Mal, I hate you!” Cheryl shook her fist.

The stained popcorn ceiling of her mom’s house did not acknowledge her anger. And the bedraggled bedroom, which was still messy from her quick pack job the other night, still did not divulge a new pair of jeans and a clean, dry hoodie.

She’d packed a couple sets to take to Mal’s stupid house, and she’d left one set in the product warehouse when she’d changed into the vintage clothes for Amber. Her final pair had gone into the washer yesterday. She’d forgotten to switch to the dryer. It was still in the washer, only now dripping wet.

The last college class of her entire life was in less than an hour and she had nothing to wear.

Well, nothing but the extra vintage outfits Amber had stuffed into her messenger bag. The original plan had been for Cheryl to model all three outfits. Amber expected it to be a huge fight. She hadn’t expected Mal to capitulate and tell her to do whatever she wanted after seeing the first one.

Which… the memory of how his gaze had glued to her body and how his hands had molded her curves made Cheryl heat again.

No. To quote from Mal himself, time was passing. She’d stayed up way too late not finishing the portfolio pieces for the self-assessment today. Mal had screwed her over by begging her to return to his place only to turn right around and tell her she’d be sleeping there alone. And she’d done it. Hoping against hope he’d break his own rule and show up.

He hadn’t.

The jerk.

Her current clothes shortage was all his fault.

“I hate you!” she shouted at the ceiling again.

Although it was vaguely satisfying, it didn’t help. She hissed out a long breath and unfolded her two remaining options, spreading them out on the bed.

Option one: A super short sailor suit with a low-cut neck, tall white boots, and a skirt meant to flip up and reveal lacy blue bloomers. It left nothing to the imagination.

Option two: A vivid scarlet fifties housewife dress with an insert of black and white polka dot cloth. It stuck out like a glowing red light drawing everyone’s eye.

Deliberately call attention to herself or bare everything and hope nobody noticed?

Hope springs eternal. She shimmied into the sailor suit, cinching it at the waist, straightening the buttons. There was even a navy hat. Hell no. She looked at herself in the mirror.

Wow. The woman who looked back at her was a foreigner. Yes, it was her, but she looked kind of… well, kind of good.

No wonder Mal’s eyes had glowed green with lust and he had come to her. She stroked her trim belly. She had miles of legs in these boosted boots, generous cleavage, and endless curves all clothed in innocent white and striking navy blue.

How would he like this outfit? Now she’d been with Mal twice, a little light blinked in the back of her mind thinking about him all the time. Giving up her virginity had shown her the passion her body was capable of, and she suddenly felt powerful in this outfit. He would like it. She stroked the piping. He would want to rip it off with his teeth.

The front door slammed. Her mother was home from work.

Cheryl electrified. Would her mom ask where she’d been for the past few days? What would Cheryl say?

She went out to the living room, her mind churning. “Mom. Welcome home.”

Her mother tossed her purse in the large wicker basket and eased out of her hospital crocs. She dropped her keys on the messy, mail-strewn coffee table with a chink and smiled tiredly at Cheryl. “Thanks. Heading to school?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Her mom yawned and passed her. “Have a good day.”

She disappeared down the hall. The bathroom tap turned on and tooth brushing noises emerged.

What—seriously? That was it?

Everything was normal?

Cheryl tugged at the sailor suit. Her mom hadn’t even noticed Cheryl was wearing heels.

The bathroom door opened and closed. Her mom’s voice rose dangerously. “Cheryl!”

Uh oh. She’d relaxed too soon. Cheryl tiptoed down the hall. “What?”

Her mom stood in the bedroom, accusatory, and pointed at the rummaged-through boxes. “You’re overflowing your half again.”

“It’s because of the final art show.” She dropped to her knees and repacked. Things didn’t fit nicely, and she didn’t have time. She crushed and shoved.

“Well, keep it neat, okay? You left your clothes in the wash last night.”

“Sorry.”

Her mom shimmied out of her beige blouse and work pants and crawled under the covers with a groan.

Cheryl stood. “Um, about the final art show…”

Her mom cracked a peeper. “Huh?”

“Can you come? It’s on Wednesday.”

“Let’s discuss it later.” She rolled over on her side facing the wall.

Cheryl shifted her weight to the opposite foot. The last time they’d delayed discussion of an event, she hadn’t seen her mom until three days after it was over and her mom hadn’t even remembered the initial discussion. “Later when?”

