months, had only been back a good hour, but he already felt burned-out.

And Claudio didn't help. He walked in with another hot shot designer, forcing Giorgio to stand up, walk around his desk and lean against the front side to see what had been produced. He watched as the arrogant designer paraded model after model around the office to showcase the new crop of fashions he had designed, for the first time ever, with hardly any input from the boss. And it showed. Giorgio was not pleased.

He looked at the designer that was twenty years his junior. "Is this a joke?" he asked him. Vivian stopped sorting papers and looked at Giorgio.

Claudio was immediately alarmed. He knew that tone. But the designer, so full of himself, didn't get it. He was immediately offended. " Excuse me ?"

"These are rip-offs," Giorgio said angrily as he shot up from his leaned position and began touching the clothes the models wore as if he couldn't believe it. "This is a rip off. This is a rip-off. This is a rip-off!" He was flipping the collars and coats and snatching on belts and treating that designer and those models as if they were mannequins rather than people. "You think I'm going to put my name on these knockoffs?"

"They aren't knock-offs, Gio," Claudio tried to intervene. "Yes, they're similar. But the accessories make the difference."

"Accessories?" That explanation only made Giorgio angrier. "You're talking to me about fucking accessories? Do I design accessories, or do I design clothes?"

Claudio hated when he put him on the grill that way, and especially in front of the designers and models, and he wished to God he had never opened his mouth. "You design clothing, Gio, of course," he said. "But what I'm saying is that the styling makes all the difference. It's everything. Yes, it's similar to Prada and Armani and Chanel, I'll grant you that. But it's totally different too."

"Different my ass," Giorgio yelled out. "This is Prada with a collar. Armani with a stripe. Chanel with a scarf! What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" He was livid.

Vivian understood his anger, but the way he was talking to that designer and the way he was snatching around those models as if they weren't human to demonstrate his point disturbed her. And as he continued to scream at them, she could see the tears appearing in all of their eyes. Even the designer! But Giorgio didn't let up. It was as if he couldn't.

"Get your ass back in that studio and reconfigure every single one of these outfits. This is the House of Janardi. Not the House of Chanel! Now get out of my face and get back to work!"

"Yes, sir," the now humbled designer said, seemingly grateful that he was getting out of there still employed, and he and the models hurried out.

"I'll oversee it myself," Claudio said.

"You should have been doing that to begin with!" Giorgio shot back.

But as soon as Claudio walked out, Vivian looked at Giorgio. And she was upset too. "You can't talk to people like that," she said to him.

Giorgio looked at her. "What?" He was still angry. "That idiot was ripping off every major designer in this world and thought he was going to put my name on those knockoffs, and you're worried about my tone ?!"

"I understand what he did is wrong. Dead wrong. But you can't talk to people like they aren't human. You reduced that man to tears, Jonni. To tears! Those models too. You can't keep doing that. I remember how nasty you talked to me when I mistakenly wandered in this office. That hurts. It hurts you to your soul."

Rhonda was at her desk outside of the office, but the door was opened and she could hear every word. And the fact that Giorgio hadn't lashed out at Vivian was incredible to her.

But he wasn't lashing out. He was staring at Vivian. "I understand what you're saying," he said in a far more measured voice that shocked Rhonda too. "But this is how I operate. And yes, I know I can't continue this way. It was killing me before that hotel scene. It's really doing a number on me now. And I can only imagine what it's doing to the people who have to stand before me and deal with my wrath. You make a valid point."

Vivian stared at him. Would he be man enough to do something about it and change? "What's the answer then?" she asked him.

"The answer?"

"Yes. Beyond the words."

"I can kick your ass to the curb and keep it moving," Giorgio said.

Vivian was so thrown by his answer that she smiled and then started laughing. He smiled too. "How about that?" he said with a laugh.

Then she turned serious. "You aren't ever going to change though. Are you?"

Giorgio exhaled. "Maybe one day I will." He hoped so. "But with him? And those clothes he presented to me?" Giorgio shook his head. "Never."

"Even though it's taking so much out of you to be this way?"

"The very fact that I'm a perfectionist when it comes to my craft is what makes me great. If I lose that; If I allow these designers that work for me to change my aesthetic, then I'm lost. I may as well pack it up and go home. And I'm not going home. I just got back," he added with a smile.

Vivian smiled too. She knew creative people could be difficult and challenging. Giorgio was at the top of his profession. He was supersize difficult and supersize challenging. And all at once. "Just try not to be so mean about it," she said.

"If I don't have to, I won't. When I have to be, I will."

But Vivian wasn't buying that part of his tale. "Why would you ever have to be mean to people? That don't make no sense."

"My name goes on every product produced at HOJ. My name. And nobody is going to alter my designs but me, and nobody's going to rip off other houses in the name of fashion-forwardness, I don't care if every House in the world is doing it. I don't do that shit. Whenever they don't do it exactly as I blueprinted, then they won't work for me long. And I won't be kind about it either. And that's putting it mildly."

He was who he was, and Vivian knew she had to either accept that fact or move the hell on. The problem was that she was kind of falling for the guy. She wasn't ready to move on. Besides, she wasn't a kid anymore. She was a woman a few years shy of forty who didn't really have anywhere to move on to. She thought she had Rog and Nayla as her safe landing, but in the span of a morning she realized she didn't have either one of them either. She had Giorgio. He was it.

"This stack," she said, turning toward the desk, "needs your signature ASAP, according to Miss Rhonda."

"Her name is Rhonda," Giorgio said as he made his way back around his desk. "You're with me. You don't have to call anybody Miss or Mister around here."

"That woman is old enough to be my mother. She is and will always be Miss Rhonda to me."

Giorgio looked at Vivian as if he was ready to lash out at her. Then he realized a truth about her too. "Set in your ways much?" he asked her.

She looked him dead in the eyes. "Set in your ways much?" she asked him.

And then he smiled. And she smiled. "We're a mess," he said, shaking his head.

"A major mess," she agreed, nodding hers.

Then Giorgio leaned over and kissed her on the lips. How he loved tasting her. Then he opened his eyes and looked into hers. "But you're my mess," he said.

Then he sat down and got to signing while Vivian continued sorting.

But as the day wore on, Giorgio could tell Vivian had more on her mind than shuffling papers. He could feel her energy shift.

Finally, as they went across the hall to the executive dining room and sat down for their chef-prepared lunch, he asked her. "What's on your mind?"

Vivian thought she was cheerful and enjoying lunch with him. She had no idea he could tell that she was also thinking about other things.

"What is it?" he asked her

"I was wondering if there was a way I could get my business back from Mason and Nayla."

"That cleaning company?"

"That's the only business I've ever owned."

"No." He was emphatic. "You aren't doing that anymore."

Vivian found that presumptuous. "Why not?"

"Because you're with me now. Your cleaning days are over." He had a frown on his face. "You do understand that, don't you?"

But Vivian was frowning too. Because she wasn't going to base the balance of her life on ambiguity. "No," she said. "What does I'm with you mean? You got to break that down for me."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Giorgio asked.

But before Vivian could answer him, the sound of a male's voice saying knock-knock could be heard and Howard Zorn walked into the private dining hall, informed Giorgio that the lead he had spoken of earlier was not a fluke, and before Vivian knew anything at all they were off to the airport. It happened so fast that Vivian could hardly believe it. But there they were. Going from asking him to break it down so that she could once and for all understand where she stood in his life, to hopping his private jet to fly all the way to Oklahoma of all places.