RETAKE

Part 33

The room bustle with talking about the company dinner party. Anne found out that the party didn't finish at ten, but at twelve. Instead of their plans of bar-hopping, they opted to go back to their home. Hence, Suzan could bake the cake which she brought earlier.

The sudden quietness of the room, as the door opened, made Anne look at who opened it.

"Good morning, ladies," Antoinette greeted them, but her eyes roamed the room. Upon seeing her, she immediately took her attention. "Anne, please leave what you are doing and go down to the showroom."

"Sure" Anne answered. She then lowered the scissors on her hand on the table. Before walking to the waiting Antoinette, she looked at her colleagues.

All of them focused on their task, or rather pretending to be, as Antoinette was there. Suzan busied herself with pinning the cloth on the mannequin. Olivia, together with a senior designer, was instructing the sewer and the embroiderer on something.

Earlier, everyone's topic of conversation was about the party, not the memo that they received in their email.

There were samples of the lingerie produced that didn't meet the quality control standard of the company. The higher-ups were pushing them all to solve the problem as soon as possible. Hence the meeting of the designer, sewer, and embroiderer to discuss it.

They only have two more weeks before their first fashion show under the management of the Jefferson group. Because of this, their department heads wanted everything to be faultless on the day of the show. It was so that they could prove their worthiness of being a subsidiary of the conglomerate, whose reputation in the market was impeccable.

If Antoinette would find out that, they still have time to talk about the party. She would tell to her boss. The next day, for sure, they would receive another memo.

Anne left the room first. Antoinette stayed to check on the progress of their work. She was tapping the elevator buttons when she realized she didn't ask Antoinette the designer's name she would go with. It made her turned around to go back, but then changed her mind. She should ask the workers in the showroom so as not to waste her time. Besides, they would always provide the information of the client before she entered the dressing room.

While inside the elevator, Anne has dreading feeling that something would go wrong. Her summon to assist a client sounded so suspicious. So many questions formed out of it.

How come a client requested her? As far as her mind could recall, she had no schedule to assist anyone. Another one, how come that she was alone? She should be with a senior designer.

Then the image of Brent's mother teased her mind. She shook her head to remove any idea that entered her brain. But then, her mind reasoned out, "the older woman has the power to make her go down without prior notice."

Anne almost pressed the open button and ran out of the lift to go back to her cutting.

"Surely, she would not come here and look for her, right?" She said aloud as she stopped pacing inside the elevator.

Maybe it was someone else who needed her. One of her model friends. With that in mind, she walked out of the elevator with peace of mind.

She entered the showroom and one assistant ushered her to the fitting room without giving her time to ask who was the client inside. The behavior of the salesperson arouse her suspicions, but she has no time to run as she entered the dressing and saw who was sitting on the couch.

As she closed the door, Anne couldn't help but ponder the reason that Amanda was the one who tried to meet her. It never even occurred to her that there will be a day that she would meet her. Of all the places it would be here.