How I Met Your Brother (Power of the Matchmaker) Read online

  How I Met Your Brother

  By Janette Rallison

  Copyright © 2016

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious.

  Other titles by Janette Rallison (aka CJ Hill)

  Slayers (under pen name CJ Hill)

  Slayers: Friends and Traitors (under pen name CJ Hill)

  Son of War, Daughter of Chaos

  Blue Eyes and Other Teenage Hazards

  Just One Wish

  Masquerade

  My Double Life

  A Longtime (and at One Point Illegal) Crush

  Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Free Throws

  The Girl Who Heard Demons

  How I Met Your Brother

  Playing The Field

  The Wrong Side of Magic

  My Fair Godmother

  My Unfair Godmother

  My Fairly Dangerous Godmother audio book

  All’s Fair in Love, War, and High School

  Fame, Glory, and Other Things on my To Do List

  It’s a Mall World After All

  Revenge of the Cheerleaders

  How to Take The Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend

  Erasing Time (under pen name CJ Hill)

  Echo in Time (under pen name CJ Hill)

  What the Doctor Ordered (under pen name Sierra St. James)

  Just One Wish audio book

  My Fairly Dangerous Godmother audio book

  Chapter 1

  Belle had never been the type who dreamed of being a runway model. Even back in high school when her friends were vying for whatever spotlight was available, she was the sort who preferred to stay in the background, unnoticed, while she got the work done. Work was the answer to every question, at least to every question that mattered, and the pride in doing your job better than everyone else, well, that was what earned respect from the people who mattered. Work. Pride. Dignity.

  Everyone knew that about her. So Belle’s boss really should have known better than to ask her to strap on six-inch heels and strut down a catwalk.

  “You’re kidding me,” she told him.

  They stood backstage, fifteen minutes before their spring line made its debut at fashion week. Models, makeup artists, and hairstylists hurried by. Dressers trolleyed outfits past them and seamstresses made last-minute alterations. The whole place smelled of new fabric and hairspray: the scent of haute couture.

  “I don’t kid during fashion week. Svetlana went AWOL.” Felix Cohen flipped through the call sheets. He was nearly sixty, and what little hair he had left was short-cropped and peppered with gray. The sleeves of his sage green shirt were rolled up, and he carried a roll of antacids that he’d been popping all morning like they were SweeTarts.

  Viv, the head seamstress, held a periwinkle silk business dress up to Belle, eyeing it for adjustments. “Some sort of crisis called Svetlana away,” Viv said. “She’s either visiting a sick Russian consort or rushing to a Sic concert. It’s hard to tell because her English is only so-so.”

  Belle ignored Viv’s sizing attempts. “One of those things should get her fired.”

  “Either way,” Felix said, “we’re a model short today. You’ll need to take her place.” Felix was Fontaine’s founder, creative director, and CEO. Mostly the CEO. That alone was a full-time job, so he’d turned the bulk of the creative work over to the design team.

  Belle had gotten used to him staying in his office and only emerging during those occasions he felt the need to remind everyone about deadlines or cost containment. She didn’t know how best to handle this new edict. She was at the show as a designer. Her job was to mingle with buyers and fashion magazine reporters. She was supposed to make contacts and present herself as someone of substance, not parade down the runway.

  “Why can’t you call the agency and get another girl?” She didn’t bother protesting that she didn’t know how to model. Fashion shows had been a staple during college design classes. All the students knew how to work the catwalk.

  Viv pinned the dress against Belle’s waist, checking to see where the hem fell. “Stay still, dear. I don’t want to poke you.”

  Felix shrugged off Belle’s question. “Everyone is booked during fashion week. Besides, you know what traffic is like in New York. Even if they had another girl, the agency couldn’t get her here in time.”

  Normally, one missing model wouldn’t have been a big deal. Each girl typically had two changes. Asking a couple of them to double up wouldn’t have been hard. But this season, Felix had decided to cut costs by hiring a third of the models the show usually used and increasing their changes to six apiece. As it was, the girls barely had enough time to change. Backstage was going to be a blur of dresses and heels.

  “If you won’t model,” Felix went on, “we’ll just have to scratch your line from the program.”

  “My line?” Belle straightened and was nearly jabbed with a pin.

  “Someone’s will have to be cut. As I see it, you’re the one who’s not being a team player.”

  Belle wasn’t the only one who’d worked on those clothes. Three seamstresses had made, remade, and fussed over the prototypes. The sales team had been promoting her line, and their overseas reps were already getting the material ready for mass-market versions. Cutting Belle’s line would kill the orders. “Why not Rita’s or Sebastien’s? You’re not asking them to take a turn on the catwalk.”

  “Rita’s the wrong size, and Sebastien is a forty-year-old man. Any audience wanting to see him in a skirt is an entirely different demographic.” His voice turned cajoling. “Come on. This will make you a model employee. Literally.”

