Then Edwina gave me the nudge I needed.
I picked up my paintbrush for the first time in years and it felt like coming home. A new home. Arealhome. Not the one I’m honor-bound to return to in three months for my village’s annual Lughnasadh celebration. Thanks to a magically binding ritual I drunkenly participated in during last year’s festivities, I now have to prove I’ve dug strong roots in Jasper, or I’ll be stuck in Cypress Hollow for good.
I might not have minded that before. Half my heart has always been tethered to safety, always yearning to give up on society and go back to the forest where it’s easy and predictable and I never have to be anyone but the furry little mustelid I am.
But that was before I rekindled my love for painting, before I remembered the true joy of opposable thumbs. Discovered a career I’d do anything to make my own—illustration.
I can’t give that up now. I can’t be trapped in Cypress Hollow where not a single art gallery exists and the sultry paintings I love are as unappreciated as indoor plumbing. I can’t relinquish my dreams due to last year’s drunken mistake fueled by too much berry cordial and a dash of heartache.
Araminta pats my sleeve. “There, there.” When I don’t respond, her tone turns impatient. “I saidthere, there. Come on. Enough feeling sorry for yourself. You’re not the worst artist ever. Only really bad.”
“Is that supposed to be comforting?”
She rolls her eyes. “The solution is right in front of you. Your female figures are good because you can draw what you see.” She points at the woman on my canvas. “You think I don’t recognize that pretty lady? It’s you! You lounged before the mirror and made that sexy littleOface, didn’t you?”
My cheeks blaze as my eyes dart to the figure in question. How did Araminta know? The heroine looks nothing like me. Her hair is long, pale, and streaming while mine is short and black, cropped just below my chin. She is supposed to be tall while I’m on the petite side. Her eyes are meant to be blue while mine are dark brown. Her ears are round while mine have angled tips. Her figure—well, her thighs are as full as mine, I can say that much. As for her orgasmic expression…
I avert my gaze from both the canvas and the sprite, feigning nonchalance. “Well, why shouldn’t I use myself as a model?”
“Exactly. You used a model, which is why she turned out well. Don’t you see? What you need is…” Araminta does a little twirl, then flourishes her arms in a wide arc. “A naked man.”
I blink at her.
“You know. To draw.”
She’s…maybe not wrong. I’ve considered using a model for my male figures, yet my options are limited. First, he needs to have the kind of physique Edwina’s heroes possess—tall, muscular, and dripping with sex appeal. Second, I don’t have time to enroll in drawing classes, what with my full-time work schedule and no arts colleges in the city of Jasper. Or anywhere in the Earthen Court. Third, I’m anxious around crowds and strangers.
Yet Araminta is right. Unless I want to give up my dream career before it’s even begun, I need a model. And if drawing classes and strangers are out of the question, I suppose that leaves me one choice. A choice that might solve more than one of my problems.
Bolstering my courage, I rise to my feet and flip my sketchbook open to my most recent drawing. Without letting myself dwell on my monstrous weasel-man, I tear out the page and fold it into my waistcoat pocket. Then, with my head held high despite the nerves swarming in my belly, I march toward the door.
Araminta flies after me. “So you’re going to find a model?”
I swallow hard. “I’m going to get a husband.”
CHAPTER TWO
MONTY
Aman never forgets his first. The pleasure. The pain. The tangle of emotions. And while Fletcher-Wilson isn’t the first job I was fired from, it was the first job I liked.
Now I’m back in the very office I was let go from almost a year ago. The room looks the same as it did then, with its oak-paneled walls, the neatly organized bookshelves, and the enormous portraits of two unsmiling human men—the original founders of Fletcher-Wilson, rest in peace. Their son, Mr. Fletcher, sits before me now, inspiring the same sense of dread I felt before he fired me last year. I’d kill for a cigarillo, if only to have something to fidget with, but I suppose that’s how I felt then too.
The key difference between then and now is that I’m no longer Junior Publicist at Fletcher-Wilson. I’m not one of Mr. Fletcher’s employees at all.
This time I’m here to plead for a publishing deal.
I resist the urge to loosen my cravat, shrug off my jacket, and roll up my sleeves. I wore a fine suit for this, every button properly secured in all the proper places, even though I prefer more casual attire for work. Suits like this remind me too much of when I was an aristocrat. If I wanted to wear a pompous ensemble every day, I wouldn’t have gotten myself disinherited. But this is an interview with a man who I’m pretty sure hates me. I should make the best second impression I can.
Mr. Fletcher leans forward in his oversized chair, propping his elbows on his mahogany desk as he eyes me beneath bushy brows. He’s a stoic man with a heavy build, dark hair, and an impressively thick mustache; not the kind of face you’d picture as the publisher of the isle’s most popular steamy romance novels. Though he doesn’t publish primarily smut. Fletcher-Wilson publishes everything from romance to poetry to how-to guides, the latter of which is the genre I hope to enter.
He makes a grunt of some indecipherable emotion, then taps the front page of my manuscript. It’s the exact same thing he did when he confronted me with the newspaper interview that led to my termination. I can’t help but expect my manuscript to be as thoroughly obliterated as my employment was back then, but why would Mr. Fletcher schedule a meeting with me if he was simply going to reject me?
“It’s good,” Mr. Fletcher says.
“It is?” My body stills, and only now do I realize my knee had been jiggling. I blow out a heavy breath and shift in my seat, curling my lips into a grin. “You truly like my manuscript?”
“It isn’t perfect,” Mr. Fletcher says, holding out his hands to temper my excitement, “but I can see its appeal. You’ve done well at theCedar Hills Gazette.”
