I ached too much for the woman in the painting to consider it a favorite, but it entranced me in a way few things did. It was like the artist had crawled inside my mind and splashed my fears onto canvas for all to see. The result was equally liberating and terrifying. “Interesting.” Christian’s
tone was unreadable. “What about you? What’s your favorite piece?” A person’s taste in art revealed a lot about them, but he hadn’t shown more than a cursory interest in any of the gallery’s works. “I don’t have one.” “There has to be one you like more than the others.” I tried again. His stare could’ve frosted the inside of a volcano. “I’m not an art enthusiast, Stella. I’m here purely for business, and I have no desire to waste time assigning preferences to objects that mean nothing to me.” Okay, then. I’d struck a nerve, though I had no clue which one.
Christian wasn’t an expressive person by nature, but I’d never seen him shut down so fast. All traces of emotion had disappeared from his face, leaving only practiced blankness behind.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize art was such a touchy subject,” I said, hoping to warm the sudden chill in the air. “Most people love it.” At the very least, they didn’t hate it. “Most people love a lot of things.” Christian’s tone said all he needed to say about his thoughts on the subject. “The word is meaningless.” Don’t worry, Ms. Alonso. I don’t believe in love. His words from the night of our arrangement floated through my mind. There was a story there, but extracting blood from stone would be easier than getting that story out of him tonight. “Not an enthusiast of art or love.
Noted.” I didn’t look at another piece, and Christian didn’t speak to anyone else. Instead, we walked toward the exit, bound by an unspoken agreement that it was time to call it a night. It wasn’t until we stepped outside that his shoulders relaxed. He slanted a sideways glance at me during our walk to his car. “It feels good to leave the house, doesn’t it?” I sucked in a lungful of cold, fresh air and tilted my head up at the sky. The moon shone high and bright, bathing the world in silvery magic. The night lurked with dangers, but those shadows seemed to disappear whenever Christian was around. Even when he was moody and intractable, he was a source of security. “Yes,” I said. “It does.”
15
STELLA
Despite my reluctance to attend last week’s art gallery opening, it did break my self-imposed ban on not leaving the house. I also hadn’t heard a peep from my stalker since the first note, which helped. By the time the following Wednesday rolled around, I’d relaxed enough to venture into public on my own again. That was the thing about humans. We were hard-wired for survival, and we took every opportunity to convince ourselves that our problems weren’t as bad as we thought they were. Hope and denial. Two sides of the same coin. They kept us from falling into a well of despair even in the darkest of times. I visited Maura, shopped for groceries, and met Lilah for coffee, where I picked her brain about everything fashion design-related. The only person I didn’t see was Christian, who was busy with work. At least, that was what he said.
Maybe he was as discomfited by our interaction at the gallery as I was. My pencil paused at the memory. The roughness of his voice, the heady scent of leather and spice, the way his touch seared through my clothes and into my skin… Restlessness bloomed in my chest. I shifted in my seat and shook my head before I channeled the ceaseless buzz into the task at hand—a
stack of unfinished fashion sketches I’d dug up from the depths of my drawer after my meeting with Lilah. I’d collected dozens of them over the years. I started each one intending to finish and make it the piece that would launch my brand, but inevitably, self-doubt and imposter syndrome would hit, and I’d abandon it for another photoshoot or a blog post. Things I knew I was good at and that had a track record of success. But not this time. Trying and failing is better than not trying at all. Lilah’s words from our meetup haunted me. It was the first time someone had ever told me it was okay to fail. Failure hadn’t been an option growing up. It was straight A’s or nothing. Once, I’d been so anxious about an eighty-nine percent I got on a math test I broke out in hives and had to go to the nurse’s office. Thayer hadn’t been much better; the school swarmed with Type A overachievers. As for D.C. Style…well, look what happened the last time I made a mistake. But I didn’t live at home anymore, I wasn’t in college, and I didn’t work for anyone except myself. I could do what I wanted, especially with the partnership deals I was getting now. I didn’t want to fail, but the idea that I could without the world ending unchained my creativity. I’d been stuck the last time I tried to sketch, tracing and retracing the same lines until I tossed the entire thing out of frustration. Now, my pencil flew over the page as I detailed the lace patterns of a blouse and the elegant silhouette of an evening gown. It was a different type of creative outlet than my blog and social media. Those, I did for other people. This, I did for me.
I’d loved fashion since I snuck a copy of my mom’s Vogue into my room at age eight. It wasn’t just the clothes themselves; it was the way they transformed the wearer into whoever they wanted to be. An ethereal princess, a glamorous CEO, a badass rocker,f or a vintage icon.
Nothing was off limits. In a household where rules were ironclad and the path to success cut straight through the Ivy League toward any one of a dozen “acceptable” careers, the chaotic, colorful world of fashion had called to me like a siren song in the dark. I finished my first sketch and moved on to the second. A tiny seed of pride sprouted with each sketch I completed. To others, they were just drawings, but to me, they were proof of perseverance after years of holding myself back. Sometimes, victory was as simple as finishing. I was so engrossed in my work, I didn’t realize how much time had passed until my stomach growled in warning.
A glance at the clock told me it was already two in the afternoon. I’d been sketching nonstop since nine. Part of me was tempted to skip lunch and keep drawing so I didn’t lose my momentum, but I forced myself to change and pick up some food at the cafe next to the Mirage.
It was past lunchtime, but the tiny shop bustled with activity. Since I didn’t feel like venturing further for tea and a sandwich, I took my spot behind a scowling woman in a gray suit and waited. Out of habit, I pulled out my phone and tapped into my profile. My last photo was the one the photographer took of me and Christian at the art gallery. It was doing even better than our debut picture, and my follower count was already at 950K. At this rate, I’d hit the million-follower mark by summer. Instead of excitement at the prospect, all I could focus on was the image of Christian’s arms wrapped around me. We looked so much like a real couple.
Sometimes, like when he’d comforted me the night I found the note or pulled me into his lap after I told him about my stalker, we felt like a real couple. Unease squirmed through my gut.
The stalker situation had thrown a wrench into our arrangement. It connected me and Christian more than we’d originally planned, and I— An incoming call notification replaced the photo of us on my screen. Delamonte New York. The breath stole from my lungs, and all thoughts of Christian fell to the wayside as I answered the call. “Hello?” My calm greeting belied my nerves.