Well. I take another sip of the scalding-hot coffee. I know where I’d end up in that equation. The path I’m on won’t have a happy ending, and getting off it is the sensible choice, but I can’t for the life of me imagine walking away from ir now.


    Not when the scent of her still clings to my skin and the sweetness of her words echoes in my mind. I want you.


    Impossible? Try out of the damn question.


    While she sleeps, I explore her apartment. The small knickknacks she’s collected. A framed picture of her and herte father skiing, his hand protectively on her shoulder. Skye and Cole’s wedding picture is proudly ced in her bookshelf. I’m not surprised that she has that on disy. The image of ir with tear-glittering eyeses back to me, her reaction to Skye’s pregnancy.


    I pause with my hand on a half-opened door. How had I not seen this before? Another guest room?


    Shameless, relentless, I push it open.


    I’m greeted by a veritable explosion of fabric, clothes, what looks like mood boards and charts… buried underneath it all is something that looks like a desk. The steel corner of an iMac peeks out behind a giant cardboard box.


    Organized chaos, indeed.


    I run my hand over the sleek, skimpy fabric on hangers and try to get a closer look at the pictures she’s pinned to the wall. Above it all is a quote.


    Work in silence, let sess be your noise.


    It makes me smile. Not in amusement, but in recognition of just how ir it is. I can see her with her hair up, printing this out and pinning it up, determination on her features.


    There’s an audible intake of breath behind me. “Nick?”


    ir is standing in the doorway. She’s wrapped a robe loosely around her waist. Any sleepiness in her gaze evaporates as she looks from me to my surroundings.


    “Your office?”


    “Yes.” Her eyes keep darting to the lingerie on hangers, as if I’ve walked in on a crime scene.


    I reach out and touch the silk carefully. “Something you’d rather keep under wraps?”


    “All right.” I run a finger over thecy cup of a bra. “Although you’re leaving me with a lot of possible options here. Do you work part-time as an amateur lingerie model or something?”


    “Are you sure? There’s an awful lot of it right here.”


    Just as I’d expected, her arms rise to cross over her chest. It’s ir’s ssic attack mode, one I’ve been on the receiving end of for years. I’m d it’s not lost entirely.


    “Yes, I’m sure.”


    “If you’re not going to tell me…”


    She sighs. “I can’t tell you, because then you might tell Cole.”


    Unease, at that. There are already too many things I’m forced to keep from him-ir key amongst them. “What makes you think I would?”


    Her teeth worry her lower lip. “Will you promise me you won’t?”


    For a split second, I consider saying no-avoiding deepening… this, between us. I’m on a bncing rope, tipping too much to the ir side of the equation before wrenching myself back onto the Cole side.


    But then I register the emotion in her eyes. Trust. She’s looking at me like she already knows my answer, and it’s yes. My will crumbles like drywall under a sledgehammer.


    “I promise,” I vow.


    She puts a hand on my arm and turns me around, pointing at a set of logos on the far end of the wall. “I’m starting another fashionpany,” she says carefully. “It’ll be very different fromst time. My name won’t be anywhere on it.”


    Her hesitations make sense, now. The bacsh she received after thest time was enough to make anyone with less conviction pack up their bags and leave the industry all together.


    ir hadn’t. She’d ridden out the ridicule and continued showing up to fashion events, dressed impably, and slowly restoring her influence as someone with taste.


    Her eyes dart from the logos to mine. “I’llunch it without any connection to me. Until it has solid sales numbers, I won’t be the face of it.”


    Yes, her hesitation definitely makes sense.


    She releases me and hurries forward. “Remember these?” she says, fishing in a box for a pair of panties.


    “Yes,” I say darkly, “I do.”


    The ones she’d worn to the strip poker game in Whistler. The little beige flowers had haunted me.


    “Well, I’ll start off with lingerie. Made for all women, all shapes, all sizes, all colors. ttering on the form. And then I’ll move on to slips, functional bras, fashion tape, anything you might need to make your already existing wardrobe work better.”


    I reach out and run my hand over a packaging box with silk ribbons. It looks expensive. “Who are your investors?”


    “I don’t have any.”


    My eyes snap back to hers. “You’re financing this yourself? All of it?”


    “Yes.” There’s something in her eyes I can’t quite name. Pride, certainly, but…


    “It’s risky as hell,” I say honestly. “Why haven’t you involved Cole in this?”


    “Because I want people to respect it.”


    “People would.”


    She raises an eyebrow. “Would they? Afterst time? I don’t think so. You didn’t receive any help with starting yourpany,” she points out. “Would you respect me if I did? Seattle certainly didn’tst time Iunched something.”


    A suspicion grows. I walk around the room, looking at the piles of samples and packaging and mood boards. “How long have you been working on this?”


    “A bit over two years.”


    “A bit?”This text is ? N?velDrama/.Org.


    “More like three,” she admits.


    “Right.”


    She worries her lip again. When she speaks, I can tell she’d rather not have. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”