Free To Have and to Hold by Gina Robinson

me there might be a genetic reason I'd been slow to learn my colors. My parents took that weakness as proof I was normal. I wasn't quick at everything, thank God.
    She held my gaze. "This peanut butter looks green to you?"
    I nodded, wondering if her eyes were really the beautiful lilac I saw. Or her hair the shiny blond I loved.
    "Do you have trouble telling the difference between stoplights and streetlights at night? Are they the same color to you?"
    "Yeah. Until I get close." Everything was making sense. I felt stupid. But why would I question how I saw the world? How would I really know the green I saw wasn't the green everyone saw? Or that stoplights didn't just get their color when you were almost beneath them? Yeah, I'd always thought it was crappy design, but what else was new?
    "Jus, I think you're colorblind." Her voice was soft and sympathetic. "Have you ever been tested?"
    "No." I shook my head and blamed my parents, who were always too busy with my sports hero brothers.
    "No one ever noticed before?" She looked incredulous.
    "I've been given every damn IQ test there is. No one cares about my artistic ability. They've always thought I'm either being contrary or eccentric in my color choices. Or just slow to learn them. Or developmentally behind artistically." My words came out sounding bitterer than I intended.
    "There's a very good test we can take online. We had to take it in college at the start of one of my fine arts classes. The professor actually had a fourth color receptor and saw more colors than everyone else. Millions of colors. He wanted to make sure he understood his students' capabilities and limitations. He's a wise man."
    I liked the way she used we.
    "We'll take the test after dinner. I'm sure it will confirm what I suspect. I'm ninety-nine percent certain you're colorblind. It will tell us what kind of colorblind you are and how severe it is."
    "So I'm color challenged?" I hung my head, hamming it up and making a play for her sympathy.
    "It's not a disability." She laughed and tipped my chin up. "Not really. We all live in the same world, but we all experience it differently. What most people see as brown, you see as green—and vice versa. You're right. And we're right. The key is to understand our different perceptions and accept them."
    She paused and got a devilish look in her eyes. "But you are going to have to let me dress you. Every single day. You have a reputation to maintain, especially now. People can be cruel. I won't have anyone making fun of you."
    I laughed. "Let them try! I'm a rich techie. Caring about how I look will ruin my techie rep."
    She took my cheek in her hand. "No, you're my scorching-hot billionaire husband. You run the company that sets fashion trends that girls everywhere melt over. You offer them the dream of designer, boutique clothes at fantastic prices they can afford. You have to be the face, and body, of it. You're the man every guy wants to be. And don't you ever forget it."
    "You're talking about my partner Riggins."
    "I'm talking about you." She dropped her hand from my face. I felt the absence of her touch as an immediate loss. Kay was the only person who took the time to see and accept me. I loved her even more for that, wishing she would take her own wise words and see me as the guy who would never betray her. As the guy who would treat her right.
    "I need your permission to go through your closet and organize it so it's easy for you to coordinate outfits. Get rid of things that don't fit your new image. And I'd like your permission to go shopping for you. Better yet, we'll go shopping together." Her smile was magnificent and sent my heart racing.
    A day of shopping would be hell…with anyone but her.
    "Did you just manipulate me into letting you style me again? Permanently?" I said.
    "I did, sweetie. Expertly, I might add."
    I grimaced. "Are you going to get rid of all my comfy clothes?"
    "Absolutely not. Only the ratty ones."
    "Shit," I said beneath my