Page 100 of The Autumn We Fell in Love

She shrugs. “Hopefully.” She stares at me appraisingly. “Why are you here?”

“My parents.” The words are out of my mouth before I’ve considered them, but they’re so spot on that I laugh.

Her eyes narrow.Shit. She thinks I’m laughing at her.

“I kind of inherited the family business,” I hurry to explain. “My brother got to go off and see the world, and I was the only one left to take care of things at home.” The explanation tumbles out of my mouth in a rush, then I hold my breath. Too much?

To my relief, she melts a little. “Going off and seeing the world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Real sadness stains her voice and I forget my nerves, forget everything but making this woman feel better, even just a little.

Without thinking, I reach across the space between us and take her hand in mine.

And she lets me.

I rub a gentle thumb over her knuckles, marveling at how smooth they are in contrast to my rough hands.

My gaze travels her face, taking in the shadows under her eyes, the tension creasing her forehead. “What’d you see out in the world, Autumn?”

She hesitates.

And then she tells me everything.

Autumn

Idon’t know what it is about Xander that makes the whole story come tumbling out of me. Maybe it’s how those brown eyes follow my every move with such intensity and care, or the way his calloused palm feels against my smooth one, or how he smells so damn good, like vanilla and pine.

But all of a sudden I’m telling him everything. How, back before my parents moved to Deadwood, I was an impressionable teen who listened to all the men in the Denver suburb I grew up in, the ones that told me I was so pretty, that surely I had a guaranteed future as a fashion model.

How by the time I realized it was flattery designed to give them access to my body, I was already in New York City, trying to gain representation, interviewing to walk in fashion shows, waitressing to make ends meet.

How, a few years later, I ended up getting cast in a modeling reality show — the one whereevery. single. person.involved, from the judges to industry experts to my fellow competitors, slammed me for my curves, for the fact that I was a size six instead of a size zero. Like a size six is something to be ashamed of.

How one contestant told me while we were making dinner together that a pretty face can’t make up for a grotesque body.

How I could not fucking take one more bullying comment about my perfectly adequate and healthy body — and dumped the bowl of low-carb, gluten-free bread batter I was mixing over my fellow contestant’s. On camera.

How, while some of social media rallied to my side, most of the world lambasted me. Overnight I found myself dealing with stalkers, with hate mail arriving at my doorstep, with an entire planet of people who hate me and want me to suffer.

How, on top of all that, I was ousted from the fashion industry before I’d even gotten started, blacklisted from every agency and fashion house.

How I fled here, tail between my legs, because I had no money, no reputation, no future.

“And now,” I say with a shuddering sob that I try to smother in my hands, “I’m living in my parents’ basement. Or I will be, once I’m done drinking myself into the ground and telling anyone who will listen about all my troubles like a total loser.”

Xander touches my knee with his fingertips, so gently that I could cry. Well, cry harder. “Hey,” he says, voice as soft as his touch, “you’re not a loser.”

“All evidence points to the contrary.”

He shakes his chin decisively. “You’ve just hit a speed bump. You got knocked down, but you won’t stay down.”

“How do you know?” I snuffle. “You barely know me.”

“Well,” he measures his words, “it’s true that we’ve only just met. But how well-spoken you are shows off your intelligence. You took a chance to follow your dreams, so that demonstrates your bravery. And you retreated when necessary, showing that you’ve got good instincts.”

“But —“

“And,” he presses on through my interruption, brown eyes glinting, “all of that put together tells me one thing loud and clear.” The beginning of a smile plays over his lips.

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