Faking with Benefits : A Friends to Lovers Romance(77)

“Will you have to design something new for her?” Josh asks slowly.

“I submitted my Butterfly design. I’ll have to make some changes to incorporate it into her style, though.”

Zack immediately looks outraged. “No! You can’t let her take credit for it, it’s yours!”

“I’d get credit,” I say patiently. “It’s a collaboration. Plus I’d get a massive influx of attention and money to pour into the product.”

“But she’d make money off you,” he complains.

I sigh. “Josh, tell Zack how marketing works.”

Josh shakes his head, his brow furrowed. “How long would you stay in New York? Weeks? Months?”

I shrug. “Hopefully, while I’m out there, I’d be able to set my own roots. Actually start up a brick-and-mortar store.”

“What does that mean for you?” Luke says slowly. “You’d move to America? Forever?”

I nod. There are a few seconds of silence. The men exchange looks. I frown. I was hoping for slightly more excitement.

“Do you want to live in America?” Josh asks eventually.

“It’s the logical next step for my career. I’d be mad to turn it down.”

“Yeah, but do you want to live in America?” Josh presses. “Not just work there, but live there, full time?”

“I guess. I never really thought about it. My main focus is the business.”

No one says anything for a few seconds. Then Zack tugs at Emily’s ring, frustration all over his face. “Flippin’ stupid idea,” he mutters.

I sputter. “Excuse me?”

He meets my gaze levelly. “You heard me. It’s a stupid idea.”





FORTY-EIGHT





LAYLA





“Hang on.” My voice rises. “Do you guys think I shouldn’t go? Why?!”

There’s a brief pause. Josh sets his plate aside. “I think that you’re so driven by your work, that you don’t consider what makes you happy,” he says diplomatically. “By anyone’s standards, you’re already incredibly successful. There’s no need to relocate.”

“But I could be more successful,” I argue.

Zack throws his hands up. “Of course you could!” He says, exasperated. “Even if you were the biggest brand in the world, you could still be more successful.” He shakes his head. “Where does it end? You want your stuff being made by strangers in big factories? You wanna be buying cheap materials and underpaying people to get to the top?”

I’m offended. “No! I would never—”

“You’d never what? Prioritise your job over people? Then why do you want to uphaul your whole life to make some more money, when you’re doing just fine here? You haven’t got anyone or anything in America!”

I’m shocked. Zack is usually so laid-back. I don’t think we’ve ever properly argued before. “So?” I demand. “What do I have in London?”

“Us,” he says simply. “You’ve got a home. A gorgeous flat. A great production team. Smoking-hot neighbors.”

I narrow my eyes. “So you think I should stay just because you want me to. Nice, Zack.”

Zack sighs. “L, I know you. You don’t like meetin’ new people. If you move to America, you ain’t joining clubs or going to parties. I don’t like the thought of you holed up in some tiny flat in New York, working yourself to death. No friends, no family, just… ignoring everything good in your life.”

I can suddenly see it so clearly: me working my thirties away, too shy to make new friends, too lost in my work to talk to people. I’d slowly lose touch with the guys until we never spoke at all. I can picture myself in a few years’ time, hunched over my desk at three in the morning, listening to the guys’ voices from all the way across the ocean as they talk about some new girl they’re seeing.

Shockingly, tears burst up in my eyes. I blink them back furiously. “But this is all I’m good at.” I say. “I’m good at this, Zack. I am so good at my job.”

“You are,” he says, looking at me levelly. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

I throw up my hands. “I don’t know how to do anything else!” I exclaim. “I know how my business works. I know what I need to do to keep improving it. I have a plan that I’ve been checking off since I was eighteen. If I don’t follow it, then… anything could happen!”

The guys are all still for a few seconds, stunned into silence.

“You’re scared,” Zack says, watching me.

“Yeah, I’m scared. When I was a teenager, my whole life was taken out of my control. I was doing fine, enjoying school, living my life — and then one guy decided to make up a lie about me, and I lost all my friends. Everyone hated me. People decided it would be fun to hurt me. It wasn’t my fault, I did nothing wrong, and I had to live with the consequences of someone else’s actions. It wasn’t fair.” I shake my head, my chest burning. “But I let it fuel me. And now I’m living a better life than those people. I got better grades than them. I’m making more money than them. I’ve been in magazines. On podcasts. I’m going to collaborate with Anna Bardet at New York Fashion Week. They acted like I was worth nothing, but I knew they were wrong, and when I go to my ten-year reunion, they’re all going to see that. I’ll be better off than all of them, because I was smart, and I worked hard, and I stuck to my damn plan.”