There was a knock on the door, and Lacey’s assistant entered timidly. “Excuse me, Miss Newman, Miss Jameson. I know you said not to be interrupted, but there’s a gentleman here who’s getting very insistent. Something about a not-to-be-missed opportunity for Miss Jameson…?”
I started to get a sinking feeling in my stomach. Or was that excitement? “This guy wouldn’t happen to be, I don’t know, about six one with curly dark hair, green eyes, smirk that could knock your panties off at twenty paces, and an entitlement complex the size of Manhattan?”
“Wow, you know me so well,” a deep voice came from behind her. “It’s like looking in a mirror.”
The floor completely failed to open up beneath me and swallow me forever as Asher Young strode into the room, hands in his pockets as if he didn’t have a care in the world, smirk on his face like it had been sculpted in marble.
“You really need to work on your timing,” I told him, trying to still the traitorous butterflies in my stomach. “Unless you’re actually actively trying to enter conversations at the worst possible moment, in which case, congratulations, you have this timing thing down pat.”
He raised an eyebrow. Oh, that should not be doing the things it was doing to my southern regions. And there went that dimple—winking in and out of existence like a star as he smiled, those deep emerald eyes almost hypnotic as he lounged against Lacey’s desk at just the right angle for his jeans to hug his crotch and legs like a dream come true.
“I want to show you something,” he said simply.
Well son, I want to see something, so stop talking, step out of those pants pronto, and give me a little shimmy, I valiantly restrained myself from saying.
“I don’t know what you could have to show me that I could be interested in seeing,” I said coldly instead. I didn’t have time for flirting today. I was trying to get my life back on track, and Asher would get me so far off-track I’d be in a country with no railroads.
Lacey kicked me under the table. I looked at her, confused, and she cut her eyes at Asher, then back at me. When the message still didn’t come through, she gave Asher her most blinding smile and said. “One moment, please.”
Then grabbed my arm and pulled me to the window at the other side of the room.
“The hell, Lacey?” I said, not bothering to lower my voice. I’d just finished explaining that this guy was the worst news for my health since microwave pizza was invented, so why wasn’t she immediately kicking him out of her office?
Lacey rolled her eyes. “Go with him,” she whispered. “He obviously has something to show you.”
“Yeah, and he wants to show it to me in a discreet hotel bedroom—”
“Katie.” Lacey put her hand on my shoulder. “You are hot. I am not denying this, because it is true: you are super-duper ridiculously hot, to the extent that I am near-constantly jealous of you. But not every dude you meet is planning to trick you into sex, and it is possible for a guy to have the hots for you and still admire your brain and your business sense. I know you’ve been hurt, but you’re using it as an excuse to avoid going after your dream, and I can’t stand by and watch you do that. Not when I know what you could do if you started believing in yourself.”
Her words stung worse than ripping a Band-Aid off a sunburn, and it was probably because deep down, I knew they were true.
I was using my suspicions about Asher’s intentions to shield me from the possibility of finding out that yet another man only wanted me for one thing.
“You really think he’s figured out a way to make this work?” I said sarcastically, but it was a token protest and I knew it.
“You’ll never find out if you don’t go,” Lacey pointed out.
And she was right.
I gave her a hug, and she hugged me back tightly.
“Damn, I hate it when you’re the right one,” I said with a sigh. “That’s supposed to be my job.”
#
“You’re fucking kidding me,” I breathed.
Asher looked crestfallen. “You don’t like it?”
“Like it?” I demanded. “Like it? Like it? Like it?!”
With every repetition, Asher’s face fell further, like a hiker tumbling down a rocky slope.
“You don’t just like a place like this,” I declared. “You love it. You adore it. You promise eternal devotion to it and buy it chocolates on its birthday. You—” I looked around the space and was overwhelmed all over again. “Damn, Asher. This is actually, literally, one hundred percent perfect.”
A smile lit his face like a small sun, but for once, I was looking at something more beautiful. Its pale blue awning had peeked hopefully out of the side of the tall building, and the moment I had stepped inside and seen the clean lines, the open space with plenty of natural light, and the extensive backrooms, I had fallen in love.
“You could set up some displays here,” Asher said, walking to the focal point of the room. “Something to catch the customers’ eyes as soon as they come in. The back would be for storage of materials and your apprentices’ workspaces—” he caught himself just in time and made a rueful face. “If you like that plan, of course. It’s up to you.”
I could see it now, and hear it—the hum and whir of a half dozen sewing machines, the excited chatter of customers, the rustle of satin and silk. My own studio—my heart soared at the thought, my skin tingling and my mind racing as the opportunity that Asher was offering me began to really sink in.
My own studio. My own studio. My own studio.
I don’t think I’d ever heard three more beautiful words in the English language.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. Not snappishly this time, just confused and awed and a little afraid to believe that this was really happening. “Isn’t my business small fry compared to your usual deals?”