Manhattan's Most Scandalous Reunion by Dani Collins, Caitlin Crews

CHAPTER SIX

AFTERANEON, when she floated in a space devoid of thought, Nina realized she needed a full breath. She touched his shoulder.

Reve dragged in his own breath, as though preparing himself for supreme effort, then carefully withdrew. In the same motion, he rolled to grab the box of tissues, offering it to her, exactly as he had always done.

Still dazed, Nina took two and used them while he removed the condom. He took the tissues from her and dropped them into the bedside wastebasket with the condom. He lay back beside her with a heavy sigh. He pulled his shorts into place before tugging his shirt down over them.

Her shorts were still on the floor somewhere. She closed the kimono and stayed beside him, stunned by what had just happened. It had been good, so good. Fast and...necessary? Probably not. Inevitable, she supposed.

Her own exhale was weighted with despair.

His head turned on the mattress. They were both still crooked on the bed.

“Made it longer than I expected.” She looked to the clock as an excuse to turn her face away. “Almost six hours.”

“And may have set a land speed record.” His humor was as thin as hers, the edges brittle.

She pressed the back of her head into the mattress and looked at the familiar ceiling, trying not to cry. Why hadn’t it been awful? Why didn’t she feel dirty so she could hate him and hate herself and leave without ever looking back?

Instead, she felt as she always had, as though he knew her in ways she didn’t even know herself. As though, together, they were greater than the sum of their parts.

It was just sex, though. Really, really good sex, but sex all the same.

“Do you want to stay here?” he asked. “Instead of a hotel?”

“Here?” She pointed at the mattress. She should have seen that coming. “No,” she pronounced disdainfully.

“In the apartment,” he clarified with equal condescension.

“Why would you even offer? Don’t turn this into more than it was.” Good advice for herself. She sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed.

“What was it?”

The spiteful thing to say would be, Why does it have to be anything?

“I don’t know.” She folded her arms across her middle, where an empty ache reached from the bottom of her stomach to the top of her heart. “I’d love to say stress relief, but I think I needed to feel like that again, to remind myself there was a reason I fell for you. We were really good for a little while and there’s no shame in enjoying that. Is there?”

She peeked over her shoulder at him.

His gaze was flinty, his face shuttered and hard.

“So this was closure?” His lip curled.

Her lungs were filled with powdered glass. She looked forward again, unutterably sad. “Yes.”

“Fine.”

The word knocked the stuffing out of her, leaving her so bereft her whole body went numb.

He sat up beside her. “But that means dealing with your things.”

“I told you—” She dug her heels into the rail of the bed, propped her elbows on her thighs and held her palms over her eyes.

“I believe you were threatening my life if I disposed of it without your input?” he reminded in a falsely friendly tone.

“Don’t give it to her. Anyone but her,” she begged, still hiding behind her hands.

“Who then?”

“I don’t know,” she moaned. “No one wants a cardboard box full of some unknown designer’s blood, sweat and tears. I’ll ship it home to Dad, I guess.”

“Quit being such a coward.”

She dropped her hands and glared at him.

His brows went up to a pithy angle. “Yes, that’s what I called you.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll just throw together a show, then. Getting media attention won’t be any problem! But I’ll forever wonder if any success I have is mine or because of the stranger I happen to resemble, won’t I?”

He stared down at her for so long she started to shrink under the weight of his penetrating gaze.

“That really bothers you, doesn’t it?” he said with a baffled snort. “Most people would use every advantage to get what they want.” He shook his head as though it didn’t make sense to him.

“I told you, I’m not like that.”

“I’m starting to believe that. I also think you’re using it as an excuse not to try.”

“Reve!” She stood up, angry and hurt, sweeping her hand out in helpless confusion. “Look at my life right now. I don’t have time to reboot my failed career. Even if I tried to put together a show, it wouldn’t be how I had planned it. The themes would be all wrong. My entire sense of self has changed. I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Even as frustrated tears burned behind her eyes, another part of her latched on to her own words. Maybe that could be the message. Any collection would be a snapshot of her life, not all of it. Sometimes things happened, forcing a detour. If a goal was important enough, you came back and picked up the pieces and tried a new approach...

