Well, that part, thank goodness, was entirely out of Jules’s hands. Vivian might expect the world to take care of all her life’s mundane details, but nobody—nobody—told her what to wear.

* * *

Simon left for the Du Jour LA shoot on December 3. He returned four days later, a duration that seemed more like four years. Jules had never been in the office when he wasn’t there and Vivian was. She never wanted to do it again either. Without Simon, Vivian was even more impatient and brusque, as if the absence of her right-hand man only made it more obvious to her how incompetent everybody else was.

So when he breezed through the door at eight a.m., Jules had to restrain herself from giving him a huge welcome-back hug. She settled for her widest smile and a hot cup of his favorite coffee: the whole milk mocha that he only allowed himself as an occasional indulgence.

“It’s so nice to be missed,” he said as he sipped.

“You were,” Jules said fervently. “Oh, my God, do you know what she’s like without you?”

“I’ll let you work that little logic puzzle out on your own,” he said, then headed into Vivian’s office with his silver laptop under his arm. “Good morning,” he said as he disappeared from sight.

“Thank God,” Jules heard Vivian say. She didn’t bother to repress her smile.

She was smiling less by the end of the day, though, when she was still at her desk at ten p.m.

Simon seemed to pick up on it when he stopped in front of her to drawl, “Still hard at work?”

She glared at him. He of all people knew by now that Jules didn’t go home until Vivian said she could, work or no work. “Very perceptive.”

“That’s me,” Simon said, “Mr. Perceptive.” Then he leaned back until he could see Vivian at her desk and called, “Vivian? Can I steal Jules from you for about half an hour? I promise to have her back before bedtime.”

She expected Vivian to give her disinterested permission. Instead, she sounded remarkably suspicious when she asked, “Why? What do you need her for?”

“Things,” Simon said blandly.

Jules grinned and hoped he would get away with it.

He did. “Fine,” Vivian said, sounding huffy but not really irritated. Probably because at this hour of the night, they weren’t likely to get many calls.

Jules, relieved at even a temporary escape, gamely followed Simon out of the receiving area. “Where are we going?”

“Federico’s.”

Federico’s was a stylish bar across the street. Jules was pretty sure that Vivian wouldn’t have let her leave if she’d known Simon was going to take her to a bar. “Why are we going there?”

“Well, when one is celebrating, one should have a drink,” Simon said.

“Celebrating?”

“All in good time, my dear.”