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“And that’s why you moved.”
She nodded. “To find out what it would be like if I wasn’t surrounded by people who expected nothing from me. People who had given up on me. Shyla always believed in me. She said I was smart. No one ever said that. No one else. She encouraged me to go out for the position at Colson’s and I thought…I thought there was no way. I had no degree, no experience. But your hiring manager…she saw something in me, too. In my work. She took a chance on me, and the only reason I was brave enough to take a chance on myself was because of my friend. I can’t let her down,” she said, her voice shaky. “There is so much at stake here and I can’t fail. But failure is something I’m so good at, I’m afraid history will just repeat itself.”
“Tell me, are your bother and sister artists?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Your parents, are they artists?”
“No.”
“Could any of them imagine the window settings that you do? Not only that, could they find the materials, imagine the lighting, the colors, everything that you do, to make them a reality?”
“Probably not.”
“Then maybe you haven’t failed. You’ve simply succeeded in different areas. Areas that those other people couldn’t, and so don’t understand.”
“I…” She blinked rapidly. “You’re the first person who’s ever…said it like that.”
“It’s true, though. We can’t all be great at everything. I couldn’t design the windows for the store, so I hired you to do it.”
“Your hiring manager did.”
“Fine, but you get the idea. I don’t do everything. I don’t have the ability to do everything. Why should you?”
“It’s just that what I do has never been important to my family.”
“That’s their problem. You’re good at what counts. You stand firm when you’re needed. You’re coming through for Ana. Your instinct, when you were being interviewed by the social worker, was to protect her, to keep her with you no matter what. If that doesn’t prove that you’re strong enough to do this, nothing will.”
She slid down from the counter, her hands balled into fists at her sides. She took a sharp breath and crossed to him, standing in front of him, eye level to his chest. She reached up and put her hands on his cheeks, then tugged his face down as she drew up onto her tiptoes, pressing her lips against his.
He held on to the edge of the counter, letting her lead the kiss, letting her part his lips with her tongue. Letting her set the pace, the intensity.
He could taste the salt from her tears on her mouth, could feel the barely contained sadness in each shaking breath.
He ached to take control. To tug her up against him and to kiss her with every bit of pent-up passion, sorrow and pain that was buried inside of him. That was threatening to claw its way out through his chest if he didn’t find a way to release it.
But he couldn’t allow it.
This was for her, to have what she would. He would give it to her, and feel no sense of sacrifice. Whatever she wanted, she could have. As long as the true control belonged to him.
Paige pulled back from Dante, her heart thundering, her hands shaking. She didn’t know what she was thinking, if she was thinking. All she knew was that she wanted to feel something big. Something real and affirming. She wanted Dante’s actions to confirm his words.
She wanted to prove that she could want someone, and have them want her. That she wasn’t broken. That she wasn’t a joke. She wanted the unobtainable, beautiful man all for herself.
She didn’t want happily ever after from him. She didn’t want love. And she didn’t want to thank him. It was something else, a need so deep and raw that she could hardly understand it.
All she knew was that his touch would make things better. His kiss would heal so many wounds, be the confirmation for what he’d spoken.
To prove that she wasn’t a failure with men. That she wasn’t undesirable. That someone could want her.
She smoothed her hands over his chest, his muscles hot and hard beneath her palms, his chest hair crisp. So sexy and masculine. So different from her own body.
