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“They are.”
“But?”
She sighed and sat back, pulling her legs into her chest.
“One was from a contest that had previously said they were full. Suddenly, they magically have an opening to consider my work. Two labels called, asking for a sample portfolio.”
“Good labels?”
“Very good. Like never-in-a-million-years good. But,” she continued as he opened his mouth to prompt her once more, “I submitted to them in May and they turned me down.”
“Which means our plan is working.”
She rested her forehead on her knees. “It does. It just...” She sucked in a breath. “What if it’s only because of our fake relationship? What if this has nothing whatsoever to do with my talent?”
She was being torn in so many different directions. Ecstatic that her designs were finally getting a chance. Guilty that it most likely had little to do with her actual work and everything to do with her fake relationship with a famous billionaire.
And beneath it all, that pulse of awareness that jolted through her veins every time she and Antonio stepped out into the public eye. If she didn’t have the reminder of the bracelet on her wrist, he could have convinced her that he felt something more than commitment to their charade.
Hands wrapped around her biceps.
Her head snapped up as Antonio hauled her to her feet and spun her around, keeping his hands cupped on her shoulders. Shock and the lightning that zapped from his hands across her skin kept her mute, allowing him to move her around like a rag doll.
“Do you see what I see?”
She blinked at the drawings in front of her. Some of them were good. Some of them were very good. All of them werehers. Instead of replicating, she’d opened the floodgates on her creativity and drawn what she’d felt instead of playing it safe. These designs had elements of royalty, the kind of touches that would make any woman feel like a princess. But the creations were all hers.
“Um...drawings?”
“Damned good ones.”
His cursing teased a smile from her.
“Thank you. But how do you know these are good? What do you know about women’s fashion?”
“I know enough.”
Those three words dropped with icy cold precision into the pit of her stomach. Of course he knew. He dated supermodels and women with their own business empires. Fashion. Textile fabrication. Media.
“True.” She wrenched that word out and started to pull away.
Antonio turned her around. “Why do you do this to yourself?”
“Do what?”
“Convince yourself you’re not good enough? Talk yourself down?” He sounded angry.
She wanted to throw her hands up and scream. Yes, she was scared she wasn’t good enough. But scared didn’t translate to the end of the world. Not anymore. Just because she was scared didn’t mean she would stop designing, stop trying. If she needed any evidence that he didn’t see the new her, the woman who stumbled and fell but picked herself back up—figuratively and literally—then he would never see her.
“Go.”
She managed to force the word out. She was done with people coddling her, ignoring the progress she’d made, the things she’d accomplished. All they saw was failure, meekness, innocence. Why could none of them see that even her failures were successes, stepping stones to helping her become not just a designer but a stronger woman, a better person?
Silence reigned. He’d let go of her shoulders but she knew he hadn’t left, could still smell his woodsy cologne, feel the electric charge between their bodies.
At last, she looked up. Antonio stared at her, the blank expression back. Here she was, an emotional mess on the verge of letting tears of frustration flow, and he looked at her like she could have been a former friend on the verge of a meltdown or a stack of reports that required his attention. Both equally irritating, a nuisance in his otherwise structured life.
She started to walk past him. His arm shot out. She tried to duck under, but he lowered his arm and looped it around her waist, hauling her back against his chest. She turned, prepared to tell him to leave, to give her the day to get her head back in the game.