Concepts began to swirl in her imagination. She was warming to it, playing with it.

“I know that look. You’re thinking about it,” he said smugly.

“So?” She tightened the belt of her kimono and began to pace. “I still don’t have time. I don’t have money.” She threw up a hand at him. “Don’t.”

“I will offer to underwrite it and I’ll tell you why.” He rose, hair mussed, clothing wrinkled, and sexy as hell with his powerful muscles and stern jaw. “I refuse to let you boot this down the road or cobble it together on a shoestring and say you tried. I’ll hire someone to do it right, pay for the show and take eighty percent of net profit in lieu of you paying me back for any of it.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Seventy-five.”

“I’m not arguing the percentage! Take eighty percent of zero. See if I care.”

He swore under his breath. “I might get twelve dollars. I might get twelve million. That’s called investing.”

She shook her head and walked toward the window. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Believe in you more than you believe in yourself?”

She stopped and spun and huffed an annoyed noise at the way he kept throwing that in her face.

“You only need one order for one piece, Nina. If it’s big enough, I could make tenfold what I’ve invested in you so far.”

“You always talk like these things are easy. Get a grip on the real world, Reve! Even if I did get an order, I would have to source the fabrics and find a factory. Get it made, get it here. At a profit. It’s not one thing.”

“So I wouldn’t get my money tomorrow. That’s also called investing. I know how to get a business off the ground, Nina—in the real world,” he snarled. “I’ve had to do it many times. You need capital to set up shop and put a supply chain in place. That’s what I’m offering you.”

“I need to figure out who I am.”

“You’re not a fashion designer? An artist? That always seemed to be at the core of your identity.”

It was, but... “Why are you pushing me like this? Do you want my stuff out of your storage locker that badly?”

“I want it out from between us,” he said forcefully, pointing at the stretch of floor that separated them.

He seemed as startled by those vehement words as she was. He stood straighter and glanced away, jaw clenched.

“Why?” she asked helplessly. “Because of that?” She pointed at the bed.

“No.” He pulled a wrinkle from the bedspread and then dropped the lube back in the drawer. He kept his back to her. “No one gave me a leg up or looked out for me in any way. That’s all I want to do, Nina. Maybe I wasn’t the best boyfriend.” He drawled the word as if it was too puerile a label for what he’d been to her. It was. “Maybe I looked on your being here as a convenient arrangement, not...” His fingers tapped on the night table as he seemed to search for words. “Not a relationship with a future, but I do care what happens to you.”

He turned. His expression was difficult to interpret. He was too self-confident to be defensive. Guarded, maybe?

She swallowed, but the scoured feeling behind her breastbone remained. She had spent months backpedaling through their relationship, taking all of his small kindnesses and thoughtful gestures and reframing them as quid pro quos for sex. Despite the very good sex they’d just had, he didn’t owe her anything, not even a night’s sleep in a comfortable bed. There was no reason for him to keep after her this way beyond the reason he was giving—that he wanted to support her aspirations.

Maybe he always had.

Her eyes grew hot with unshed tears. She bit her lips to keep them from trembling.

“I don’t think you should fly off to Germany by yourself to hunt down potential criminals,” he said, squeezing the back of his neck. “At least let me hire someone to go in for a discreet recon. Stay here while you figure out flights and make a plan. My security is watertight. You can organize a show while you’re here.”

“And you would give me all this support why?” she asked with a husky laugh of disbelief. “So we can part as friends?”

“We’d be business partners,” he corrected.

“You want that?”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s impossible! I’ll wind up in bed with you.” She waved at the bed as proof. “And you don’t want the sort of future that I want.”

“Which is what? Marriage? Children?”

“Yes,” she said firmly, though it felt like a very far-off, abstract goal right now. It had always been in her realm of expectation that her life would include making a family with a man she loved, but as she sank down into the overstuffed chair in the corner, she wondered what the new Nina would want once she came out the other side.