“Just later, okay? I’ll have to check my schedule.”

“You’re not usually working on—”

“Okay!” Her mother stuffed her pillow over her head. “We’ll talk.”

Cheryl shifted again.

“And take care of your side.”

Cheryl picked up the box that wouldn’t sit on the others and carried it out to the living room.

A large part of her wanted to storm back into the room and shake her mother awake. Didn’t she know Cheryl had moved out? And was engaged? In a few days, she would hopefully be graduated. Then would her mom make time to talk?

But her mother had been on her feet for over twelve hours now. She was saving lives while Cheryl drew a plastic stylus across an electric tablet. What had Cheryl done for their family or all humanity lately?

She struggled into a long, puffed winter trench coat inappropriate for the bright, warm June day, and headed to school.

A confident woman would have left the trench coat behind. She would not hunch in her MAX seat sweating and hoping no one reported her for suspicious behavior. She’d lift a big middle finger to whoever gave her a rough time and ignore all the stares.

Too bad that woman wasn’t her.

At university, Cheryl, along with the rest of her class, cleaned out the art closets, organized their digital and print media, and printed their final pieces for the Student-Employer Art Show happening on Wednesday.

After everyone had finished, her professor gathered them in the center of the classroom.

“Get out the Employer Target worksheet you filled out on your first day. Look at the employers you wanted to work for.”

She stared down at the names she’d written. Was it only a few months ago? It felt like a lifetime.

She’d written the avant garde advertising companies sometimes used by Nike, Starbucks, and Microsoft. All large companies with a lot of money who might hire her and pay benefits.

“Now evaluate your work critically,” her professor said. “If you were the hiring director at those companies, would you hire yourself? Why or why not?”

Everyone studied their work and scribbled thoughts onto their assignment papers.

What could she say?

She wanted to say yes, she would hire herself, but that was a lie. If she were a hiring director, she’d hire someone with talent. Like her classmates. Not herself.

“Next,” her professor continued, “play headhunter. Walk around the class and write who you think your classmates should work for. What company would be their best fit?”

The rotation started. A classmate bumped her. She muttered an apology nobody heard. Her classmates walked the room and wrote comments on the assignment sheets.

Everyone else was working hard, and she was standing around feeling sorry for herself. What was her problem? Mal worked a thousand times harder than anyone. Even though his company would fail in two weeks’ time no matter what he did, he still pursued his goal of first place. He didn’t sit around and mope; he got up and worked harder.

As though her thoughts had summoned him, Mal appeared at the upper story window.

She flushed hot and cold. What was he doing here? Had he finished the product launch early?

His gaze picked her out. His eyes flashed green. He tried the windows but this time they were locked.

“Go around,” she mouthed and pointed at the ground.

He disappeared.

She hurried out of class, crossed the long hall, exited through the glass doors, and met him at the top of the stairs. “Is everything okay?”

“No.” He pushed her trench coat off her shoulders and wrapped his arms around her. His hard muscles flexed as he crushed her to him.

The world stood still. Everything was Mal. His delicious scent, his intoxicating body, his ramrod hard arousal pressing into her belly. His presence soothed and excited her. The throbbing sensation between her legs returned with pounding awareness. He had come.

“Now it’s okay.” He growled low near her ear. “Let’s go.”

Yes. Let’s—

“No!” She drew back. “I’m in the middle of class.”

“Do you hate me?”

That made her stop.

His eyes blazed.

She stroked his beautiful face. She was allowed to touch him. Wasn’t it funny? After gazing at him in longing for months, she was finally allowed to reach out and stroke his high cheekbones. She could never have imagined this. If someone had told her about this future, she couldn’t have imagined comforting him as if it were ordinary.

“No,” she said. “I could never hate you.”

He relaxed. “I need your art.”

“What, now?”

“The Carnelians distributed greeting cards. You must produce better ones.”

She should have known. He broke his no-contact rule for the company. Not her.

And she’d told him she loved him. The words weighed on her. She had said them but he hadn’t.

Cheryl let go and stepped back. “It’s in use, kind of.”

“Here?” He pushed past her, into the building, and headed to the art class. She hurried after him. Although the class was distracted by the movement and noise of the independent critique, Mal didn’t exactly blend in. The hard-bodied, suit-wearing business dragon stood a head above them. Her classmates stepped out of his way and stared.

