Page 36 of Say It Isn't So

I frowned. “So what are you doing here during fashion week? Better yet,mymeeting?”

“Work. I’m at a fashion blog now. I’m actually up for a pretty big promotion and these weeks are going to help with that.”

A big promotion at a fashion blog? I hadn’t expected that.

I licked my lips and eyed him, letting my gaze roam down his rock hard chest. Man, he’d really changed.

Bianca smiled. “Well, I’m here forBellissima. But instead of pitching you like I was going to, I invited Knox to join us. We were at your presentation and to say that we were surprised to see you’re Rina Levana would be an understatement.”

Knox nodded. “You changed your name,” he said, stating the obvious.

I laughed, tossing my head back. “Honey, I changed everything about myself. Have you seen me?”—I hitched a brow—“Rina Blum would’ve never gotten this far.”

“Why not?” Bianca asked and I snapped my head toward her. “I mean, Rina Blum was on her way when she left New York.”

I smiled. “Oh, Bianca. I was, but I needed to really skyrocket and that wasn’t happening as boring little Rina Blum who grew up in a small town in Minnesota.”

Knox shook his head. “I, for one, liked that Rina. Heck, I fell in love with that Rina.”

Yeah, well, having you love me was the only thing I had going for me when I was Rina Blum.It was just a sin that I pissed on the best thing I had in my life (past tense, of course) and one of the most incredible men I’d ever known. “You’d like this Rina, too, if you got to know me,” I tried. Sure, I’d changed, but one thing hadn’t—the way I reacted to Knox.

Bianca let out a laugh. “You seem pretty full of yourself, if you ask me,” she spoke as if she was annoyed. She had nerve to be annoyed, she basically just insultedme. But she didn’t understand. No one did. “Do you forget that it was my mother who got you to this point in the first place? You would still be out of breath on the sidewalks of New York if not for her.”

I swallowed hard and retorted, “True, and I’m sorry to hear about your mother. My deepest sympathies.” Then I waved a hand in front of my face as though shooing a gnat. “But what about you? You’re still working for your family’s magazine. That’s something.” Something pathetic was what that was.

Knox gritted his teeth and snarled.Oof, it’s okay to take the pole out of your rectum, buddy.“Don’t even go there, Rina. Don’t act like you’re so much better than her. You may have forgotten, but I lived with you in a small apartment in New York that smelled like garbage. We shared a toilet that had terrible plumbing.”

Ew. My stomach tumbled like a dryer, and I practically shuddered at the thought of being that poor. “Well, I’m not that girl anymore.”Thank the big man up above.

“She’s still in there.”

Why was he pushing this? I narrowed my eyes, staring into his. He gave me a look that I was sure was trying to tell me it was okay and safe to be who I once was around him, that he wasn’t here to judge. But I couldn’t take that chance. Could I? This façade wasn’t easy to put on and take off. Sure, sometimes I missed those simple days, but this was so much better. I didn’t have to worry about money. Or when my dreams would come true. They already had.

“Maybe we should do this another time, Bianca? I’d love to hear what you can do for me, but perhaps it isn’t a good idea now.” Suddenly, I was feeling ill and if she wasn’t going to pitch me or tell me how she could help my brand, then I wasn’t sure I could sit through our dinner.

Bianca nodded sympathetically. I wasn’t even sure she cared enough about me to be sympathetic, but I didn’t care one iota. “Sure. We’re both staying here. Just have the front desk call me if you want to set something else up, they know how to reach me.”

“You, too, Knox?” I turned to him and asked earnestly. I had to know.

He nodded, and that was all I needed to know it would be okay to walk away. There was still time; they weren’t leaving London yet, and if I could stomach to do this, we’d do this.

I stood back up and pushed my chair in. “It was good seeing you both,” I said, hoping it was believable, and turned on my heel to leave for my hotel on the other side of town.

I regretted a lot of things in my life.

When we were teenagers, Knox offered to fix up a car from the junkyard for me so my mom didn’t have to drive me to school. He didn’t mind taking the bus, but knew that I loathed public transportation. I turned him down and wound up carpooling with my mom like a loser when I had my own driver’s license.

I walked away from a big blowout sale at a department store in New York because I knew Knox and I couldn’t afford anything, let alone a limited edition designer handbag I didn’t need. Now that handbag was quite valuable.

Just the other day I hired an intern who didn’t know her ass from her elbow. Enough said there.

See, lots of regrets. But breaking up with Knox was by far, no question about it, the biggest mistake of my life. One I didn’t realize I regretted until I saw him again.

But it didn’t need to be a regret I lived with, because this was one I could still fix. Whoever said you couldn’t go back in time was as stupid as that intern.

Chapter Eleven

Knox

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