New York Valentine by Carmen Reid

Elena, that’s what Sye does,’ Annie reminded her. ‘He’s a fashion photographer! You should be proud of him. And he’s obviously totally mad about you, anyone can see that just by the way he looks at you.’
    ‘But this man. This beautiful man,’ Elena exclaimed miserably, ‘he will be surrounded by beautiful models all day long.’
    Annie couldn’t believe this lovely girl could be so insecure. ‘He’ll be fine, Elena. You’re the one he wants to be with,’ she said, ‘try and remember that. Now, we need to talk about business.’
    ‘Oh yah,’ Elena gave a shrug, ‘more bad news. Someone who give us £10,000 to start up Perfect Dress wants money back. So now we have close to zero.’

Chapter Nine
    Annie does New York:
    Purple sleeveless draped dress (Banana Republic)
Nude peep-toe platforms (Marc Jacobs)
Oversized sunglasses (Nina Ricci)
Blue patent leather tote bag (DKNY)
Total est. cost: $920 (Ooops)
    ‘Everyone has setbacks.’
    Bright sunshine peeped through the small blind-free window of the tiny kitchen-meets-sitting room, waking Annie at the ungodly hour of five the next morning. But as it was 11a.m. in Britain, she felt as if she’d had a luxurious lie-in.
    Despite having to cope with a new sleeping partner in a cramped bed, Annie had slept soundly. She glanced over at Lana and saw that her daughter was still fast asleep, despite the noise of the bin-men now rattling and clanking metal dustbins down in the street below.
    She broke into an excited grin. Even the noise of dustbins being emptied was thrilling because they were New York dustbins … trash cans , she remembered.
    Annie stole out of bed quietly and after a visit to the pocket-sized bathroom, stuffed with more toiletries and products than Annie had seen in many chemist shops, she clicked on the coffee machine, sat down at the tiny café table and decided that Elena couldn’t mind too much if she took a look through the large pink files all neatly labelled: Perfect Dress.
    Despite a talk with Elena about the business yesterday evening, Annie felt she needed to see all the documents, the invoices, the facts and figures. Only then would she really have a clear idea of how to launch a rescue plan.
    Besides, she’d been invited in as a partner. Surely, there couldn’t be a problem with looking through the books?
    She suspected Elena would be asleep for at least another two hours. After crying on first Annie and then Lana’s shoulder, Elena had dressed up and headed out for her last evening with Sye before he left for Venezuela. Annie knew that Elena had come home because her bag and leather jacket were slung over the other café chair.
    Sipping at her coffee, Annie looked through pages and pages of orders, invoices and printouts of email exchanges. Then she came to the photocopied papers with the latest dress designs. A talented Italian designer, based in London, was the person who translated Elena and Svetlana’s ‘creative vision’ into the kind of paper patterns which factories could use.
    Annie looked through the pages carefully with her seasoned shopper’s eye. The drawings were beautiful. Truly lovely designs that managed to combine fashionable with classic, stylish with wearable. So very clever. Annie remembered what had made her invest some of her own money in the Perfect Dress label.
    Svetlana and Elena’s inspired idea was to make comfortable dresses which could be dressed up or down for every occasion. These were swishy, fluid shirtdresses and wraps in bright colours and luxurious but machine-washable fabrics. Dresses that could do the school run in boots and a denim jacket, but then a dinner party in heels and a necklace.
    They hovered between the £200 and £300 mark: just above the high street, but below designer label prices.
    From her understanding of the files in front of her, Elena had tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of orders to fulfil but debts with her factories and now absolutely no money left in the