“This way.” She led him to her final three printed pieces, dying of embarrassment. “We can go over my drawings together as soon as class is over. Just wait here.”

“I don’t have time.” He echoed her mother’s sentiment from earlier in the day. “Where are your dragons? Ones wearing outfits.”

Fine. No one had time for her. She swallowed her hurt and dug out her tablet, logged it into the Deviant Art site, and started him at the beginning. “Scroll through until you see what you like.”

He sat in a chair at the side of the room and swiped.

She took a deep breath and let it out. Mal hadn’t missed her these past days. Nope. Like her mother, he hadn’t even noticed she was gone.

She rubbed her cheeks.

Professor Jon walked up behind her. “Finished with the assignment already?”

She gripped her pen. “Uh, not yet.”

He studied her artwork. She’d finished the snowscape she’d started at Mal’s, drawn a ball of yarn, and also a stylized tennis shoe.

“This is?” He prompted her to tell him about her art and explain why her target employers would purchase it.

“For Starbucks.” Good, her voice only quivered a little. “To go on holiday cups.”

“Hmm.” He gestured at the others. “And those?”

“The shoe is for Nike. Yarn was used in Microsoft’s last advertising campaign.” Everything had the theme of home. A basket of knitting said home to her.

He was silent for a long time. “Not a cutesy animal in sight.”

She shook her head.

Professor Jon tapped the yarn ball. “Stylistically, there’s nothing to fault. But you can’t submit this.”

Her cheeks heated. “Why not?”

“Never be derivative. Invest everything in your existing strengths. Otherwise, you’ll get booted for the five hundred artists behind you that have found their unique talent and mastered it.”

He grimaced at her other art pieces.

Suddenly, the snowscape looked identical to a hundred others she’d seen. And the stylized tennis shoe - who hadn’t seen a stylized tennis shoe?

She was not special.

Cheryl tightened the too-heavy coat around her, even though it made her all sweaty.

Who was she kidding? She’d come here today expecting something different. But that was impossible. No one would ever hire her. She was derivative.

Her professor stepped back. “Better to learn these lessons now, in your unpaid student days, than when you’re stuck in New York, trying to make rent.”

She nodded, unable to speak. Her hands started shaking, and a lump formed in her throat. Do not cry. Do not cry. Do not cry. It was a conditioned response to an entire year of feeling increasingly stupid and inadequate.

Her professor walked off.

He had basically just told her she would never be a commercial artist. She should have given up on day two and become a janitor. Or an accountant.

The rest of the class pass her by. Her classmates walked around doing their assignments, working hard.

What was the point?

She would never be worth noticing. Not in art and not in herself. A hundred thousand women wore vintage outfits. Her mom was right not to notice. And who really wanted her? Mal was a fluke. She didn’t deserve her mother’s time, and she didn’t deserve his either. No one owed her anything. She didn’t deserve recognition or love.

Mal made a sudden noise.

At least he liked her art.

She gave up on her final assignment and walked to his chair. “Why did you ask if I hated you?”

“Because I told you to leave my office after you said you loved me.”

“That did hurt my feelings.”

He ignored her statement.

She debated telling him he was still hurting her feelings.

His gaze fixed on her most recent drawings. The ones she might as well give up on forever.

She would always be second place to Mal’s company, but he said he liked all her drawings. It eased the ache. Being a fond afterthought was the best she could hope for.

He made the noise again. “Why do you have this?”

She looked over. It was her sketch of him in the silk pajamas. “That’s mine. I drew that.”

“Then how does he have it?”

“He?” Well, she didn’t know who he was talking about, but she did know at least one person who had a print. “I gave it away.” She pointed to the comment trail on the posting, led by DragonLord C.

He looked up at her in horror. “Why?”

“He asked.”

Mal’s lips twitched. His eyes narrowed, and for one crazy second, she thought he was going to cry.

She put her hand on his forearm. “What’s wrong?”

He jerked away.

She curled her hand around her elbow, half-hugging herself, as she struggled to absorb the hurt. “What is it?”

“This is the greeting card Sard Carnelian is distributing with the silk pajamas.” Mal’s lips drew back from his teeth in a furious growl. “The one who betrayed our company—and me—is you.”