It struck her that these were her final moments as Nina Menendez, the woman she’d always known herself to be. Soon she would be Oriel Cuvier’s sister or Lakshmi Dalal’s daughter. Everything would be different.

Reve was offering her the gift of being herself a little longer.

Damn him, he shouldn’t be making this into such a difficult decision. She had sworn to her family that she wasn’t coming back to New York to see him. He was bad for her. So bad that she had just slept with him. Obviously, she couldn’t be trusted around him.

On the other hand, she didn’t want to rush into the unknown, turning over rocks at random. She needed a plan. She wasn’t actually that good in new places, sometimes confusing her directions. And the signposts would be in different languages, which would be even harder for her to read than English. Her father couldn’t afford private investigators, but she saw the sense in hiring one.

“I would want to know how much you spend,” she said cautiously. “One way or another, I want to pay you back for—”

“I’ll make some calls.” He walked out before she could say anything more.

Reve was a man of action. Moving, shaking, tearing down and rebuilding gave him the illusion he had control over his life. Back when he’d had little to no say over what happened to him, he’d achieved small triumphs in bashing rusted nuts from a wheel so he could get at the brake parts or by puzzling out how the water pump was installed so he could remove it.

As long as he’d worked toward a goal of some kind, he hadn’t been standing still in the run-down shack that had held an alcoholic father and an empty refrigerator. At the very least, staying busy had allowed him to forget his empty stomach for a while.

He issued his statement that he’d never met Oriel Cuvier and began making calls for Nina’s show. As he did, he realized this was an ironic version of his long-held coping strategy—he was trying to forget her desire for “closure” by providing it for her.

It made for an itchy, irritable sensation within him, but he got the ball rolling. Otherwise, he would sink into reliving their flurry of lovemaking.

Then the memory arrived anyway, running over him like a mile-long train and, damn, that had felt good. He was embarrassed by how little finesse he’d shown, but she’d matched every greedy caress and every scorching kiss. It had been exciting as hell and over far too quickly. He wanted to say, Let’s try that again. Take it slow. Do it right.

Do what right?

Don’t turn this into more than it was.

Her dismissal of their lovemaking had been jarringly close to what he had said. Why does it have to go anywhere? That had sent her running back to Albuquerque.

Guilt crept into his consciousness like fleas under his shirt, itching and biting and driving him to prove something to her. Prove what? That he really did want her to succeed with her dream? He did, but it went deeper than that.

He hadn’t realized how many inner hurdles, along with the external ones, she’d had to overcome. He knew something about not feeling good enough. It ate at him to know she was still struggling with that. That he’d contributed to it by believing she was as driven by self-interest as everyone else in his sphere.

He was still skeptical that anyone could be that honest and empathetic and warm, but he couldn’t deny that she was in a very vulnerable position. Thinking of the hyenas of the press getting hold of her caused an overwhelming protectiveness to rise up in him.

It killed him to see the defeat in her eyes. The uncertainty. He was compelled to do something to build her up, to help her get back the joy she’d felt in her work. He felt good taking these steps on her behalf, as though it forged something between them. Not an obligation, but a connection. One that wouldn’t break the minute she walked out again.

He clenched a fist, disturbed by how much the thought of her leaving filled him with dread. Loneliness.

He brushed the childish emotion aside. Solitude meant autonomy, that’s why he preferred it. He wasn’t trying to cling. He was trying to be a decent person. If helping her kept her under his roof a few days, fine. At least he got some home cooking out of it.

By the middle of the next morning, Reve was showing her a two-thousand-square-foot loft in Chelsea that made Nina have to pick her jaw up off the hardwood floor. The row of windows that ran the length of the narrow space provided amazing light. It was perfect!

A man named Andre, who organized fashion shows for some of the top designers, signed an NDA before he met them there. He smiled warmly when he saw Nina.

“Oriel! I wondered who the mystery designer was. It’s so good to see you again.” He walked forward, trying to embrace her.

“I’m, um, Nina Menendez.” She pushed her hand between them, offering to shake.

He fell back on his heel and dipped his chin as though she was pulling his leg.

