Crushing On The Billionaire (Part 3) Read Online Free PDF

art district, but it wasn’t in a bad part of town either. I hadn’t expected to see it where it was, and that was what made me wander inside.
    A friendly employee let me peruse the show currently on display—a conglomeration of digitally-altered photography. I didn’t know how I felt about the display. I liked photography for its rawness, its unflinching reality. Photoshop seemed to rob it of its soul. I couldn’t discount the power of the medium if it was well done. I’d been enchanted, after all, by Mercedes’ work online, when I hadn’t even suspected that photography was something I could pursue after high school.
    “What do you think?” the employee asked, flipping her hair. “Good exhibit?”
    “It’s good.”
    “But not great, is it?”
    I blinked with surprise. “Aren’t you supposed to support whatever’s on these walls?”
    “It’s not that kind of gallery,” she explained. “We’re allowed to disagree with the owner.”
    “But not tell the clients about it.”
    We both whirled around to see a woman dressed fashionably—in dark grays and blacks, a wispy material making it seem like the fog would whisk her away if she didn’t hold on to something.
    “I’m sorry, Mere,” the employee said, cowed. “I didn’t think you were still here.”
    “Sorry, ” I offered, thinking it might help the hapless employee. I didn’t want someone to get fired on my account. “We were discussing the display.”
    “And?” Mere raised her eyebrows, waiting for an answer.
    “Good, but not great,” I said, smiling. “You can apparently disagree with the owner on the assessment of the exhibition.”
    “Well, if I knew it was good and not great beforehand, I would’ve shot for great instead,” she complained. “Suzette, you have to tell me your honest opinion when I ask for it. Everyone is different. You and I are very different. I value our differences of opinion because they challenge me. Does that make sense?”
    “Yes…yes, of course. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the exhibit was good, but not great. It won’t happen again.”
    Mere shook her head and waved her hand as if to dismiss the entire situation.
    “Hopefully, the contest will get us that great exhibit I’m looking for,” she said. Seemingly for the first time, she took note of the camera looped around my neck and at my side. “Are you a photographer?”
    “What gave it away?” I asked, laughing. It felt good to laugh, though foreign. Was this the first time I’d laughed since the incident? It made me uneasy to consider it.
    “Take this, then,” she commanded imperiously, offering me a postcard. “We’re still taking entries for our contest. The winner gets a solo show right here at the gallery.”
    I examined the postcard for a few minutes. The theme was “My San Francisco.” I felt a building rush of anticipation. That was what I’d been shooting all these weeks, trying to define my place in this city. I actually had a strong body of work to submit to this contest.
    “You know what?” I announced, stowing the postcard safely in my bag. “I’m going to enter the contest.”
    “Perfect,” Mere said. “Are you a great photographer?”
    My face colored, and I shrugged. How could I define myself like that? If I said yes, I’d come off as arrogant, self-centered. If I said no, then why would they even consider my submitted work?
    “You must know,” she said. “Is your work great?”
    I thought about all the glowing praise Mercedes and the rest of my professors had given me over the years, the cutting, jealous glances from my fellow students, the fact that I’d gotten a full scholarship to the institute because of the value of my work on social media. All of that was proof, validation that my photos were great, but I searched harder inside of myself. Why did I need validation? Couldn’t I know in my heart that my photos were great, and that I was a great photographer? What was so bad about understanding it and