  Belle blinked at him. “I’m only five eight,” which was short for a runway model. “I’m at least twenty pounds heavier than anyone in the show.” The models were all flirting with anorexia, while Belle had actual curves. “If you put me next to them, I’ll look like the short, fat girl.”

  “What are you talking about?” Felix fluttered a hand in her direction. “You’re thin and beautiful. That’s why I hired you. Now go change and show all of the retailers why they have to buy our clothes.”

  She stared at him, unmoving.

  “I pay the models two hundred an hour. If you delay this event even fifteen minutes, do you realize what it will cost me?”

  And that was how Belle found herself sauntering down the catwalk in six-inch heels. She didn’t have to fake the look of haughty distaste that the models always wore. She was naturally simmering because of Felix.

  She wasn’t a team player? She worked overtime every single night, while most of the employees were out the door at the stroke of five.

  And Felix had hired her because she was thin and beautiful? She couldn’t help but read other things into the statement. He’d hired her to work at Fontaine because he wanted someone young and trendy to deal with the customers. He didn’t care about her talent or vision. He saw her as some sort of assistant who could deal with retailers, distributors, and merchandisers but who would never amount to more than a glorified gopher.

  She paused on the runway and struck a pose. How long had Felix been promising to make her a senior designer? A year? Well, five, if you counted her first interview, when he’d lured her away fr
om the internship in Paris. He’d gushed about her portfolio and the way she made fabric flow. She’d been just what his fledgling fashion house needed. He promised that as soon as she got some experience, she’d be a senior designer.

  As camera flashes went off around Belle, she noted an assortment of heiresses, actresses, and sport celebrities’ wives in the audience. Some big names were here. But that wasn’t what made her stomach twist with nerves. Several of the department-store buyers in the audience were watching her with puzzled expressions. They recognized her and no doubt wondered why she was climbing her way down the corporate ladder. She came to a stop at the end of the catwalk, struck another pose, and turned. To her left were a cluster of magazine reps and fashion bloggers.

  She risked a smile at them even though she wasn’t supposed to make eye contact. She would explain her temporary career switch to them later, turn it into a funny story. Better yet, she’d turn it into an anecdote about determination.

  The show must go on, even if you have to put on six-inch heels and march down a slick runway. Making it in the fashion industry meant giving every endeavor a hundred and ten percent of your effort. This probably counted as a hundred and twenty.

  She’d have felt better if she’d been wearing her own line, but after Felix had consulted with Sebastien, the head of the fashion design team, he’d decided that Sebastien’s clothes would show better on her. They were tailored toward women who had figures.

  Which, knowing Sebastien, was a given. The man probably got into this business just so he had an excuse to stare unabashedly at women’s bodies. Seriously, the way he ran his hands over the dressing dummies verged on creepy.

  The first outfit Belle modeled was business casual; her second, business-not-so-casual. The third, business-if-you-want-to-seduce-your-boss, and the fourth, business-as-a-call-girl.

  Then it was time to showcase formalwear. Her first gown was borderline skanky and the second a person would only wear in Las Vegas—as the performer of some questionable show that children weren’t admitted to.

  Sebastien’s problem was that he hardly ever tried to create elegant gowns. He was all about shock value. He wanted to be noticed and remembered. Which was fine for him; he didn’t have to wear the stuff. Belle was not as keen to be remembered for this gown. It was made of sheer beige fabric and sequins—so sheer that the strategically placed sequins were the only thing that kept it from being see-through. As if that wasn’t enough, it was slit up to her thigh and had a built-in pushup bra that pushed way too much up.

  When Viv handed the gown to Belle in the dressing room, she just stared at it. “Where’s the rest of it?”

  “Don’t be squeamish,” Viv said. “You’ve got the body to pull it off.”

  “What I’ve got is self-respect and a college degree. No woman with either of those things would wear this in public.” She’d seen all of Sebastien’s design sketches but had never fully realized how sheer or low-cut this dress was until now. No wonder Svetlana had gone AWOL.

  “People show more skin than this on the beach,” Viv said.

  “And if we were on a beach right now, I might consider wearing it.”

  Viv rolled her eyes. “Put it on, or you’ll miss your cue.”

  Belle gestured in the direction of the stage. “People are recording the show. If I fall out of this, it will be death by YouTube.”

  Viv picked up a pair of matching sequined high heels and handed them to Belle. “That dress is exactly the kind of thing celebrities wear to awards shows. If one of them wants it, the advertising alone will set us up for the season. Now put it on, go out there, and channel your inner diva.”

  Belle clenched her teeth, silently repeating, with far less enthusiasm this time, platitudes about shows “going on.” One hundred and twenty percent. Team players…

  She might think the dress was demeaning, but that didn’t mean other women wouldn’t love it. She’d known when entering the design world that a fashion house wouldn’t change its clothes to suit her tastes. As long as she helped Fontaine be successful, she could design clothes for women like herself—ones who wanted to be taken seriously in the workplace.

  Which at the moment seemed ironic, since this was her workplace and no one would take her seriously in this getup.

