to the weightless feel of it, but the more sophisticated look pleased her.
After a lengthy consultation at the salon where she’d had her hair cut, Min had also had her eyebrows shaped and her fingernails tipped with a classic, modest French manicure. She’d tested dozens of fragrances before deciding on a cool, subdued perfume that reminded her of the air after it rained. Her final splurge—and the most costly—had been a pair of decadently comfortable Italian leather pumps to match her suit.
Despite the care she took with them, Min had no illusions about her looks. A kind eye would call her black hair and full-lipped mouth striking, but her pallid skin had saddled her with the nickname Snowy as far back as grade school. Her narrow nose, angular cheekbones, and strong jawline kept her from being regarded as being pretty as a Disney princess, which she occasionally resented. Strangers regularly mistook her for a woman ten years older than she was, which she sometimes used to her advantage.
Her eyes were what annoyed her most. Beautiful eyes were a lifelong asset, and what girl didn’t want big blue eyes? Hers were large and clear enough, but the blue of her irises was so light they looked more like clouds than sky. Because they were so light, looking into them seemed to unsettle most folks. At least her boyfriend didn’t seem to mind them.
“You’re probably part alien, sweetie,” Tag would tease, and then kiss her frown away. “But I’m up for a close encounter with you anytime.”
Min knew her differences could be useful. Among the many things she’d learned while going to school in Europe was that she should treasure her individuality and emphasize rather than attempt to disguise it. The French students at the academy had shown her the best colors and styles to wear to show off her tall figure and pale skin, while the Italian girls had infected her with their love of beautiful bags and shoes. Even the sullen, sultry Spanish girls had given her a crash course in how to project an image of cool, mysterious reserve.
“You want wealthy men to like you, you smile at them,” Juanita, the daughter of a Madrid banker, had advised her. “You want them to listen to you, you don’t.”
Once the rim of the sun appeared above the treetops, Min finished her coffee and went inside to dress. Most of the jewelry her father had left to her was too old and ornate to wear, but on impulse she pinned to her lapel a fragile ivory-and-lapis cameo her father had sent to her for her last birthday at school.
This was my mother’s favorite day brooch, Darien had written on the card. Break it or lose it, and I’ll put you back up for adoption.
Twenty-one years ago the idea that old Darien, a middle-aged, confirmed bachelor, had had the nerve to adopt himself a baby girl had been the talk of the scandalmongers. At the time all of the still-single ladies in the city had been outraged at how neatly he had bypassed the usual way of getting children—marriage to one of them—while their parents had muttered darkly over his impropriety and disrespect by taking on some riffraff’s unwanted brat. One needn’t bring a no-named orphan home and install her in the house as if she were family; that was what children’s charities were for. After the spectacle of Min’s baptism at St. John’s, when Darien had announced that he was not only giving Min his famous surname but making her his sole heir, his friends had publicly congratulated him, and privately mourned the end of one of the city’s most historic bloodlines.
Darien never cared what anyone thought. “Having the mumps when I was a teenager left me sterile,” he told his daughter once when she’d asked why he’d adopted her. “I think it was God’s way of saving me from having to put up with some meddling woman in my house for the last thirty years.”
“But I’m a woman,” Min reminded him.
Darien’s smile turned mysterious. “Oh, someday you’ll be a lot more than that, honey.” He laughed. “Besides, you were just a tiny little thing. First time I saw you at the orphanage I thought, ‘Now, there’s a girl I could teach to put up with my nonsense.’ ”
Min left the house at eight fifteen. She could walk from her home on Abercorn to the Oglethorpe Consolidated Investments building off Bay Street, one of the primary reasons she had taken the