“Oh, sorry, Ty.” Jax pitched the underwear across the room. “What’s up, kid?”

“Things go south with Miss Anonymous?” Ty asked, his tone surprisingly compassionate.

Jax laughed. “Not exactly. I just have a hard time accepting I’m not going to get what I want.”

“Spoiled Hollywood brat.”

“That’s me.”

“Hey, sorry, dude. I know you were into her.”

“Thanks,” Jax said, feeling better just talking to Ty. “What’s up?”

“We got some awesome new ponies in this morning. Come in early and we can run them along the bay.”

Now that made Jax smile. “That is exactly what I need today.” The kind of adrenaline rush he would need every day for however long it took to get Lexi out from under his skin. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

Fifteen

“Lexi.” Martina’s smooth voice took on a too sweet tone over the phone, obviously trying to make up for the news she’d just delivered. “I know it’s never easy to take criticism, but I thought you’d want to know. And, to be honest, I wanted you to know because I desperately want you to win over the hearts of the board the way you stole mine years ago.”

Lexi had been tapping the pen tip against the notepad on her desk when their conversation had begun. Now she was stabbing it. At one a.m. on a Wednesday morning, after working eighteen-hour days for the last three weeks straight—exactly three weeks from the day she’d met Jax—Lexi had little patience left.

“You’re right, Martina.” To hell with tiptoeing. “And it’s especially not easy on this project. I’ve put an exorbitant amount of time into those designs, but I do appreciate your honesty. And to be perfectly honest in return, your board is wrong. I know this demographic. They’re strong, empowered women who enjoy living life. Getting married later has allowed them to sow their oats and they’re secure with their sexuality. A lifetime of living with the overexposure of American media has made them comfortable showing off their bodies.

“I know Galliano is more on the conservative side, but your whole purpose for bringing youth on board is to pull in a new clientele. That won’t happen if you don’t step out of Galliano’s current mold. I’ve passed on several big clients to give myself time to design these gowns. They’re already in production. I’ve already made a deep investment in this partnership, Martina, with no guarantee of getting it. I just don’t know how much more I can give.”

More than that, Lexi had come to realize over the last three weeks she’d given up a hell of a lot more than time, money, and clients. She’d passed up on a pretty good bet at a winner with Jax—something she’d only fully realized as time passed and he continued to cling to her every thought.

“You’re designs are stunning, Lexi,” Martina said. “There’s no doubt how much time you’ve invested. I don’t think the alterations need to be drastic. I’d suggest simply making some of the small changes we discussed and resubmitting them on new boards. A different display will make them look like all new designs. It would really probably only be a day or two’s worth of work. Surely that’s worth the future opportunities this partnership would bring you.”

Martina’s voice expressed her excitement over the idea, as if Lexi should be thrilled. Instead, Lexi’s throat grew so thick with frustration, she could barely speak.

“Resubmitting?” Her voice came out as a raspy whisper. Lexi dropped her pen. “You’re asking me to resubmit the altered designs for…approval?”

She wanted to add, I’m not a fucking intern but stopped herself. Barely. Lexi gritted her teeth. She’d spent so many years struggling. Had busted her ass, sewn her fingers raw, worked for free, gone days without sleep for every accomplishment, every accolade. She’d broken in a long fucking time ago.

Martina sighed. “I know it’s tedious, Lexi. I’m sorry. It’s just—”

“The board,” Lexi finished, frustrated, angry, disappointed. Again.

“Yes.”

Lexi warned herself not to say anything she’d regret later. “I’ll do my best.”

After saying good-bye, Lexi jammed her finger down on the disconnect button. She slammed the phone on her desk and swiveled toward her cutting table where she’d been preparing yards of French-woven jacquard for a twenty-thousand-dollar wedding gown. Which made her realize once again how much this potential partnership was costing her.

All her fury, her doubt, her loneliness, her confusion from the past three weeks expanded beneath her veneer, creating hairline cracks. With an animalistic growl, she picked up the phone and chucked it across the studio. It floated over the balcony, punched an armoire with a clack, clattered against the travertine floor of the main salon, and clinked to a stop against a rack of gowns—right beside the front door and Rubi’s sparkling high heels.

Poised there, holding the door open, Rubi gazed at the phone for a long moment, then her eyes lifted toward Lexi. No other part of her body moved. “Bad time?”

All Lexi’s problems crashed like a wave. Failure and embarrassment tangled into a web and wound around her like a straitjacket. She braced her head in her hands. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

By the time Rubi’s heels clicked on the stairs, Lexi’s tears poured, completely beyond her control.

“I knew this was coming.” Rubi wrapped Lexi in her arms and held her tight. “When are you going to realize it’s not you?”

