She shuddered at the memory. The world seemed to be darkening a little, losing its color. And Dio, her hands were shaking. Her stomach rolled. Was it anxiety? Or self-disgust?
I can hear the beach. I can feel the table. I can see Angus…
“We did,” she said. “Before I think either of us were ready, we did.” She hovered the prongs of her fork over her meal. It was so delicious, so special, and she was ruining it all. Which was so typical of her. Didn’t she just ruin everything? Isn’t that what she did? Ruin moments and make people agitated and wish she wasn’t—
“Lis?”
She lifted her head at Angus’s gentle voice. He studied her, worry in his eyes. “It’s okay. You don’t have to.”
“I’m okay.”
“Sure?”
She nodded. She wasn’t, but she also was. She had to be. “Six months after we openedO’Dea/De Luca Studio, we were so busy we were turning new clients away. It was crazy. I was working twenty-four seven, and I loved it. But then our new client numbers began to fall.” Sweat formed on her brow. Her upper lip. The room seemed to go a little fuzzy.
I see Angus. I hear the waves outside. I smell my meal…
“And as weeks went past, we began to loseexistingclients. Jobs that were already booked were cancelled. I was heartbroken, and Scott was abnormally distant. He was rarely in the studio, and I assumed he was out trying to land new clients. I was scared but I didn’t want to make him more upset. So I worked harder with the clients we had. Desperate to keep them. To makehimhappy. And then he stopped coming into the studio completely. And he stopped returning my messages.”
Her heart thudded.
Stop talking. Stop. You’re ruining the moment. Angus doesn’t want to hear any of this. Just shut up. Shut up.
She swallowed. Licked her lips. Stared at her plate. “It turned outwehadn’t lost our clients. I had.” She let out a shaky breath, anxious nausea twisting her insides until they knotted in her chest. “He still had clients.Ourclients. All our clients. He’d stolen them. Claimed all the credit for my work and took them.” Her eyes tingled and she squeezed them shut, swallowing the hard lump in her throat. She was going to be sick, and that was wrong. It would offend Angus so much. After the meal he’d made for her… “He told them I wasn’t able to handle the pressure, mentally, and took them to the new studio he’d set up without me knowing.Hisstudio. He’d been lying to me for months.”
“Fucking prick,” Angus’s low whisper made her blink. Or was it the stupid hot tears prickling the backs of her eyes?
Every emotion she’d felt at that moment rushed back into her heart in an instant. The waves of anger and pain and confusion almost too much to bear, still every bit as unexpected and raw as the first time.
Scott had betrayed her. She’d confronted him. He’d abused her. Said she was mentally unbalanced, too emotionally fragile for him to deal with. That her anxiety suffocated him. Strangled him. Blamed her for the fall in their sales. Said her insecurity only held him back.
She’d cried for days. Her mental state couldn’t handle it. She’d never felt so alone, so abandoned. So empty. Even with Bria and Zeta to comfort her, even with her parents ready to unleash legal hell on him, she’d felt…discarded.
“It took me a long time to find my confidence again,” she said, her voice somehow devoid of the anger and grief she’d kept locked away since Scott had destroyed her. “But tentative steps with small clients led to bigger jobs. And more clients. And all on my own, I createdDe Lucreative Designs. And now it’s one of the most in-demand graphic design studios in Downtown San Diego. And occasionally, I land a client who’s come from Scott’s studio, dissatisfied with the work being done there. And when those clients come my way, I have a little party for one in my soul. Which is probably very petty, but that’s the way it is.”
She nodded, staring at her plate. Staring at her meal. The most amazing meal she’d ever had. And she’d blurted out all her shit instead of eating it.
“And I figured you should probably know that about me,” she finished, with a self-deprecating shrug.
“He’s a fucking prick.”
She lifted her head and locked stares with Angus, her heart clenching when he offered her kind smile.
“A massive fucking prick.”
She straightened her shoulders and shook her head, letting out a choppy little laugh.
God, she really had ruined supper. “Sothat’show I started my own business.” She gave him a sheepish grin, aching to turn back the clock to stop herself blurting this out. She’d wanted him to understand who she was. No doubt, all she’d done was scare him away. “Bet you wish you hadn’t asked, right?”
He stood and rounded the table, crouching down beside her chair. “I wish I could take all the pain he gave you away,” he murmured, brushing his knuckle along her cheek. “But all I can do right now is make you feel loved.” He cupped her jaw and leant forward, his lips tender and gentle on hers.
She smiled, his words, his soft kiss sweeping a warm calm through her. Taking away the knot in his stomach and the dark whispers in her mind.
He pulled back, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, his smile playful. “And well-fed,” he finished with a wink.
She laughed.
Loved. That was exactly how he made her feel. Loved. And while it wasn’t possible to fall in love so quickly, Angus made her feel like it was. And as impossible as it was, she loved him for it.