“Really,” Nina assured him. “I’m not her. I believe she’s currently with her husband in India.”

“You look exactly like her.” His confused gaze went to the pink streaks in her hair and her deliberately bare face and dressed-down jeans and T-shirt.

“I’ve heard that before.” Nina shrugged as if it was a mild nuisance that meant nothing. “It’s one of the reasons I’m keeping such a low profile. I don’t want to be seen as trading on our resemblance. I want my work to stand on its own.”

“Of course.”

Reve left to finalize the lease agreement. After thirty minutes of discussion with Andre, Nina was confident they were on the same page creatively. By that afternoon, Andre’s well-versed team had arrived and Nina was unpacking her work from the boxes. There would be no models and catwalk, but along with a set designer and lighting technician, Andre planned to bring in a photographer, a digital marketing expert and a communications specialist to ensure maximum exposure.

The costs were adding up so fast they made Nina hyperventilate. The rent alone was twenty-five hundred a day, which Reve shrugged off.

“I paid more for that garden party I didn’t attend.”

She searched his expression, still having trouble believing he was willing to gamble this sort of money on her, but from things he’d said about past deals, some in the hundreds of millions, this was small potatoes.

Even so, she couldn’t stand the idea of failing and causing him to take a loss. She worked sixteen-hour days, lingering long after Andre and his crew had left, adding finishing touches so her show would be ready by the end of the week. She probably would have slept there if Reve hadn’t been in his car when it arrived every night at ten, texting her that dinner was waiting and he was hungry.

She also probably would have slept with him if he’d invited her to his bed, but he didn’t. She ought to be glad for that, she supposed, but she was a little hurt that he was suddenly treating her like a professional acquaintance.

That’s not how she was thinking of him. Despite her exhaustion, she lay awake every night, longing to go down the hall and lose herself in their special brand of passion.

When she did fall asleep, she woke abruptly to anxious thoughts—worries about whether the investigator was learning anything and whether she’d be okay at the loaned flat in Germany.

She worried about how she would say goodbye to Reve again. It had been a lot easier when she had been angry and hurt.

“Why are you up so early?” He came into the kitchen wearing only pajama bottoms and a night’s worth of stubble. His voice held morning rasp that was intimate enough to awaken her erogenous zones, even as his morning erection was subsiding against the loose fabric of his pants.

She moved to the coffeemaker to hide the fact she’d noticed, but her cheeks were stinging and her voice was strained. “Early bird avoids the paparazzi. I asked your driver last night if he minded. He said it was fine.”

“Anything before seven a.m. is double time. Of course, he doesn’t mind,” he said drily.

“Oh. Shoot.” She faltered in rinsing out her travel mug. “I’ll add it to my expenses.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He moved to the cupboard and took out bread for the toaster.

They were back-to-back, and she was so aware of him that all the cells in her body seemed to align like magnets finding north. She could have stood there forever, basking in this closeness.

She swallowed and picked up the tea towel to dry her mug. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I wanted to talk to you. I need to go to Europe.”

“Today?”A zing of loss jolted through her, rooting her feet to the floor. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

“Soon. There’s a company I want to acquire.” Dishes rattled as he set out a plate and a butter knife. “We already have some capability for making car parts with 3D printers, but this German outfit is taking it to the next level.”

“Oh.” With a shaky hand, she poured the espresso she’d made for herself into a mug for him. When she caught his eye, she found him watching her.

Her pulse leaped in reaction, and her gaze took an involuntary inventory of his wide shoulders and relaxed biceps, the muscled pecs with small dark nipples and his sectioned abs.

“I can be out of your hair anytime. Dad heard back from his friend. He’s leaving his key with his neighbor. Dad wasn’t able to get me on a flight, but I’ve looked at what’s available. I just have to pick one and book it.”

“I’m not kicking you out.” Reve sent her a disgruntled scowl and yanked open the refrigerator. “I’m saying I could take you with me. When were you thinking of leaving?”

