Ethan scratched his smooth jaw. “I don’t like him.”
“Me either.” Another lie.
“Then I don’t see the problem.” He picked up his taco again. “The fake engagement is over; you are officially back on the market. So what if you kissed? I . . .” He stopped himself at the last minute. “I did things, too, while we were each seeing other people. That’s why we’ve decided to wait until now before we take things to the next level.” He arched his brows meaningfully. “Welcome to the next level, Maddie.”
“I’m not ready for the next level yet.” I tore the already shredded lettuce between my fingers meticulously, not meeting his eyes.
“We don’t have to today.”
I shook my head, closing my eyes.
“Or tomorrow, even,” he began to bargain.
“I don’t know if it’s a good idea, period. That kiss happened for a reason. Maybe I’m not completely over Chase. I thought I was when I signed up for SeriousSinglesOnly. I truly did. But now I’m not so sure.”
“You just said you refused him because of me,” Ethan pointed out.
“Yes, because I want someone like you,” I agreed. “I just don’t know if I’m ready to move on.”
Our silence was punctuated by the robotic voice of the news anchor on TV, who moved to another item, about a nineteen-year-old criminal who carved his name onto his girlfriend’s face. His name was Constantine Lewis. I bet if Chase were watching it right now, he’d say he hoped to hell he’d at least had the good manners to carve Stan for short.
I was predicting what Chase would say or think. How he’d react. I thought about him every waking moment. What he was doing, thinking, eating. Who he was seeing. I was definitely not over him.
“I’m really sorry, Ethan. I’m horrified that I put you through this. For what it’s worth, you’re absolutely perfect.”
“You’re giving me the it’s-not-you-it’s-me cliché.” He clutched the left side of his shirt, but his voice lacked venom. “Ouch.”
“It pains me more than it does you.” I smiled tiredly.
“But you want to get over him. It’s half the journey.”
I said nothing, because it was the truth.
“Can I at least have a say in this? I’m the wronged party here, supposedly.”
I chuckled. “That’s fair.”
“I’d like to think about it. About whether I want to forgive you for doing the unforgivable and kissing your billionaire, hotshot, not-ugly ex-boyfriend.”
I full-blown cackled now. “Are you reserving the right to dump me?”
“Nicely,” Ethan corrected. “And yes. I’m not sure I’m ready to give up on this, whatever it is. I appreciate your fair warning I might get hurt, but I might still want to give it a shot. Deal?” He offered me his hand. I took it, shaking it with a stupid smile. It was the nicest thing that had happened to me today.
“Deal.”
We fell into comfortable silence, eating the rest of our meal, until we heard a thin sound of liquid coming from the door, followed by a puppy growl.
“Daisy!” I jumped from the couch, but it was too late. My chocolate-colored Aussiedoodle was already standing by the door, tattered plastic bag in her mouth, peeing straight into Ethan’s shoes.
I spent the next three days screening Chase’s calls. Even though Ethan reserved the right to change his mind about us, I hadn’t heard from him since our Mexican-food night. I was mildly relieved by this turn of events. It was one less thing to worry about. I did send Ethan an apologetic, lengthy text message before Layla told me to stop being more saintly than the pope. “The man dicked someone else the day he wined and dined you. You were obviously not that committed to one another.”
Three days post the nuclear kisses and sort-of breakup from my nonboyfriend, Ethan, and I was beginning to breathe again. Shallow, tentative breaths of someone who knew it wasn’t over yet.
Ronan was still sick.
Chase was a man who always got what he wanted.
As for me? I was slowly learning to stand up for myself.
I threw myself into work and finished three sketches for the Mother of the Bride collection. I made one of the sketches in honor of Mom, drawing the model with the same orange turban she’d worn when she’d been going through chemo. She had the same smiling hazel eyes as Mom and the same full lips and freckles. The dress was floral and big and lacy. Something Mom would’ve worn for my wedding. When Sven saw the final designs, I could see the confusion in his face. It wasn’t common practice to put details into the face of a model in a sketch. Then the penny dropped, and he reached to squeeze my shoulder, exhaling. “She’d have loved it.”
“You think?” I asked quietly.
“I know.”
I prayed my next assignment wasn’t going to be mother related. I missed my mom more than ever, wishing she were here to help me sort the Chase/Ethan mess. So when Sven approached me after I finished the Mother of the Bride collection, I was already holding my breath.
“Maddie, I need your attention.” Sven snapped his fingers, swaggering his way to my corner of the studio. I fluffed my white and pink lilies, eyeing him curiously. He stopped a few feet from me, thrusting a stack of papers into my hands. “Your assignment.”
I swiveled on my stool fully, crossing my legs and holding my pencil between my teeth like it was a cigarette. I opened the file he’d handed to me. It was a thin one, and when I flipped through it, I noticed it was because it didn’t have all the things they usually gave us in a packet: mock-ups of the general fashion line, bullet points of what needed to be done, etc.
“It’s been a long time coming, but you’ve worked the hardest for years, and I think you deserve this chance,” Sven said as I read the words on the assignment packet again and again.
The Wedding Dress to End All Wedding Dresses: Croquis’s Flagship Wedding Gown
My fingers trembled around the document, and my heartbeat pulsated in my neck.
“We are launching our fall collection at the New York Fashion Week in a couple months. Traditionally, the opening item is the Dream Wedding Dress. As you know, it is the most prestigious spot in the runway show. Usually reserved for our heavy-hitting designers. It’s the dress all the Vera Wang, Valentino, and Oscar de la Renta folks are going to be looking at. The one the front-row celebrities will be ordering for their weddings. The cherry on the cake. You’re going to design it.”
I knew all of this. This was a huge deal. The person who’d designed it last year had moved up and now worked for Carolina Herrera. Rather than answering him with words, I chose the moment to ungracefully fall apart. Literally, I fell down on my ass from my chair, I was so stunned. I tried to keep my happy tears at bay, but it was hard, because I’d never thought I’d be able to secure something so prestigious so early into my career.
“Get a handle on gravity, Maddie,” Sven muttered, offering me his hand, hoisting me back up to my feet. “When Layla told me you were going to fall on your ass, I didn’t know she was being literal.”
“Layla knows I got the assignment?” I gasped, covering my mouth with both hands. But of course she did. God, these two really annoyed me. “Sven, you won’t regret it, I promise.”