Roman Spring. Sandra Marton

       CHAPTER ONE

      CAROLINE concentrated on a spot on the wall while Fabbiano, kneeling on the floor beside her, whisked a needle and thread through the hem of the scarlet silk dress that clung to her like a second skin.

      “My best creation,” he muttered to the coterie of assistants clustered anxiously around him, “and see what has happened to it!”

      Their eyes shifted to her accusingly, as if the hem’s collapse were her fault.

      “Turn,” the designer commanded, jabbing her in the leg with a pudgy hand. “Quickly, quickly, signorina. Now, stand still.”

      The needle snicked in and out of the fabric, and then he leaned back on his heels, scowling.

      “Carlo. The chalk.”

      An assistant stepped briskly forward and slapped a stick of yellow chalk into Fabbiano’s outstretched hand.

      “Pins.”

      Another slap. Caroline’s lips quivered. She had a sudden vision of the designer’s rotund form draped in green surgical scrubs. Surely next someone would step up and wipe his brow.

      “Scissors.”

      The little man’s hand shot out again and Caroline quickly raised her eyes to the ceiling. Don’t smile, she told herself sternly. Think of something else. Think of how surprised the well-heeled audience beyond the velvet curtain would be if it could see what was going on back here, the last-minute mayhem that came of packing a dozen models and heaven only knew how many assistants, hairdressers, make-up people, and general, all-purpose “gofers” into the cramped space that lay backstage at the Sala dell’Arte.

      No. That was the wrong thing to think about. It only reminded her of how she and Trish had hooted with laughter when they’d seen the engraved invitations that had gone out in three languages for this evening’s showing.

      “‘The Hall of the Arts’,” Trish had read in her flat Midwestern twang. “‘What locale could be better suited for the unveiling of Fabbiano’s stunning Fall Collection on behalf of the Children’s Aid Fund?’”

      “The local pescheria?” Caroline had suggested with an innocent bat of her long lashes, and the roommates had dissolved in giggles.

      “I agree,” Trish had said when they’d stopped laughing. “The fish market would be just the right setting for Fabbiano’s designs, but no one’s going to say so.”

      “Especially when he’s been cagey enough to tie the showing to a charity affair,” Caroline had added with a sigh. “All he’ll get is praise. I’ll bet there won’t be an empty seat in the house.”

      There wasn’t. One of the models had peeked at the audience from behind the heavy velvet curtains that draped the stage and reported breathlessly that every spindly-legged gilt chair in the crowded hall was taken.

      “Wait until you see who’s here,” she’d whispered excitedly, then reeled off a dizzying list of names that had drawn oohs and aahs.

      Even Caroline, who wasn’t much into such things, had recognized some of them. Usually, Fabbiano’s showings drew people very much like his designs, those who were all glitz and no substance. But tonight there was a fair sprinkling of media people and others, those with money and titles, what Trish teasingly called old blood.

      “Signorina. Signorina, are you deaf?”

      Caroline looked down. Fabbiano, still on his knees, was glaring up at her, his hands on his hips. “I ask you to turn in a circle, please. You must hurry, if we are to finish. It is almost showtime.”

      Well, that was honest, anyway. Showtime was certainly what this was. When Caroline had signed a year’s contract with International Models, it had been because she’d wanted to learn everything she could about the fashion business. A year in Milan, Italy’s great fashion center, had sounded close to perfect—at least, that was how the woman who’d interviewed her at International Models had made it sound.

      “You’ll work with the finest talents in the business,” she’d said earnestly, “you’ll make oodles of money, and you’ll return to the States at the top of your profession.”

      Caroline hadn’t cared much about that last part. Modeling was only a step on the road to a career in design. But earning enough to pay for design courses at Pratt or at the Fashion Institute in New York had been more than appealing, and working with people in the business had been the clincher. She had, in her naïveté or her stupidity—she was never sure which—imagined herself standing at the elbow of a Valentino or an Armani, learning to drape soft wools, to design things that had classical beauty.

      It had seemed a dream come true.

      And that was the trouble, she thought wryly. It had been exactly that—a dream. Reality had turned out to be something quite different. Oh, she liked Milan. The city was a spirited blend of the old world and the new. In the same hour, you could gaze on the incredible beauty of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper and stroll the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, Europe’s oldest, most elegant shopping mall. And always, on a clear day, you could look up and see the magnificent, snow-capped Alps.

      But not one of the agency’s promises had come true. Caroline modeled not for Valentino but for Fabbiano and designers like him, whose careers would last only fractionally longer than the lives of fruit flies, whose successes were dependent not on talent but on flash and dash. As for the money she’d planned on saving—how could she? The agency took half her pay before she ever saw it, some of it in commissions for her bookings, the rest to pay her share of the rent on the miserable apartment she shared with Trish and two other girls.

      But worst of all was finding that she disliked fashion-show modeling. Camera work was one thing, but she felt incredibly vulnerable shimmying in a trendy, often skimpy outfit while pop music blasted and people stared. It was, she knew, a stupid way to feel. She was a model; people looked at models. They were supposed to. It was just that she couldn’t