Page 29 of By A Thread

And a mango margarita.

10

Dominic

Ihatedthese kinds of meetings.

This whole face-to-face brainstorming thing was bullshit. How the hell was I supposed to know what designer should dress our models for a fall office fashion shoot? Or what makeup products were at the center of a social media maelstrom?

Photo shoots and everything leading up to them were more politically fraught than a UN meeting. Designers that clashed with models. Photographers that wouldn’t shoot certain designers. Inventory miscommunication. Too many editorial opinions. Sales reps who made promises they shouldn’t. Last-minute location disasters.

And I was expected to make the most diplomatic decisions.Ha. Some fucking joke.

“You ready?” Linus, the snarky production manager, asked joining me in the hallway. He adjusted his glasses

“I’m ready.”

I hated not being good at something. At the age of twelve, I’d been tossed out of a baseball game for hurling my bat over the fence when I’d struck out yet again. Baseball hadn’t been my game.

My dad—a high school baseball star of his own time who, for some inexplicable reason, actually made it to the game that day—told me I should focus on something I was good at… like watching TV or whining.

We’d had a similar conversation when I’d told him I was taking his position here. He’d given me the same sneer of disdain and wished me luck filling his shoes. I’d told him I’d rather burn his shoes and everything that was in this office to the damn ground.

It wasn’t a healthy sense of competition that drove me in this position. No, it was a pulsing need to prove to myself that I was better than the man who’d never earned the loyalty I’d once so freely given.

That’s what I’d done with baseball. I practiced every damn night. Spent hours in batting cages and running drills. In the end, I’d gotten good enough to earn a scholarship offer to play in college. Something my father hadn’t managed in his own life.

That was a good enough measure of success for me. Challenge conquered, point proven, I’d quit and never picked up a glove again.

I’d do the same here. Force myself to rise above an innate inability, do my fucking best, and when it was all over, never ever look back.

“Remember what we talked about,” Linus said, pausing outside the conference room door.

“Yeah,” I said. Then for some stupid reason remembered Ally’s passionate exit speech at the restaurant. About people deserving better treatment and all that garbage. “Thanks,” I said.

Linus’s eyes widened a fraction behind his tortoiseshell glasses. “You’re welcome?” he said after a beat.

I called it Proof of Asshole. It was something I tallied up on occasion. When someone looks at you cross-eyed for saying thank you because apparently you’d never said it before? Definite Proof of Asshole.

I stopped abruptly inside the door.

Shewas there.

Arranging coffees and pastries—that no one was going to eat because carbs were evil—like it was her job and not some cosmic joke.

Everyone else was already settled around the table and conversations came to a halt. I had that kind of effect on a room.

Ally looked up and didn’t bother hiding the eye-roll. “Oh, great,” she muttered under her breath.

Yeah, well, I wasn’t happy about seeing her either.

I ignored her and took my seat at the head of the table. “Thanks for being here,” I said gruffly. “Let’s get started.”

From the looks I got around the table, none of these people were used to the “t” word coming out of my mouth either. I bit back a sigh.

Ally planted herself at the foot of the table behind some ancient dinosaur of a laptop. She was wearing a cropped mock neck sweater in cheery fuchsia over black pants. She wore bracelets made out of some sort of fabric—maybe denim—wrapped up her right wrist.

“We’re interested in your input on the fall makeup tutorials,Mr. Russo.” Beauty editor Shayla was baiting me again.