Chiara stood at one of the long windows, gazing down at West Thirty-Eighth Street. “Frankly, it was tougher getting you two to join me than it was to convince Noemi’s assistant to let us in here for the day.” Chiara fixed Elena with a sidelong stare, her perfectly drawn cat-eye makeup enhancing the sage green of her eyes. “Astrid gets a pass as a new mom, but I’m surprised I had to twist your arm, Elena, when Noemi is actively interested in seeing your drawings.”

The invitation from the fashion luminary was both exciting and a little scary, but Elena couldn’t pretend fear had anything to do with her reservations about making the trip to New York for the afternoon. She shifted the crepe pants to her left, fingers walking down the remaining hangers on the rolling rack.

“It isn’t that I didn’t want to be here,” she admitted. “But I sense my time is drawing to a close in Mesa Falls and I hesitated to miss a single day with Gage.”

The days were fun. The nights were hot enough to fuel a lifetime of sensual fantasies. But she’d indulged that kind of surface relationship with Gage before and knew it wouldn’t be enough to keep them together long-term. It had been a careful balance this week to protect her heart and still savor the fun of being with him. She knew even before they’d returned to Mesa Falls that she wanted more from him.

And she felt deserving of more after selling herself short for too long—both with Gage and in the ill-fated marriage that came afterward.

Astrid tugged a silk skirt from the rack, the handkerchief hem floating gracefully around her ankles as she held the garment to her waist. “Gage loves you,” she informed Elena matter-of-factly. “I’m not sure if he realizes it or not. But I’ve never seen him look at anyone else the way he looks at you.”

The comment felt like a hit to her solar plexus, robbing her of breath for a moment and making her see stars behind her eyes as if she was oxygen deprived. Of course, Astrid was only guessing. She couldn’t know Gage’s feelings any better than Elena did. Blinking rapidly, she moved to the next rolling rack with new determination to find an outfit for the party the ranch’s publicity department had put together for the following evening. It wasn’t a gala or a fund-raiser, just a private house party with a DJ and a select guest list including a handful of Hollywood celebrities, world-class athletes, a Formula One race car driver and a couple of heavyweights from the music industry.

All of whom sounded like safer candidates for her affection than the man who’d already broken her heart once, no matter what Astrid believed about the way Gage looked at her.