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He nodded with a small smile before taking a step backward. “I can’t guarantee you anything, but I’ll see what I can do about retrieving those originals for you.”
“Thanks, man.” Brick dropped his arms from around me so he could loop one over my shoulders as he turned to face Ezra. “And thanks for calling me off the edge. I don’t even know what I would’ve done to her if I’d gone down there in the mood I was in.”
Ezra glanced at me before giving my stepbrother a single nod. “No problem.”
And then he was gone.
As it turned out, he never did get our portfolio back from Lana, and the pages never showed up in our office again.
When Ezra arrived at my apartment that night, we made love frantically as if we feared our time together was limited, as if we were going to wake up one morning with our relationship stolen right out from under us, just as that portfolio had been. We held each other close afterward, staring up at the ceiling of my bedroom together, before he kissed my hair and said, “It’s going to be okay.”
But was it?
Really?
“We just have to be more careful,” he assured.
I closed my eyes and breathed in his scent, memorizing it in case one of these days, it was all I had left of him. A memory.
On Friday, I followed Brick into the company’s smaller conference room, where eight large empty easels were set up around one big table in the center of the room. The nerves in my stomach bundled into a tight ball as I took in the people already present. Most of all the other departments had arrived and waited silently, staring at each other in tense suspense.
For this presentation, only departmental heads and maybe their assistants plus a top designer or so were allowed to attend, so less than twenty people filled the entire space.
Ezra sat at one end with his assistant, Winston, positioned to his right. Hayden wasn’t too far down the table with two members of his team. Lana sat with Shyla at the opposite end as Ezra, where she tapped her blood-red fingernails impatiently against the tabletop and stared at my man as if she wanted to tear into him with her teeth and claws so she could feast in decadence over his delectable flavor.
Resisting the urge to do something dramatic to put my claim on him so she’d stop staring so hungrily, I stiffly took a seat next to Brick. Then I discreetly glanced Ezra’s way, but he was busy reading something on his tablet to pay attention to anyone else in the room. Suddenly worried I’d just given myself away, I glanced Lana’s way, only to find her glaring daggers quite openly at me as she picked up a pen and repeatedly clicked it as if every push of her thumb was the blade of a knife she was plunging into my chest.
Lovely.
She looked suspicious as hell.
“Ignore her,” Brick whispered, leaning toward me. “We’ll be the last ones laughing when we come up with a better portfolio than her department ever presented.”
I took a breath and nodded.
Shirts was the last group to show. I blinked, surprised, when I recognized the designer who entered behind the head of the department. Gavin, Christopher’s boyfriend, looked disheveled and on the edge of sanity with dark gashes under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. When he glanced around the room and spotted me, he went even paler.
Christopher must’ve warned him how perilous his job here had become. Poor guy. Or not. I felt sorry for him as much as I wanted to lecture him about how stupid he’d been, because it was his own fault he’d gotten himself in this mess, even though I’m sure it’d been a struggle to make it to work on those days he’d been filled with knee pain and depression.
If only he’d talked to a supervisor for leniency instead. The department head for Shirts had always been so kind and understanding. Surely, she could’ve found him some extra medical leave to use. But, no, he’d just had to cheat.
Ezra glanced up, looking distracted. “Everyone here?” he asked. When no one answered, he said, “Alright. Let’s get started.”
“Oh! Are you moderating today’s event, then?” Lana asked cattily as she lifted arched eyebrows. “Good to know.”
Ezra narrowed blue eyes her way before taking a brief breath. “I apologize for not consulting you first,” he ground out. “But you’ve never seemed interested in the task before. Would you like to take over today?”
She sniffed, glancing down at an open planner on the table before her. “Not really.” She waved the backs of her fingers his way. “Continue.”
He rolled his eyes. Then he made eye contact with me before he seemed to bolster his patience.
“Fine,” he said. “Now that I have your permission… Dresses.” He returned his attention to my stepmother, his gaze narrowed with how much he despised her. “Would you like to go first?”
Lana’s smile bloomed with pleasure as she looked up. “Why, certainly I will.” She nodded toward Shyla, who scurried from her chair so she could set up their posters with all the design ideas the Dresses department had on one of the bare easels surrounding the table.
As Lana began talking, describing aspects in each design, I leaned forward, squinting because I couldn’t see them as well as I would’ve liked to. From where I sat, all of them looked grand and majestic, like something a fairy princess should wear. I was suddenly glad I didn’t have to be the one to make any final decisions, because that would be tough.
“We’ll get to walk around and look at everything once everyone has their portfolios set up,” Brick whispered into my ear.
