Page 477 of Manhattan Bossholes

“Wow, you’re really stocked up,” I said with a laugh.

His flush darkened, but his smile widened. “Yeah, I have some help in that department. An overly involved delivery person. She keeps encouraging me to try new stuff, like celery water. Why is that even a thing?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Oof, no thanks. I’ll just take a glass of good old-fashioned tap water, please.”

“Everything is spread out on the table, go take a look,” he called from the kitchen.

I walked over to the massive circular table under a modern chandelier and found a treasure trove of work, all in pristine condition despite how old they were.

“How can I tell who designed them?” I asked as I looked through the stack. “The signatures are hard to read. Does that say Adam?”

“If you flip them over, you’ll see background details like who designed it, the date created, and which collection the design was included in. The earliest ones were by my predecessor Armando Amoroso, who was hired by my grandmother.”

I flipped over a drawing of a white fit-and-flare sundress. “This sketch is forty years old!”

Christopher placed my glass of water at the far end of the table. “Yeah, it’s crazy because we could produce that dress right now and it would sell out.”

I went through the drawings carefully. “Are they all in order?”

He nodded. “All of Armando’s stuff is in that pile, and mine is in the other.”

As much as I loved looking at the vintage designs, I moved over to Christopher’s work since it was the reason why I was there.

The one on top was of a woman in a gray business suit, wearing sunglasses and a badass attitude.

“Damn, I don’t want to mess with her.”

“Yeah, that was our ‘Women Who Work’ line. Hugely popular.”

I checked out a few more drawings, then stopped to glance up at him. Christopher’s expression was sad, almost wistful.

“These are incredible,” I said. “You have such a gift.”

He gave me a tight smile. “Thanks.”

“Do you miss it?” I asked softly, aware that it came close to prying.

He stared at the designs fanned out in front of me before answering. “Yeah. I do.”

“Why don’t you come back?”

I was pushing my luck, but everything Rhea had said about the old days with Christopher sounded so great. I wanted that for the creative department again. If the problems that had caused him to leave could be fixed, then maybe there was a chance he could come back. So I wasn’t about to let the moment slip away without at least trying to get to the bottom of what had gone wrong. It wasn’t like James was going to tell me.

“I’m not in a place where I can even think about that.” He sighed. “I hit a rough patch a while back, and I’m still getting on my feet.”

“Was it work stuff?”

He let out a harsh sigh. “Not at first. I was married and let’s just say that it was a challenging relationship. Between trying to keep my now-ex-wife happy, which felt like a full-time job, and working my real job at Branson, I got pretty overwhelmed. I wound up doing some stuff that I’m not proud of, and I uh, I had to take some time away to deal with it. I’m still working my way back to stability.”

I nodded. There was no way I was going to keep asking questions about something that was obviously still painful for him.

“I’m lucky, though. My little brother is my very own life coach. He looks out for me.”

I managed to hide my shock. This I really couldn’t resist digging into. “Seriously?”

“Hard to believe, right? I know how he comes across, trust me. Has he insulted you yet?”

“Oh, maybe a few times.” I grinned at Christopher. “He told me I can’t sing, he called me hysterical. You know, stuff like that.”