Chapter 35
In a futile attempt to push Elliot away, I got meaner. More distant. Most nights, he was out doing whatever it was he did, and I got up extra early for my runs the next morning to beat him to the bathroom. When he showered, I slipped out of the apartment.
Based on what Ronnie said, it seemed useless to try to sway Hunter Ashwood’s mind, but I wasn’t a quitter.
I needed to be so good that Camila would beg him to let me stay.
So, I stood in her office with a fresh cup of coffee before she could even ask for it, finished an assignment two days before it was due, and relentlessly worked on Daphne’s dress.
I scouted fashion week venues and helped with model casting on Saturdays when she’d specifically told me I didn’t need to.
Because I did.
As an added bonus, working extralong hours meant the only time I could miss Elliot was in the comfort of my own sheets, and I was so exhausted by the time I got home, he only got a minute or two in my head before I fell asleep.
So we hadn’t spoken a word since the day I found out he was getting the job, I had no idea what he’d been working on, and we were two minutes into presenting our Ashwood Annual progress to Camila and Oliver.
Obviously, the weekly checkups he’d suggested weren’t happening.
I’d taken a chance, printed each of them a sketch I had made, brought the fabric I preferred, and then promised, very firmly, that the first concept was in the third-floor studio, ready for inspection. I was just too scared to risk damaging it by bringing it down.
Too scared of repeating what happened the last time I brought a design down here. This one had taken seven days, not two, though. And it wasn’t close to being done.
My eyes slid over to Oliver, and at least his scowl was less prominent. They both ahed and hmed, but it seemed really hard for Camila to suppress a smile, and I took that as a good sign. Finally. It only started going downhill when it was Elliot’s turn.
Because our looks didn’t work together at all. My design, and his suit out of the archives.
“So . . .” Camila’s nose scrunched. “You guys did work on this together, right?”
“Of course.” I was kind of proud we managed to say it in unison.
“And you thought . . .” There was less sympathy in Oliver’s tone, cruel gaze jumping back and forth between us. “Daphne’s pastel pink would go well with . . .” Gesturing toward Elliot’s suit, he was searching for the right words. Not a good sign. “Whatever that is?”
Some kind of muted fuchsia shade.
Elliot and I shared a glance, and I wondered if his palms were sweating just as much as mine. If his heart sank to the bottom of his stomach as well. Probably not.
“Individually, I don’t hate them,” Camila said, and complimenting Elliot must’ve been hard for her. “But Oliver’s right. Together, they make no sense.”
“No artistic vision.” Oliver again, gesturing to Elliot’s sketch of what the suit would look like after we’d altered it.
Even calling it a sketch was a stretch, though; the .
. . drawing was incomprehensible. No comment on the stick figure wearing the design.
“There’s supposed to be some kind of metal on yours, Elliot? ”
Which we only knew because he’d written, with an arrow and in bold, capital letters, METAL!
“To set accents,” Elliot agreed.
“Don’t hate it.” Oliver nodded slowly. “But where’s that element in Maeve’s design?
Why aren’t they tied together better through small details just like that?
And why, for God’s sake”—his British accent slipped here—“are the colors not matching?” He threw his hands up, seeming a little too calm for the gesture.
“Or contrasting. Just anything to make it seem like you actually worked on this together.”
Well, for one, we hadn’t.
I’d kind of expected Camila to soften the blow, but all she did was give me a tight smile.
“You’ve got a month. We’ve got our fashion show on Thursday. With everything else, I don’t know if you guys can still pull off our usual schedule. First fitting next week?”
I blinked at Oliver. I’d never gotten a schedule. Never mind one where the first fitting would happen in a week. If possible, my hands got clammier.
The man beside me just nodded. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”
Of course, Elliot knew about that. Apparently, he knew everything and didn’t bother informing me of anything.
“Maeve?” The way Oliver looked at me, brows raised expectantly, I was glad I got to spend most of my time with his wife.
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” I repeated, knowing it was a big one.
They both nodded, like that was all the assurance they needed. One way or another, we had a week to get Daphne into a dress that didn’t fully exist and Ryan into a suit that didn’t even have a sign-off from Oliver and Camila.
“Perfect.” Camila smiled, a little less forced than before. “You’ve got the room for another half an hour. You can use it to work on our feedback, if you’d like.” Which meant You better start fixing this right now, and if I see either of you out of this room before 11 a.m., we’ll have a problem.
If this were earlier in the internship, I’d be eager for them to leave so we could get to work. But this was the first time in a week that Elliot and I would be alone in a room, and I wished they’d stay as some kind of buffer between us.
We either fought or made out when put in these kinds of situations. But a second later, we were alone, trying to figure out what the other was thinking and what on earth to say.
“Fuchsia?!” was my pick, apparently. I whirled around to face Elliot, pointing an accusatory finger. “I thought we agreed on a pale pink. Like that sand in the Bahamas.”
Elliot leaned against the wall, arms crossed defensively. “Thought the two might go well together.”
“You didn’t try to test that theory by putting the colors next to each other?”
“If I remember correctly,” he said pointedly. “I didn’t have your fabric sample. I didn’t see your sketches and didn’t get a glimpse at the color you went for. Am I wrong?”
I exhaled a loud breath in return.
“Maybe I would’ve seen the two looked god-awful together if you’d just shown me what you were working on. Maybe this whole thing would’ve gone better if you just talked to me every once in a while.”
My head shook. Hard. Like that might drown out his voice, and how reasonable he sounded.
“It’s a simple enough request. We need to talk. I’m not asking you to marry me, Maeve.”
“I wouldn’t,” I snapped back.
It was a lot of things, but simple wasn’t one of them.
The way he looked at me wasn’t simple; the way I felt in his presence wasn’t, either.
The way he always said just the right things to get to me made just talking to him so dangerous, I tried to do as little of it as possible—and fucked up anyway.
“It seems necessary.” He shook his head. “To talk—not to . . .” But he trailed off, and I hated that my heart sped up.
Stop, I ordered myself. You’re not going to marry him.
“We’ve done just fine the past week.” I tried to sound as unbothered as he seemed, and probably failed miserably. I spoke too fast, and my breathing came too quickly.
“Have we?” he asked, unconvinced.
“I don’t know what there is to talk about. You’re this close to stealing the rest of my life—”
“I told you—”
“That you didn’t know?” I forced a laugh. “Ronnie knows. Melissa knows. You’re Elliot Fucking Ashwood, and you want me to believe that you, of all people, didn’t?”
It’s ridiculous.
He exhaled loudly, pinching the bridge of his nose to calm himself. “I think I’ve always been clear on how I feel about this internship. I’m not competing with you. I never was—because I wouldn’t stand a chance. I’m doing my best, and whether it is or isn’t enough was never up to me.”
I snorted, if only to bury the part of me that wanted to believe it. “Well, congrats.” My lips thinned. “It was.”
“Maeve—”
The fight left my body all at once. “Whatever. It’s fine. We shouldn’t have started this . . . thing, anyway.” My head fell back, eyes on the spinning ceiling. “It’s stupid. We’re both busy enough without wanting to fuck each other.”
Elliot flinched. It was the first thing I saw when I looked back at him, and I wished I’d missed it.
“Ah.” He hummed. “Of course. That’s what we were trying to do.”
“You disagree?”
But it seemed he had no energy left to fight either. His sigh said as much. “It’s obviously why this”—he gestured back and forth between us—“is happening.”
The look between us lingered as long as our silence. Minutes before he really did give up. His gaze flicked through the room, then back to my face. “See you at home.”
It didn’t matter that we still had the room for twenty more minutes because Elliot left without saying another word.