I Married a Billionaire: Lost and Found (Contemporary Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page B

with the first genuine smile I'd seen from him all morning.
    "Yeah, okay," I replied, picking up my plate and bringing it over to the sink. He caught me halfway through my journey with his arm around my waist, hugging me close to him and slowly breathing in the smell of my hair. I smiled, and relaxed against him, still holding the plate. "But if you start stacking tissue boxes I'm having you committed."
    We didn't have any plans for the rest of the afternoon, so I wandered into my studio after a while and sat there with a pencil in my hand, waiting. For what, I didn't know. I knew enough from my years as a professional designer that I couldn't sit around and wait for inspiration to hit me on the side of the head, like a brick. I had to work for it. But every time I tried to make a single stroke, I would stop, thinking about how a gallery owner might judge it - when they looked at it, what would they see? Would they ever, in a million years, consider putting it on display? As I tried to form shapes in my mind, I could hear my inner critic poking holes in every idea that I had. Knowing that my work was out there, waiting to be weighed and measured and probably found wanting - it was just too distracting.
    After filling several pages with meaningless doodles, only to be crumpled up and thrown in the garbage, I tossed everything aside with a massive sigh and went back out to the living room. Daniel had the TV on, which was odd enough in and of itself. I actually still wasn't sure why he owned one; I'd seen him watching it maybe three times during the entire tenure of our marriage, and he never actually seemed to be watching it. So that was the other odd thing - on this particular occasion, his eyes were glued to the screen with rapt attention.
    He didn't even seem to notice when I sat down next to him. I honed in on the screen. It was footage of something running down an assembly line in a factory. I leaned forward, trying to figure out exactly what it was that could have fascinated him so.  
    The narrator was droning on, something about circuits, and then in the next shot, I realized that it was Daniel's latest phone design.
    "Wow," I said. "A how-it's-made PBS feature at two in the afternoon. You can't pay for this kind of marketing."  
    He was frowning a little. "They didn't even try to get in touch with me," he said. "I would have filmed something for it."
    "Please tell me this isn't actually bothering you."
    He was drumming his fingers on his leg, as if he were playing an invisible piano. "I don't know if you realize how strange it is to watch this," he said. "Half of what they're saying isn't even right."
    "I guess I don't." I didn't bother reminding him that the people who were judging my creative work weren't talking about it on TV; I just had to guess at what they were thinking. After a while longer, sitting there in silence, I realized he wasn't going to tear his eyes away until the show was over, and I went to putter around in the kitchen, looking for something to cobble together into a dinner. I couldn't remember the last time I'd cooked a proper meal at home, and it seemed like something that might take my mind off of everything.
    We didn't have much in the way of ingredients, so I told Daniel I was running to the store - at which he absently nodded - and made my way out into the sunshine.
    There was still a slight chill in the air, as if spring hadn't quite made up its mind to get started. But it was beautiful, and after a long, grey winter, there was nothing quite like a spring breeze, even if it was a tad too brisk.
    I closed my eyes for a moment at a crosswalk, soaking in the sun's warmth. I wasn't sure how so much of the year had already slipped by me. It was hard to believe it was already April, with the little flowers already blooming through the cracks in the sidewalk. When I reached my destination, I almost hated to step inside. But the bell rang cheerfully as I pushed the door open, and Louie, the aging