Her inner Reve-addict jumped on that suggestion, particularly as lust was trying to take hold in her, but she made herself say, “That’s not necessary. You’re doing too much already.”

“It’s nothing. I’m going anyway. I usually stay at my apartment in Paris. You can stay with me, same as we have been here.”

Platonically?

Her sister had been alarmed when she learned Nina was staying with Reve. And that they’d had sex.

Nina, it’s fine if you forgive him. It’s fine if you believe he never meant to mislead you. But your eyes are open now. Don’t let him hurt you again. Where are you two going if you start up again? You have a right to ask those questions.

Angela was right, but Reve didn’t seem to be taking anything for granted. She almost wished he would pressure her into an affair so she could succumb, then blame him for her own weakness.

“I might get recognized in Paris,” she pointed out.

“You might get recognized anywhere. That’s why my apartment is a good option. It’s more secure than some pilot’s walk-up in Frankfurt.”

“How long is the train from Paris to Luxembourg?”

“Three or four hours.” The toast popped and he turned to butter it.

She screwed fresh grounds into place in the espresso machine. “Could we leave Friday?”

“This Friday? The day your show opens? Don’t you want to be there?”

“Gawd, no.”

“Why not?” He frowned at her.

“Fear.” She curled her lip in disgust at herself.

“Chicken,” he chided, then offered her the plate with the buttered toast. “Eat. I suspect you’ve been skipping lunch. Would you trust Andre to break everything down?”

“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know what to think of him anymore.” She took one slice. “He said something that freaked me out.”

“What?” Reve clacked the plate onto the island and the second piece of toast nearly slid off it. His demeanor had gone from morning lazy to protective Neanderthal so quickly she could hardly swallow the bite of toast in her mouth.

“It wasn’t anything mean.” She cleared her throat, then turned to finish making her coffee one-handed. “It was actually encouraging, but I’m terrified he’s deluding both of us. He said he would cover the cost of leaving the show up an extra week if I gave him the green cocktail dress. I told him about my deal with you and that I would ask.”

She sent Reve a sideways look as she set the machine to gurgling and hissing.

His brow furrowed. “Can you alter that dress to fit him? He’s a pretty big guy.”

“He wants it as an investment.” This was the part that sounded like a delusion. “He thinks in a year, once my work has had a chance to circulate and build momentum, an original piece by Nina Menendez will go for, um...” She could hardly say it. “Five figures.”

“Is that a fact.” Reve leaned his hips on the counter and folded his arms. “If I had known that, I might have kept it in my storage locker.”

“Ha ha.” She rolled her eyes.

“I’m not joking.” He cocked his head. “Does he know about your connection to Oriel?”

“No. He probably suspects, but he genuinely likes the dress. He’s been super honest with me about all of my work. If he thinks I played it too safe or missed an opportunity to elevate a piece, he says so, but he doesn’t want me to change anything. He says it shows my evolution. He uses words like ‘inspiring’ and ‘exciting.’ I can’t bear to see his face when he discovers no one else likes any of it.” She was having flashbacks to Kelly’s tight smiles and bitchy nitpicking after a fellow seamstress had gushed over something Nina had made. “Being across the Atlantic when the doors open sounds ideal.”

“You big, giant chicken,” he accused, but his tone was gentle and the curl of his mouth held affection.

That smile put the sweetest joy in her heart, an expansive feeling that made her feel shy and emotive and happy.

His gaze touched her mouth and sexual tension crackled.

He swallowed and picked up his coffee. “If you change your mind and want to stay, let me know. Tell him I’ll call to work out something for the dress.”

She nodded, releasing a low breath, disappointed.

Reve had been working long hours to keep his mind—and hands—off Nina. Every evening, after he’d gone home and worked out to the point of physical failure, he’d gone to collect her, texting from the street so she could slip in beside him undetected.

She always sagged with weariness, which helped him keep from making a pass, but he didn’t like seeing her push herself so hard. He knew how much this meant to her, though, and that she was trying to keep her mind off what would happen once she went to Europe.