Lexi pulled away from Rubi when all she wanted to do was sink into her. She wiped her face, covered her mouth, and choked back the awkward sobs for air as she tried to force herself to stop crying.

Rubi crouched in front of her, hands on her knees, her friend’s big eyes swimming with concern and sympathy. “Honey, let me just go drop my friend off and I’ll be right back—”

“No.” Lexi’s hands popped off her mouth. She wiped her face again and sniffled. “Don’t mess up your night, Rubi—”

“This is not messing up my night. You’re my best friend—”

“I kind of need to be alone, you know?” She pulled open the bottom drawer of her desk and yanked tissues out, blotting her eyes. “I need to think about things. Make some decisions.”

“About those?” Rubi tilted her head toward the cutting table and the sketches still sitting out.

Lexi nodded and sniffled again, then lifted a you’re-not-going-to-believe-this look to her friend. “They’re too sexy.”

Rubi wore heavy eyeliner tonight and thick mascara that made her eyes pop. A slow grin spread over her face. “They are a bit…outside the box. But then…since New York…so are you.”

Lexi’s face flushed, burning so hot she put her hands to her cheeks again to cool them. “Stop. This is serious.”

“I agree. These designs are a serious reflection of the shift you’ve made since your semi-anonymous rendezvous with Biker Boy. And a serious leap in your design process. A potentially serious leap in your career.”

Lexi slid her hands up and over her eyes. She wished she’d never said anything about Jax to Rubi.

“I’ve noticed it in the way you dress, the way you walk, even the way you interact with your clients, Lexi. And now, here it is in your designs—”

The pressure of Rubi’s hands released from Lexi’s knees, and her heels clicked across the space. Lexi dropped her hands. The tears had stopped as suddenly as they’d started, leaving a hollow, dull ache at the deepest part of her. One she hadn’t felt in decades.

The soft shift of paper drew Lexi’s gaze up, but she was so tired, her vision blurred. “Rubi, I can’t go over the changes she wants now, and you have someone waiting—”

“What are these?”

The thick insinuation and approval in Rubi’s tone made Lexi fight to focus. Rubi had pulled a handful of loose sketches from her pad beneath the designs for Martina.

Lexi realized which sketches she’d found, and a burn of mortification erupted in her belly. She pushed from the chair and lunged for them. “Rubi—”

Rubi blocked her grab by turning her back. “Wowza, Lex.” She fanned herself with one of the drawings. “Is it getting hot in here?”

Yes. Very hot. Lexi’s face burned with embarrassment. Rubi had found the über-sexy, borderline erotic—okay, they were erotic—sketches of women in highly suggestive positions wearing sexy lingerie.

“Come on, Rubi. Those are private.”

“Good to know you keep them under wraps, except…” She shot a frown over her shoulder. “Since when do you hold out on me?”

Lexi reached around and tried to pull the sketches from Rubi’s grasp—the sketches she’d started that night she’d met Jax and hadn’t stopped doodling since—but Rubi just held them out of reach like an annoying sibling.

She finally gave up and waved at the notebook. “Shit, I don’t care, go ahead and look at them.”

She wasn’t keeping the sketches from Rubi as much as she was keeping herself from having to recognize this hot little deviant streak in her current personal and professional persona.

“I was just…playing with ideas. But it’s a complete waste of time, especially when Galliano won’t even consider an asymmetric off-the-shoulder design showing cleavage or a transparent bodice, even when the fabric pattern hides everything important, for Christ’s sake.”

Lexi picked up the dress designs, her mind already reworking them at this stage of their production. Seams could be ripped out. New fabric cut and sewn in. Lexi could do absolutely anything with a piece of fabric. That wasn’t the issue at all.

“What generation do they think we’re designing for?” she murmured, shaking her head. She could look at all designs, her own included, with an objective eye. These were cutting-edge. These were breakout material. The suggestions Martina had made brought the designs right back down to average. Vanilla. Well within the box. That wasn’t what Lexi LaCroix Designs was about.

Nor was it what she wanted to be about. Or had ever wanted to be about.

Inner turmoil raged.

“Is this partnership setting me up for success…or failure?” As soon as the words were floating

in the quiet room, all Lexi’s fears solidified. She lifted her gaze to her friend. “Am I… Am I selling out, Rubi?”

Rubi gestured with the images in her hand. “You tell me.”

Lexi shrugged. “I’ve been on this track for so long. Shooting for this one goal, to move beyond the store, take that next big step that I’ve been living for nothing but this. Is that selling out?”

“Not if the end goal takes you where you want to go.”

Her phone call with Martina made it clear the chances of that happening with Galliano were slim. Lexi looked away from Rubi, thinking of all the time and money and effort she’d wasted—when she had none to waste. The clients she’d disappointed by turning down their requests to design their wedding dresses.