I may not spend my life trolling consignment stores like Cass, but I rarely spend as much on a dress as I did on this one. It’s fire-engine red, and though I decided to go with cocktail length, I think it’s as elegant and sexy as Cass’s floor-skimming evening gown. And, yes, as I did a turn in front of the dressing room mirror, I’d tried to see myself through Jackson’s eyes. Not because I wanted to look hot—or, not entirely—but because I wanted to look successful. Competent.

Powerful.

“It works?” I ask Cass. “Not too slutty? Or worse, too corporate?”

“It’s perfect. You look like a confident, professional businesswoman. And clearly you took my advice and invested in a padded push-up bra, because you even have cleavage.”

“Bitch,” I say, but with the utmost affection. I’ve got an athletic build, slim and lean. Which is great when it comes to finding clothes, but not so great when I’m trying to fill out a dress.

I expect her to shoot me a snarky comeback, but instead there is only silence. “What?” I demand, when I can’t take it any longer.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

It is the gentleness in her voice that cuts through me. Cass is loud and boisterous, and I am used to that. Softness from her can break me.

I nod. “I’ve put my heart and soul into this project. I’m not going to let it die if I can save it.”

“Even if saving it hurts you?”

I force myself not to wince. “It won’t.”

“Dammit, Syl, it already has. Do you think I don’t get it? There is no one who knows you better than I do, and in case you’ve forgotten, I’m the one who inked your back when you got back to LA from Atlanta. I know how wrecked you were, and I swear to god, if you hadn’t been pumped up about the job with Stark you would have just crumbled into dust and blown away.”

“Cass, don’t—”

“Don’t what? Don’t worry about you?”

“It was five years ago. I put it behind me.”

“And now it’s back in front of you.”

“No,” I say, and then stop, because she is right. “Okay, maybe. Yes. Guilty as charged. I’m walking into the lion’s den. Pouring the gasoline and striking the match. Jumping off the cliff. Pick your metaphor, because it doesn’t matter. I have to do this.”

“Why?”

“Are you really asking me that?”

Her shoulders droop. “No. I get it. I’ve watched you work this project. I know how much it means to you. It’s like me and the studio. I loved working for my dad, but it’s better now that the place is totally mine. I feel, I don’t know, grown up. Complete.”

“Yeah. It’s like that.”

“It’s just that he already said no, right? He told Stark, and then he refused to even take a meeting with you. So do you really believe you can change his mind?”

“I have to believe it,” I say. “Right now, unsupported optimism is all I’ve got going for me.”

“Oh, man. Don’t say that.”

I lean forward to take her hand. “I can do this. And I’ll be fine. Really. I’m not as fragile as I used to be. I can do this,” I repeat, as much to convince myself as her.

“Fuck yeah, you can,” she says, though the words are belied by a weak smile.

“Come on,” I urge. “How can I fail when I look this hot?”

That gets a laugh. “You’ve got a point,” she admits. “I mean, right now you look good enough to eat. And, hell, I can remember when you schlepped around looking so ratty that not even a dog would want to give you a lick.”

“No kidding, right?” I’d spent my last years of high school trying very hard to be invisible. It was Cass who’d slapped some sense into me the summer before I started college at UCLA.

It’s a day I remember with crystal clarity. It was a Tuesday, and we’d decided to go check out the campus that would soon become my home. A couple of upperclassmen had given us both the onceover, and my immediate reaction had been to hunch my shoulders and cross my arms over my chest.

“Are you a fucking moron?” she’d asked in that gentle Cassidy way that she has.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, come on, Syl. You need to stop this. You’re totally hot and you hide it under ugly sweatshirts and baggy jeans. And the hair—”

“I am not growing out my hair.”

“Have ya considered maybe, I don’t know, combing it?”