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the chief curator followed by a special al fresco lunch prepared by Yannick Alléno at Marie Antoinette’s hamlet (which was happening tomorrow, thanks to Oliver T’sien, who set it all up). If someone wrote a book about her, no one would believe it.
    Kitty sipped her champagne and glanced at the ball gowns that were being paraded before her, feeling a little bored. Yes, it was so beautiful, but after the tenth dress, it was all beginning to look the same. Was it possible to overdose on too much beauty? She could buy up the whole collection in her sleep and forget she ever owned any of it. She needed something more. She needed to get out of here and look at some Zambian emeralds, maybe.
    Luka recognized the look on Kitty’s face. It was the same expression he had seen all too often in some of his most privileged clients—these women who had constant, unlimited access to everything that their hearts ever desired—the heiresses, celebrities, and princesses that had sat in this very spot. He knew he needed to change direction, to shift the energy in the room in order to reinspire his high-spending client.
    “Ladies, let me show you something very special that Giamba has been toiling away at for weeks. Come with me.” He pressed against one panel of the boiserie walls, revealing Giambattista’s inner sanctum—a hidden workroom that contained only one gown displayed on a mannequin in the middle of the pristine space. “This dress was inspired by Gustav Klimt’s
Adele Bloch-Bauer I
. Do you know the painting? It was purchased for $135 million by Ronald Lauder and hangs in the Neue Galerie in New York.”
    The ladies stared in disbelief at the artistry of the off-the-shoulder ball gown that transformed from ivory tulle at the bodice and into a shimmering gold column, with a cascading train-length skirt embroidered with thousands of gold chips, lapis lazuli, and precious gemstones, painstakingly scattered into a swirling mosaic pattern. It truly looked like a Klimt painting come to life.
    “Oh my God! It’s unbelievable!” Georgina squealed, running one of her long manicured nails over the gem-encrusted bodice.
    “
Ravissement!
” Tatiana commented, mistakenly trying to show off her secondary-school French. “
Combien?
”
    “We don’t have a price on it yet. It’s a special commission that’s taken four full-time embroiderers three months to assemble so far, and we still have weeks of work to go. I would say that this dress, with all the rose-gold disks and precious stones, will end up costing more than two and a half million euros.”
    Kitty stared at it, her heart suddenly beginning to pound in that delicious way it did whenever she saw something that aroused her. “I want it.”
    “Oh, Madame Bing, I’m so sorry, but this dress is already spoken for.” Luka smiled at her apologetically.
    “Well, make me another one. I mean another three, of course.”
    “I’m afraid we cannot make you this exact dress.”
    Kitty looked at him, not quite comprehending. “Oh, I’m sure you can.”
    “Madame, I hope you will understand…Giamba would be happy to collaborate with you on another dress, in the same spirit, but we cannot replicate this one. This is a one-of-a-kind piece made for a special client of ours. She is from China also—”
    “I’m not from China, I’m from Singapore,” Kitty declared. *3
    “Who is this ‘special client’?” Wandi demanded, her thick mane of Beyoncé-bronzed hair shaking indignantly.
    “She’s a friend of Giamba’s, so I only know her by her first name: Colette.”
    The ladies suddenly fell silent, not daring to ask what they wanted to ask. Wandi finally piped up. “Er…are you referring to Colette Bing?”
    “I’m not sure if that is her surname. Let me check the spec sheet.” He turned over a leaf of paper. “Ah yes, it
is
Bing.
Une telle coïncidence!
Is she related to you, Madame Bing?” Luka asked.
    Kitty looked like a deer caught in headlights. Was Luka