Reve had hoped his investigator would turn up more, saving her from going to Luxembourg herself, but the village had been overrun with reporters when Oriel’s story broke. Apparently, the locals were being very tight-lipped. The man had at least located a property that was still in the family of the doctor who had delivered Nina.

Reve had taken a small liberty with that information, still concerned with what would happen to Nina once her story broke. He couldn’t leave her to fend for herself, not when he had the resources and experience to buffer her from the worst of the attention.

At the same time, he knew he was setting up himself—and her—for a rehash of his unsavory past if he let himself become part of her story. It disturbed him how much he was leaving himself exposed and why. He’d been blinded by sexual infatuation the first time with her and, yes, he still was. Despite working his body to quivering fatigue every day, he woke in the night so hard for her his whole body ached. Knowing she was just down the hall was pure torture, but there was a primitive, possessive part of him that liked having her close even if he couldn’t touch her. Plus, he knew no other man was touching her.

Ah, jealousy. The most manipulative emotion of all. He fairly groaned aloud as he realized how susceptible he’d become to it.

Did she realize how much power that gave her over him? She would, he thought with a dour look at the champagne he’d picked up on his way to collect her. He was practically advertising it.

But he was here now, literally turning into the block where the showroom was located. It was Thursday, and Nina had texted that the photographer was coming at seven and she would be ready to leave after that. Reve had purposely arrived at six thirty.

He went inside for the first time since the day he’d leased the space, and could hear Nina and Andre bantering good-naturedly as he neared the cloakroom at the top of the stairs.

“See Now, Buy Now is everything that is wrong with today’s world, not just fashion,” Andre bemoaned. “It’s the manufacture of trends. There’s nothing organic or artistic about it. Why even bother—Oh, hello.” Andre stopped dialing the switch that controlled the dimming of a track light. He poked his head into the showroom. “Nina, the most dashing man has turned up with champagne and only two glasses. I think that means one of us is supposed to take a walk.”

“What? Reve!” Nina appeared with a flushed smile that struck the backs of his eyes like sunshine, but she used her body to forestall his entering the showroom, which prickled his old, suspicious instincts.

From here, all he could see was a table set up in front of a window. On it was an ornate business card holder that looked like an antique from a French chateau, a cup of pens and a single rose in a silver vase.

“Text me when the photographer gets here. I’ll come back and close up after him,” Andre said as he put on a tailored green jacket.

Nina thanked him for all his help and they embraced, kissing each other’s cheeks.

As Andre stepped back, he said to Reve in a falsely pleasant tone, “If you spill one drop of that in my showroom, I will hunt you down and kill you with my bare hands.”

Reve thumbed the cork so it popped loudly and fell to the floor. Only a wisp of condensation emerged from the neck.

“So long as we understand each other.” Andre smirked and trotted down the stairs.

“This is a nice surprise. Thank you.” Nina smiled nervously as he handed her a glass crackling with a head of bubbles.

“I thought I’d come see—” He stopped short of saying what I’ve paid for. “How it all came together.”

They touched glasses and sipped, but she didn’t move from the doorway. Her eyes grew wide and anxious. Panic-stricken.

“What’s wrong? I’ve seen all of it before.”

“Not like this.”

“Like what?” She drove him a little crazy sometimes, being this emotionally attached to what? His opinion? “I’ll be kind, Nina.”

“I don’t want you to be kind,” she said, instantly cross. “I want you to be honest. I just don’t know if I can handle it.” She drained her champagne in a couple of swallows and set the glass on the shelf next to the bottle. “He’s serious about no food or drink in there.”

Reve seared his own throat with the cool, sizzling Salon Le Mesnil Brut and set his glass beside hers.

She jerkily waved him in ahead of her, then trailed behind him as he entered the long room. Tall tables and a couple of benches had been set up on the side of the room with the windows, probably to provide a space for buyers to sit and make notes or calls. The blinds on the windows were down, the showroom lit with lights that angled and pooled to guide focus.

The clothes were arranged down the inside wall and told a story that felt familiar to him since Reve recognized so many of the pieces. Still, it was a story he hadn’t fully understood until now.

