CHAPTER ONE

Chapter 1

ALEX P.O.V

The picture looks even worse on paper.

I stand at the window of my office, thirty two floors up, clutching the Commerce Today newspaper as I read through the publication.

Below me, the city keeps moving. People hurry along the sidewalks to get home. Everything continues normally, indifferent to the quiet mess in my life.

"Hawthorne's flopped collection."

That's the headline they chose this time.

Of all the ways they could have said it, that is what they went with. "A flopped collection"

The page displays my spring lineup like photographs of a disaster, tagged with comments like Repetitive, copied, bland designs.

I let out a long breath as I continue reading.

Months of late night and working hard to release this collection just went down the drain.

My eyes drift downward, scanning the rest of the page without really processing it, until a familiar name catches my attention in the column below.

"Ellis Valmont's trending collections dominate global markets."

I stopped reading.

My fingers tighten around the paper crumbling it edges.Of course they would mention him.Ellis Valmont is everywhere these days as if he has always belonged at the center of every conversation and every comparison to other designers.

I tune out everything else, the traffic below, the ticking sound of the office clock as I stare at the photo beneath the headline.

And just like that, I'm not really seeing the article anymore, instead I see Ellis Valmont himself.

The memory slips in before I could stop it, Ellis on that hotel bed naked and those hazel eyes dark with desire that turns me on at every reminder.

Three years, and my body still remembers it like yesterday.

The warmth of his skin against mine. The way I had cum at the touch of his mouth…

"Alex?"

Maya's voice cuts through my thoughts, and I flinch.

"Shit," I mutter, pressing my forehead against the glass while I try to keep the memory and this hard on down before turning to look at her.

Lately, the memories have been harder to bury. Like they are waiting for any excuse to surface.

I turn slightly, enough to see her sitting cross legged on the chair looking at me like someone about to break. I hate that look mostly because she's usually right when she wears it.

"We need to talk about the meeting."

"The show is still six months away," I reply, eyes drifting back to the street below.

My reflection stares back at me from the glass. When did I start looking tired?

"The board has a proposal," she continues.

"I'm not interested in their talks," I say flatly, turning to face her. "Any proposal that starts with the board ends with them trying to control what I create."

"You haven't heard it yet," she shrugged.

"I don't need to," I snapped. "This is my company, my designs maya and I'm not letting a group of people in suits who have never held a pencil sketch in their lives dictate my work."

"They want you to collaborate," she cuts in before I can shut it down. "With Ellis Valmont."

For a second, I'm sure I misheard her.

"No." The word comes out quickly and rougher than I intended as I walk back towards my chair, needing something to rest on.

Maya doesn't react. Instead, she calmly pulls out her tablet and turns it around.

Ellis Valmont.

The image fills the screen taken from last month's Asian fashion week. He's backstage, laughing at something off the camera, his hair slightly disheveled and wearing one of his own designs.

A pink shirt, unbuttoned at the top and sleeves rolled to his elbows.

I stop breathing for a second.

Unwanted heat spreads through my body, curling low in my stomach.

"Velles is the hottest brand in the world right now," Maya continues, completely oblivious to the war raging inside me.

I take my eyes away from the screen, but it's too late. My mind is already racing, filled with desperate desires.

"He would never agree," I say, my voice tight even to my own ears. "Not after everything."

"Because of the interview?" she asks.

Right, that's what she thinks this is about.

She doesn't know about the night before that interview. Doesn't know I woke up with his arm heavy across my waist, that I gave that interview few hours after thoroughly fucking him.

"He's got a nine month waiting list," Maya said convincingly. "Asian markets are obsessed with him. He's our top option right now." She gestures toward me. "Whatever history there is, just three months," she says gently. "You need this, Alex."

Three months with the same man whose pictures have jerked off for years. Close enough to want things I no longer have the right to want.

Silence stretches between us.

"Send me the details," I hear myself say after a moment.

“Done boss”,Maya's face breaks into a wide smile before hurrying out of the office.

The office falls silent again after Maya leaves.

I didn't move right away. I just sit there, staring at the closed door.

After a while I turn back to my table and open my laptop. I pull up to his media page, scrolling through his feed filled with shirtless behind the scenes shots of him designing, taken like he doesn't even notice the camera. Every shot is so raw and intimate.

There's one from last week, in a different studio. He's bent over a table, white t-shirt clinging to his body, those lean muscles in his back visible through the thin fabric.

I remember the warmth of those muscles,my hands gripping them as he moved, feeling them tense and shift under my hands.

My hand drops to my lap, pressing against the growing hardness there and for one pathetic moment I felt the bad need to release so badly.

One picture is all it takes to make me hard like this.

I scroll back further,there is one from the awards ceremony three years ago the night everything started.Ellis on the red carpet eyes bright and charming.

Two hours after that photo, I had him pressed against the wall of my hotel room.

The memory crashes over me,Ellis entwined his fingers in my hair, letting out those needy sounds when I kissed him,the way he had begged for more.

My hand moves to my belt before I can think better of it.

This is insane. I'm in my office, getting myself off to memories and photos of a man who probably hates me.

But I'm already undoing my pants, already wrapping my hand around myself, already lost in the memory of that night.

Ellis lay spread out on the hotel bed, flushed and aching with want. The way his body arched when I pushed into him, the way he dragged me closer calling for me,breathless and pleading.

I stroke faster desperate for release.

When I come, I laugh at the the bitter knowledge that I'm completely fucked.

I clean up with shaking hands, reaching for the whiskey bottle on my desk.

I'm probably the last person he would want to see, I thought. I let out a short mocking laugh and drain the remains of the drink, the burn sliding down my throat.

By tomorrow, this will be over. Ellis will say no, and the board can go back to finding other ways out.

I close my eyes, breathing through the memories until my phone buzzes on the desk.

An email notification lights up the screen.

I stare at the notification, my hand frozen halfway to the glass,an email from Ellis Valmont himself.