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She should be more grateful.
She owed it to Jack to be a lot more grateful.
Eleven
Jack stroked his fingertip along the curve of Kristy’s shoulder, simply because he liked touching her skin.
“You’re quiet tonight,” he said softly, inhaling the scent of her hair, enjoying the feel of her naked body against his in the afterglow of their lovemaking.
“I guess I’ve been working hard,” she responded.
There were only two days left before they said their final goodbyes and she flew to London for the contest. They’d have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together—that was all. She was flying out on the twenty-sixth, and he was purposely ignoring the meaning of that moment.
“Jack?” She turned onto her back, staring up at him, her cheeks flushed. She looked very serious. “Can I ask you something?”
Did he dare hope? Would she broach the future? Because he’d been thinking about their future a whole lot lately. He hoped they had one.
“It’s about the contest.”
Not quite what he’d been expecting. But, okay.
He nodded.
She sat up, wrapping the sheet around her naked breasts. “I have these ideas.”
He waited.
She laughed nervously. “Well, really, they’re…” She stopped talking.
“Yes?”
She bit her bottom lip. “I made some clothes.”
“I know,” he said slowly.
She frowned. “I made some other clothes.”
He struggled to understand her point.
She reached out and touched his forearm. “I had some ideas that were different than Irene’s. So I made them. And I like them. And I want to show them in London.”
“Where in London?” He could probably help.
“At the contest.”
“At Matte Fashion?”
She gave a rapid nod.
“But you already have a collection for Matte Fashion.”
“I want to show a different one.”
Jack didn’t know what to say. It was only forty-eight hours before she’d be in London. “Irene helped you with this one. Zenia helped you, too.”
“Hear me out.”
He cocked his head sideways, biting back the obvious arguments.
“I think mine—the other outfits—are better. I really do. Everybody keeps asking me for sparkle. I think these have sparkle.”
This was crazy. “Has anyone seen them besides you? Has Cleveland?”
“Zenia saw them.”
“And, did she like them?”
“She wasn’t really clear. She said they were a risk.”
Jack sighed. “Kristy, I thinkrisk is a euphemism for ‘weak’.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Kristy—”
“Not necessarily, Jack. What if they’re a good risk? I feel…” She pressed her palm against her chest.
“In here, Jack. I can’t explain it, but I fell like Iknow. You know?”
Jack had to nip this in the bud. He couldn’t let Kristy go out there and embarrass herself. And he sure wouldn’t let her compromise Sierra Sanchez.
“I was paying her to be here,” he said. “She knew you were my wife. So of course she’s going to be polite.”
Kristy squared her bare shoulders. “So, you don’t believe in me.”
“Ofcourse I believe in you.”
“No. You believe in yourself. If you truly believed in me, you’d take a chance. You can’t always do the safe thing, Jack.”
The safe thing?Jack came into a sitting position. “When have I ever done the safe thing around you?”
“Marrying me wasn’t mitigating risk?”
“You know what I thought back then.”
“Yes, I do know what you thought,” she said. “And you were mitigating the risk to your family.”
Okay, he’d agree with that. Not that it was a crime.
“And you’ve been mitigating it ever since.”
Nowthat he could not agree with. “I haven’t been doing anything ever since.”
She held out one arm expansively. “You bought me the finest materials, the finest equipment, the finest advice and assistance.”
“And this is a problem, why?”
“Because you practically hired a babysitter in Zenia. You built me a safety net ten miles wide.”
“That’s what you do when the stakes are high. You play it safe.” He was making good business decisions, simple as that.
“No, that’s not what you do when the stakes are high.”
“And this is based on your years of experience dealing in high stakes?”
She sat back, compressing her lips. “There’s no need to get insulting.”
“I’m not—”
“You hired me to do a job,” she tersely reminded him. “It would be nice if you’d let me do it.”