The first few outfits were pinned to cloth-covered squares that hung on the walls. Sketches were pinned alongside them, showing how the pieces had first been conceived. Each was pretty and well constructed. The lines were straight, the buttons were scrupulously spaced. They were undoubtedly good quality and classic—and very safe. There was an innocence to them. A hesitation.

As he ambled along, however, the sketches and outfits grew more daring. Brighter colors mingled with contrasting textures. Here, the clothing was draped over chairs and displayed on hangers that created an impression the pieces had begun to breathe and find life.

He remembered Nina being the same as she gained confidence in what she was trying to say and do. Her growing excitement had been evident in the way she had begun to stray from strict symmetry and played with adding a bracelet or sewing on a spangled pin.

Now he stood among mannequins in polished ensembles fit for high-powered boardrooms and elite social events. There was a white pantsuit with a wide-brimmed hat, the green cocktail dress with its gold chain belt and spiked heels. A yellow top with a sharply pointed collar was accented by a long-strapped purse and sexy sunglasses. A frozen wrist was cocked to hold a jacket and a marble leg kicked out the slit of a cheeky ruby skirt.

Standing among these pieces felt as though he was at a party, one where everyone was having the time of their life.

The fun then ended abruptly.

A gown of silver and blue sat upon a dress form with sequins only partially applied to its neckline. The waist gaped because it was attached by dozens of pins, not stitches. One sleeve of the gown hung lifeless from the sewing machine beside it.

On the floor, among spilled sequins and scattered pins, a pair of designer shoes looked as though they’d been kicked off as the owner fled like Cinderella from her ball.

It was jarring, but even more so was the empty space that followed. A beam of light emphasized the emptiness. It shouldn’t have felt like such a blow to the heart, but it was. He was responsible for that absence of work. Guilt settled as a bitter taste in the back of his throat. Loss. He had hurt her with his callousness that day. Hurt her so badly she had stopped doing what she loved and run away from her dream.

He had to close his eyes to absorb the pain that enveloped him.

He kept wanting to paint her actions with ulterior motives, but that was his own defense mechanism. The truth was this was who she was—a sensitive, emotive artist who only wanted to add beauty to the world. She was so raw and honest she had put her entire soul on display for the world to see.

She had shown it to him, and he hadn’t appreciated what a privilege that was. It scared him that she was this open, it really did. Did she not realize how badly she could be hurt?

Bad enough she could walk away and tell him to burn all of this.

His nostrils stung as he drew in a breath. He wanted to take her into his arms, pour himself around her so nothing could touch her, but when he opened his eyes, he was looking at the dress she’d worn the day she’d come running back into his life.

It was a simple blue thing hung on a clear torso suspended from the ceiling—no head or accessories. It seemed to drift in midair like an apparition and was symbolic of her lost self, he supposed, with a hollow ring in his heart. The sense of something unfinished or unfound left a coil of deep longing inside him. It made him want to help her discover the rest of herself because he couldn’t bear how insubstantial and adrift this suggested she was. As though she was only a shell of the woman she used to be, untethered.

The blue fabric was light enough to show the small bloodstain she must have brushed onto it that day. Despite that, and despite the fact it wasn’t fancy or glamorous, he saw the small details that made it unmistakably part of the collection. Part of her, still alive and showing through. The skirt had a sophisticated flare that eschewed restrictions. There were crisscrossed straps at the back that had been hidden by her hair. They suggested a quiet defiance of convention, almost like graffiti that claimed, I was here.

Beyond that dress was a table piled with bolts of silk and linen and velvet in an array of colors. Ribbons and lace fell in coils from the top of it like ribbons off an unopened present. A pair of scissors sat atop a sketchbook open to a blank page.

Reve backed onto a bench and sat down, blowing out a low breath as though he’d been through something intense. His elbows went onto his knees and he rubbed his jaw before letting his gaze flicker back over the display.

“Is it too on the nose?” Nina asked with dread.

“Shh,” he murmured, and absently took her hand.

