Calmer, I open my email and reread the full message fromNature Shotsagain. Without blind rage and betrayal clouding my thoughts, I realize that I’m not disqualified from the contest entirely. Only the second entry is.
Wes wasn’t entirely wrong. The situationisfixable—at least when it comes to the contest.
They’remyimages. I should be able to simply swap out the one he sent first on my behalf—without my permission—for the one I intended to use all along. I can’t imagineNature Shotswould want to go forward with an entry I knew nothing about.
The email is signed by Amelia Romero. Her name is vaguely familiar, but her signature doesn’t include a title, just a phone number. It’s too late to call now, but in the morning, I’ll straighten this out. Myself. I don’t care what Wes says about calling Carter. I’m not trusting him to fix this for me.
I’m not trusting him ever again.
After several long hours of tossing and turning, I sleepwalk my way through making coffee and toast, then sit on my couch and force myself to eat every bite even though it tastes like sawdust. I don’t think about the time I’ve spent in this exact spot wrapped up in Wes. I don’t think about how happy and content and safe I felt with him. I just stare resolutely at the clock and do the mental math on time zones.
With LA an hour behind, it’s too early to call Amelia, so I take my coffee into my office and work on client photos until the timer I set buzzes right at ten.
“Hi, this is Sloane Michaels,” I say when she answers, hoping the scratchiness in my voice isn’t nearly as obvious to her as it is to me. “You emailed me yesterday, and I—”
“Sloane!” Amelia sounds downright thrilled. I’m so stunned after the perfunctory email yesterday that I almost don’t hear her when she says, “You were on my list for this morning as soon as I finished my coffee. You’ve saved me a call!”
“I have?”
She laughs, as if this whole thing is a grand joke. My temper stirs to life, only to be doused in a bucket of ice water at her next words.
“I have no idea how Wes Talbot got Carter’s personal cell phone number, but he straightened out the mix-up with yourphotos. The good news is that the deadline isn’t until tomorrow, so if you can just let us know which one you’d like to use before then, you’ll be all set.”
Wes is a lot of things, but he’s never been a liar. He did what he said he would. The protective ice I’ve wrapped myself in cracks, longing and hurt and betrayal just waiting to spill out. I take a deep breath and ruthlessly slap mental duct tape over the crack.
“That’s a relief. He definitely did not have my permission to submit that photo.” I can’t bring myself to say his name. Not now, with all the emotions in my head too tangled up to make sense.
“I’m so sorry for what you must have felt when you got my email, but I have to tell you, it’s a fantastic image. Gave me shivers when I saw it. That sky and the dress and the pose. Lord knows this place could use some good old-fashioned female rage.”
As Carter’s assistant, Amelia doesn’t have anything to do with judging the contest. Even Carter doesn’t get to cast a vote, leaving it up to the impartial panelNature Shotsselected—but I hear what she’s saying loud and clear.
I swallow hard, no longer so certain about my choice. I love the dress photo. I picked a different option not because I thought it was objectively better, but to fit the magazine’s mold.
Maybesome good old-fashioned female rageis the right call. It might cost me the contest, but at least it won’t cost me a piece of my soul. I can always get a small-business loan and launch the adventure weddings that way. I don’thaveto play by someone else’s rules.
Maybe if Wes reminded me of that, tried to talk to me about it one more time instead of going behind my back, this all could have turned out differently.
“Thank you,” I say to Amelia. “That’s exactly what I was going for when I created the image.”
“You nailed it.” She pauses, theclick-clackof her keyboard audible before she gently adds, “Would you like some time to think about it? Like I said, we just need to know by end of day tomorrow. You can email me when you decide.”
Since I’m still sitting at my desk, I click over into my personal folder and give the photo of me in the dress a long, critical look. The day it was shot, I felt powerfulandfeminine. Like some part of me could stare down the storms of life without flinching. Like I’d finally found a way to embrace the side of me that likes pretty dresses and pink silk without feeling like I was caving to my mother’s criticisms. Like just this once, I didn’t have to try to be one of the guys to avoid being objectified by other storm chasers.
But then when it was time to submit, I flinched. I went with the safe option. The one that met what I thought the magazine wanted. What other photographers would expect of a woman. It wasn’t my mother, or Wes, or even the magazine—Iput myself in a box.
Wes ignored my express wishes and lost my trust in the process. But that isn’t a good enough reason to turn down this opportunity to decide if I want to stay in that box, or if I want to be the woman in the photo.
The woman in the photo would be brave.
“That’s okay,” I tell Amelia, certainty settling in my bones. “I’ll leave it. The dress photo, I mean.”
“Are you sure? You won’t be able to change your mind.”
“I understand.”
“Okay, Sloane. I’ll let Carter know. And for what it’s worth, I think you’re making the right decision. I’ll be rooting for you when they announce the winners in three weeks. Good luck.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