  Belle took the dress from Viv’s hand. “Fine. But I’m putting my foot down after this. I won’t wear anything else from Sebastien’s I’m-single-and-lonely fantasy line.”

  “You don’t have to,” Viv said. “It’s your last change of the show.”

  Belle pulled on the dress, glad for once that her family didn’t keep up with her doings. She didn’t talk much to her mom—it was hard to catch her sober—and Belle hadn’t seen her father since he left the family when she was nine. Her brother, even if he had cared about fashion, was in the Air Force and always stationed out of the country. Germany this time.

  She would not be mentioning this fashion show in any of her texts to him.

  One glance in the mirror let Belle know that the dress was every bit as revealing as she’d feared—probably even more than Sebastien had planned because Belle wasn’t stick thin like the other models.

  She strode out of the dressing room and took her turn on the runway, heels clicking angrily. Camera flashes went off around her creating a strobe light effect.

  So this is what it feels like to be a sellout. Somehow she’d always imagined it would be more alluring. Like the times she ate deluxe chocolate ice cream, the kind with an entire day’s calories in one luscious bowl. But no, this just felt as if she’d lost all respectability. She didn’t make eye contact with the retailers or fashion magazine reps this time. If any of them were judging her, she didn’t want to see it.

  That’s when she noticed Sebastien in the crowd. He sat in the front row, watching her smugly. His smirk was as revealing as her gown.

  Had he planned this? Could he have?

  Her mind flashed back to last September’s fashion week. Fontaine always threw an after-show party for the industry VIP’s, hoping that champagne, hors d’oeuvres, gift bags, and heavy amounts of mingling would curry favor. At the party, Sebastien had had more than his share of champagne. At the end of the night, he cornered her near the coat closet and spent several minutes bemoaning how most women couldn’t understand his genius. Then he’d proclaimed her to be among the lucky elite capable of such a feat, and invited her to his hotel room.

  She might have been, well, while not receptive, at least flattered—if he hadn’t been slurring every word of his speech. As it was, she doubted he would remember any of the conversation the next day, let alone mean the things he said about her.

  “No thanks,” she told him. “Why don’t you get something to eat? You need some food in your stomach.”

  “You know what you need?” he responded, a leer growing. “You need to get out of those clothes and let me dress you for once.” His eyes raked over her suggestively. “I could do a much better job.”

  Definitely wasted. Otherwise he would have known he couldn’t win points with a designer by insulting her wardrobe.

  “Again, no thanks.”

  He took a step toward her, shaking his head with reproach as if she were a student who’d given an obviously wrong answer in class. “You’re too young to know how things work. If you want to get ahead, you’ve got to grease the right wheels. In this case, mine.”

  “Sorry,” she said, putting her hand up to stop his advance. “Your wheels will just have to stay ungreased.” She edged around him. “See you later.”

  Before she’d taken two steps, he called, “If you walk away from me, you’ll regret it.”

  She walked away anyway, and didn’t regret it.

  He’d been so obviously drunk that she hadn’t considered the incident to be harassment, just bad judgment on his part. She’d expected him to apologize the next time he saw her at work, and she’d been ready to graciously laugh the whole thing off. When he showed up the following Monday and acted l
ike nothing had happened, she figured he probably didn’t even remember the night, let alone the conversation.

  Sure, sometimes at work his eyes lingered on her longer than normal, and there was an assortment of days when he acted as if everything she did either offended or amused him, but she’d figured he was just one of those moody, creative types.

  Now, looking at his smirk, she knew he remembered that night with perfect clarity. Probably remembered every word. And she had as good as let him dress her in this horrible gown. As she passed him, he mouthed something to her. She couldn’t be sure what, but it seemed suspiciously like the phrase, “Grease my wheels, baby.”

  She made a sharp turn so he wouldn’t see her cheeks burning, and headed straight down the walk. She was marching too fast, but she didn’t care.

  Had Sebastien planned all of this? It didn’t seem plausible. He wouldn’t have gotten rid of a model in hopes that Felix would force Belle to wear his clothes, would he? Could he have gone to that much trouble just to show Belle he could jerk her chain? Whatever the case, the end result was the same. He was jerking it.

  She stormed back into the dressing room and nearly ripped the gown off.

  She was going to have a talk with Felix. Time he knew what games his head designer was playing.

  Chapter 2

  By the time Belle went up to the hotel’s executive lounge where the after-show party was, her temper had lowered from boiling to simmering. She needed to handle this professionally.

  She had no proof of the things Sebastien had said to her in September. She couldn’t point to any office behavior that was completely improper. Still, Felix had worked with her for five years. He’d know she wouldn’t make up the allegation. He needed to realize what kind of person Sebastien was.

  The executive lounge was decked out in the same colors as Fontaine’s spring line. Meadow green and sunset pink tablecloths dotted the room. The napkins and table runners were striped with airy blue and a soft, serious beige. Centerpieces of white and pink roses overflowed onto the tables.