He drew her to sit beside him, and his thumb played across her knuckles as his gaze slowly retraced the journey from the door to the unused fabrics. Finally he swiveled his attention to her, and the fierce light in his gaze made her heart pound in her chest.

“I don’t know how to take this.” She drew her hand from his and tangled her fingers over the unsteady sensation in her middle. “Are you appalled that you’ve thrown your money away? It’s okay. Just say it.”

“Nina,” he breathed. “This is what you want.” He pointed at the bench. “To knock people onto their ass.” He spoke in a tone that was stunned—moved, even.

Her insides squirmed harder and her eyes grew damp.

“You’re just being nice,” she dismissed, pushing her hands between her knees and anxiously looking over what she feared was a vanity project.

“Stop it.” He rose and pointed back to the beginning, his tone sharpening. “Look at what you’ve done. You made this.” His arm swept the whole collection. “And you know what? I’m proud that I had something to do with it. That pisses me off,” he said, pointing to the empty space. “Don’t let anyone have that kind of power over you. Especially me.”

Too late, she thought, her heart squeezing as she watched how he ran his hand over his jaw, his gaze agonized as he stared into the dust motes dancing beneath the empty spotlight.

“I hate that I had anything to do with you losing even one minute of pursuing your dream, but the rest? If you want to run yourself down, you’re going to have to find someone else to listen to it because no, Nina. This is better than I expected and I expected a lot.”

“Well, don’t make me cry,” she wailed. Although she had wanted his approval, his admiration, hearing it was too much to handle. It made her vision blur as tears soaked her lashes.

“You’re crying because you’re tired, you silly woman.”

She was tired, but this was about him and how much it meant to her. When he caught her by the wrists and tugged her into his arms, she went there gratefully, still trembling in reaction.

“I didn’t realize, Nina.” His breath tickled against her hair, and his voice wasn’t quite steady. “I didn’t realize you have no filter or shield, that what you show the world and what you showed me, is actually you. That’s too much. You know that, don’t you?”

His hand clenched in her hair behind her neck. He drew back to search her eyes.

“It’s who I was,” she acknowledged, glancing at the floating dress. “And I had to say goodbye to her.”

She’d been coming to terms with that all week. She would always have a home with her family, but the life she’d had with them in Albuquerque would never be the same. New York was no longer a place of promise where her dreams were yet to be realized. Even the artist who had imagined these pieces and turned them into reality was gone. She had felt it as she reacquainted herself with them. She still yearned to design and create, but she already knew her future work would be different. Her priorities had shifted. She had.

Even her visions of what she might have had with Reve were gone. Oh, she hoped they could continue this—affectionate embraces and a thread of trust—but she knew now that this was all they ever would have. At best, they were business partners with a past—hopefully friends—but they weren’t lovers...and they would never be soul mates.

“Thank you,” she said. “For not throwing this away. For giving me the means to make it in the first place, and for nudging me into taking this chance. No matter what happens with it, I’m grateful.”

He cupped the side of her face, his thumb moving restlessly against her cheek as he searched her eyes. He started to dip his head and then stopped himself. His mouth pulled down at one side in self-deprecation.

She wanted that kiss. Yearned for it. She went onto her tiptoes and he met her halfway.

They clashed like storm waves to a shore, forceful and beautiful and thrilling. It was the most painful kiss of her life and the most tender. Her dream was all around her, in large part thanks to him. She poured her heart into their kiss, trying to convey what it meant to her to tell her story. What he meant to her.

His breath hissed and his hands moved over her with strength, but in a way that cherished, making her feel precious and needed and safe even as her soul was bared for all to see.

Just as passion started to flare, as they canted their heads to deepen the seal of their lips, a distant bell sounded.

Reve jerked his head up and his arms tightened protectively around her.

“It’s the photographer,” she said, pulling away to press the back of her hand to her buzzing lips. “For the...things.” Her brain couldn’t find words.

Footsteps paused in the cloakroom, probably as the champagne was spotted.

“Um, hello? It’s Munir. Andre said I should come around this time to get the final shots.”

“Come in, Munir,” Nina called. “We were just leaving. I’ll text Andre to come back.”