3.
She stood there, feeling her face getting redder until two men in the worst suits she'd seen in a long while walked into the room. Oh. My. God. Kirk Anderson was going to blank her completely. While she still stood there. After he’d been the one to pull her back. Seriously?
“Are the top-level numbers correct?” he asked the men. “If we are going to accept a settlement I want to know that it’s worth our while to drop all ongoing liability avenues.”
He was ignoring her. Completely and utterly. Then one of the lawyers cleared his throat.
“You’re still here?” He didn’t even bother to raise his eyes to her, and the blush took over her skin as if she had the worst case of sunburn known to humanity. Hugging the garment bags to her chest, Sass turned and almost ran out of his office.
But once she was in the stairwell, she let herself slump against the cool concrete wall. Her first meeting with a client for her own business and it couldn't have gone worse. The way he looked at her, like he wanted to eat her, or at the very least bite her, it gave her all kinds of...she shuddered. It had unnerved her.
He'd looked handsome in his photograph, but that hadn't prepared her for the effect of meeting him in person. His eyes were incredible, cold, yes, but the color was a myriad of blues, deep enough to drown in. When he was shocked, when she'd talked about the painting, she'd seen a hint of the beauty that would lie in their depths if he let go. But of course, he didn't let go. That was what he'd told her, wasn't it? Perhaps that was why he held his tall, broad and hard body so firm and straight. A man who knew how to carry his height and not stoop apologetically was something very appealing, and she got the feeling Kirk Anderson didn't apologize for anything. Ever. Rather than be put off by his cold, clear confidence, she found herself wanting to stroke him so he softened. So he showed a little more of what was hidden in those blue eyes.
Instead, he'd clenched his jaw. Man, you could have sharpened a knife on that jaw, and her fingers had itched to touch it.
“But then you went and opened your big mouth.”
She hadn't meant to talk so much, but she'd been nervous, and she always talked more when she was nervous. Didn't help that he kept looking at her so weird either, so she just talked and talked to fill the silence.
And then...oh my god, when he'd grabbed her arm, she thought her skin was going to give up right then and fall off her body. His touch was more than electric. It was out of control. Blood heating, bone dissolving, eye watering, his touch had been all of that and made her want to take back everything she'd said and have him run his hands over her whole body. At that moment, she saw the bright blue color in his eyes as if it filled the room. She saw it and wanted to dive into it.
“You are a traitor,” she said to her body, looking at her arm and half expecting to see a red mark where his fingers had seared into her. There was nothing. She shook her head, feeling like an idiot for telling herself off out loud. Idiot, idiot, idiot. The words hissed in her brain. She'd stuffed up her very first opportunity. One that might have led to other opportunities. One that might have meant she could pay her rent and get started on the rest of her life being her own boss. And instead, she'd practically yelled at him. Idiot, idiot, idiot.
She blinked hard to stop the tears and fought hard with the urge to curl into a ball in the stairwell and rock. The window next to her was open a crack, and through it, she could see the streets of Manhattan ten stories below. Her heart started racing, she could taste the panic on her tongue, and her muscles screamed out to her to run. Run from everything. Run from everyone, including herself.
Clenching her fists, she took twelve deep breaths, counting each one as she did it. “Oh no, you don't Sass Hunt.” This was what happened when she was too hard on herself. The dark hand of depression was never that far away, but it got a whole lot closer when she doubted herself. Well, today she was not going to let it in. Her mother's struggle with bipolar disorder had permeated her entire childhood, and for the longest time, she'd feared she'd inherited the condition. “But I didn't.” She took one more deep breath and felt her heart slip back into its regular rhythm. Pulling up her sleeves, Sass looked at her tattoos and breathed through her mouth. They were symbols of darkness and the light. She'd chosen the light. She was going to keep choosing the light. “And Kirk Anderson is not going to make me feel bad.”
Doing her research on him, going through every article written about him, then sifting through the answers on her profiling form, she thought she had him totally nailed: a man with big business ambition who needed to show a human side. She was expecting someone a bit cold, super smart and calculating. Someone who understood that he needed to showcase a softer side if he wanted to grow his brand. But he wasn't just cold. His heart must have been surgically removed at birth and substituted with a cryogenic ice replacement.
And then...those eyes.
Trying to shake off the feeling of his eyes on her, Sass stormed down the stairs of the Anderson Building and loaded her garment bags into the back of a taxi. Only then she realized she'd left the jacket behind. “Shit.” It wasn't just any jacket. It retailed for more than a month's rent, and she needed to get it back to her supplier. Sass looked up at the towering skyscraper, and her heart sank. No way did she want to go back up there and beg for him to reach into the depths of his couch and get it for her. No. She'd call the secretary and have her dig it out and put it at the front desk for her to collect later. Yes. That'd be fine.
Decided, she gave the taxi directions home and when she got there dumped everything in her dressing room and headed right back out again after sending a quick email off to Kirk Anderson’s assistant about the jacket.
Walking the streets of New York, she instantly felt better. There was every kind of person outside on the summer day. Men in suits sure, but there were young women in brightly colored floral dresses, kids in overalls, and her favorite, old women having coffee in brilliant hued, multi-layered outfits. She watched a group as one of them held up a purchase, a fluffy fake fur tiger jacket and the other cackled with glee. That's what she wanted to be when she grew older: irreverent, fun, full. She wanted to slide into old age, having had a full life and not caring what people thought or what they said. She wanted to be the antithesis of her mother.
Continuing walking, she found herself at the doors to MoMA and, once inside, breathed out a huge sigh of relief as she was engulfed in the air-conditioned swirl of the art museum. This was her happy place.
Screw it. Having a bad start with one client didn't mean she couldn't make it. All it meant was that she had a bad meeting with one client. Sass sat down in the center of the textile exhibition space and let the images fill her up. Sitting quietly like this, just looking, letting the color of the various fabrics settle into her skin, Sass felt her shoulders unhunch, and her jaw relax.
She'd been sixteen when her mom had ended up in the hospital and Sass had been left to fend for herself. Lost and alone, Sass had almost given up. Everything. But then she’d got the diagnosis that she wasn’t bipolar and had put herself back together. It had taken two years. When she’d sat down in front of a sewing machine in an art-therapy class when she was eighteen, it had felt like she fit. Like she had always been there. And that's what she wanted to do for her clients now. She wanted to give them clothes that made them feel like she had when she started putting pieces of different colored fabrics together. Wanted them to look in the mirror and see themselves fully revealed. She knew she could do it. She just needed to keep at it.
Drunk on color and her hopes and dreams, she barely registered her phone ringing. It was only when one of the museum staff cleared their throats noisily that she realized what the noise was and pulled her phone from her pocket.
“Wedding emergency.”
“Wait, what?” Sass pulled the phone away from her ear a moment to check the caller. She didn't recognize the strangled voice on the other end of the phone. It was Cara.
“The dogs got into my bedroom. Where my dress was. And, Oh-My-God, you have to help.”
“I'm on my way.”