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More legal trouble?

Unreadable eyes held Vi’s for a second, and then, before Vi could comprehend what Renate was asking her, her interlocutor took a sip from her delicate coffee cup.

“Zizou, make yourself useful and bring Ms. Courtenay breakfast.” Vi blinked at his raising an eyebrow in her direction then, as if shaking himself, quickly scrambling into action. Renate smirked. “He’s spoiled by all of you kowtowing to him. A genius with food, but he needs a shorter leash.”

Vi’s anxiety conjured an image she really didn’t need in that particular moment, despite it being a humorous, if highly pornographic, one. She valiantly chose not to look at him as he brought her a tray with scrambled eggs and, inexplicably, a mug of herbal tea. She stared up at him.

“Ugh…”

Renate lifted her chin to dismiss Zizou before he could answer.

“Like you need more caffeine, Ms. Courtenay.”

Vi granted her the point and decided to eat her food. If her mouth was occupied, there was less chance she might say something to offend the formidable woman in front of her. Plus, she had a feeling Renate had flagged her down for a reason.

Silence reigned for a while, with Renate seemingly oblivious to her breakfast companion and Vi biding her time.

Renate placed her hand on the front page of Le Figaro, and Vi felt everything inside her tense up.

Here it comes…

But Renate turned away for a second, as if prolonging the moment, drawing out the expectations, or perhaps considering her next words. Her eyes took in the busy street coming alive around them, with people hurrying about their mornings, dogs being walked, and pigeons overlooking the bustle with disgust and feigning indifference towards the scraps.

Finally, she turned back, and the eyes leisurely observing the street were now honed on Vi with determination.

“Lucci will be foregoing all shows for the next year, both their spring and the fall haute couture collections scrapped. This…,” she said, tapping a finger on the cover of the newspaper, “is what attracted your attention earlier.”

Something in Renate’s tone made Vi take notice. With her heart already in her throat, she struggled to swallow her rather excellent food. Since it had been phrased as a statement and not a question, Vi forced herself to continue to eat and allow Renate to say what she obviously wanted to say.

“Word is that their designs for the spring and fall of next year were stolen.”

Vi concentrated on not allowing her hand to shake as she forked up more eggs, while Renate proceeded, never taking her eyes off Vi.

“Fashion espionage is both very common and absolutely uncommon at these levels, Ms. Courtenay.” When Vi raised her eyes, Renate’s burned with strange fervor.

“What do you mean?” She almost gave herself a high five for keeping her voice steady.

“Concepts get stolen all the time, we just don’t call it theft. Fashion is not a precise science and two things can look alike without being a carbon copy of each other. You can be inspired by someone else’s design, you can even come up with something that is astonishingly close to what another designer has envisioned.”

Renate took a small silver case out of her gigantic purse and lit up a long, black cigarillo.

“However.” She took a long drag, and Vi was mesmerized by how Zizou materialized seemingly out of thin air with an ashtray, which Renate accepted with an almost imperceptible nod. “When the whole collection appears as a cheap knockoff with an online outlet, stitch for stitch, a year before it is supposed to go into production? That is corporate espionage and subsequent theft, Ms. Courtenay. And that is why Lucci pulled next year’s entire lineup.”

Vi gulped and hoped that the street noise covered the sound. Her palms were wet and her stomach was in knots.

“Do the police have any leads?”

Renate made a face. “I have no faith in the French police. But rumor has it that Alberto and Romina hired a very expensive private investigative firm to look into the whole thing.”

Before Vi could reply, Renate made a dismissive gesture. “Waste of money, if you ask me. But insurance? That’s a different story. They will dig and dig and dig, because if Lucci’s theft insurance is anything like ours, the payout will be massive, and the insurance company will be desperate to find the culprit.”

Vi gulped again and tried to cover it with a cough, though she suspected Renate could see right through her, and through all of her sudden suspicions regarding the true reasons for her internship. Even so, Renate seemed to choose to ignore it for now, and continued.

“They’ve shut down the website that sold the designs, but it already made millions overnight. And once this kind of genie is out of the bottle, putting it back will be impossible. Thousands of websites will sprout up in the coming weeks, carrying Lucci knockoff designs that will look and feel like the pulled collection and cost a fraction of what Lucci would have charged for them.”

She took another drag of her cigarillo, and Vi could see how much the conversation was affecting Renate, the knuckles of her other hand white against her coffee cup.

“The efforts of a great number of people, the efforts of countless days, millions of dollars, were in vain because someone just wanted their work product. And then took it. Because they had the opportunity to do so.”