He drums his fingers over his mouth. “I have no idea how to respond to that other than...of course we are exclusive.” He says it loud and clear. “Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying? I don’t do games. I don’t do one-night stands. I don’t do affairs. Usually, when I meet a woman and take interest in her, I will be loyal to her, and only her. I expect the same. I don’t share well. I’m all for exclusiveness in everything I do, and own. I’m not afraid of commitment or hard work. You’re right; I’m not new to this. I’ve been in many relationships. This is good news, Sophie. It means I won’t waste your time. Rest assured, if I’m with you it’s because that’s exactly where I want to be. If ever I want out of a relationship, I leave. My commitment ends there. It’s simple enough and this is the only thing that makes sense to me.”
TWELVE
I FLIP THE shampoo bottle cap open, releasing an explosion of zesty tangerines and bananas. I run my hands through my hair and lather. The words “if ever I want out of a relationship, I leave,” have been rolling around in my mind since last night. Like it really is that simple. Like he will drop me effortlessly. Ouch, on the one hand, but on the other, kudos to him for his no-bullshit approach. I rinse and remain under the water long after the suds have washed away.
Oliver walks into the bathroom in black gym shorts, a gray hoodie, and sweat running down his face. He stands not too far from the vanity with his hands on his hips and watches the morning news on what appears to be both a mirror and a TV.
I turn the knob and water ceases to pour. When I get out of the shower stall, Oliver is standing outside with a towel, waiting to wrap me like a tortilla.
“There you are,” I say. “Where did you take off to so early?”
“Training with my sensei. Come here, sweet thing.”
I cradle my head to his chest. He holds me like I need him to, with a tender heart and equally skilled hands. I pull away a little bit and pinch my nose. “You really need to shower.”
“Oh, do I now?”
“Yes, badly.”
“I thought sweat is supposed to be sexy.”
“That’s exactly why you need to shower right now. You can’t go to work like that.”
He fades around the corner, aiming to please. I walk over to the vanity, towel-drying my hair as I go. The strangest thing happens to me once I’m there. I press my hands on the vanity, lean on it, and stare into it. Everything looks the same. But for some reason, my reflection seems different. In fact, it is so abnormal it almost feels like it isn’t my own.
Is she...smiling back at me? No, it can’t be.
I slap some sanity into myself and pull back from the mirror.
“Is something wrong?”
I look at Oliver and search for something to say, but my brain cells have been zapped. First of all, I don’t even know what to tell myself. Was there a real smile on my face? I want to believe there was. Perhaps my feelings are real and my icy heart is melting and growing open again by the minute. And perhaps...what is really going on is...I am happy.
“No,” I finally answer, remembering he had asked me a question. “Actually, you know what? Nothing is wrong.”
***
I’M GREETED AND startled by a foreign-accented woman in a gray dress and white apron, as she’s restocking the refrigerator. She is thick-boned and large chested, has a face like crumpled paper, and very short red hair that soften her bright green irises.
“Hi,” I say.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“It’s okay, don’t worry. Where’s Oliver? I can’t seem to find him anywhere around the house.”
“I’m afraid he had a meeting early, Miss Sophie. He suggested you have breakfast. I’m the cook. I make breakfast for you.”
Her accent is thick, but I understand well enough. The both of us stop in our tracks as we hear the entrance elevator doors ding open.
My neck cranes to see a blonde girl in her early twenties—she’s wearing a short dress and a light brown leather jacket—walk in typing on her cellphone at the speed of light.
“Hello.” She looks up with large blue eyes and it amazes me that she keeps on typing. “Hey, Thea. Where’s Oliver?”
“He had a meeting, Miss Cassie.”
“Are you waiting for him too?” She gestures her French-manicured hand at me. Clearly, she wasn’t expecting me here. “I’m Cassie. Who are you?”
“I’m Sophie.” The air feels tense. Perhaps both of us are terrified to ask about the other’s relationship with the man of the house.
Thankfully, Thea clears up the confusion.
“Oh! This is your brother’s friend, Miss Cassie.”
She grins, slightly raising one eyebrow. “Friend?”
What does Thea know? I just met the woman.
“Has he invited you to my birthday tomorrow on his yacht?”
“That’s for you?” I begin to worry immediately. “I mean the party on his yacht. Yes. Oliver did mention that—”
“Great, I’ll see you tomorrow then?”
One minute we are intimidating strangers and now best friends? “Sure.” I reply almost reluctantly. The thought of me being back on a boat heats me up so bad one could cook an egg on my face.
“Good.” She pops out a wicked smile. I have a feeling the charm is a family trait. “Do you want to stay for breakfast? As it seems I’ll be eating alone.” She sits on a stool at the majestic kitchen island.
“Mr. Oliver probably forgot.” Thea flips the pan in the air, making a pancake fly and turn over.
Cassie snorts. “I don’t think so. He doesn’t forget.”
“I would love to stay, but I have to get to work and I’m officially out of excuses for being late.” I fiddle with my necklace. “Maybe some other time?”
She munches on an apple. “Sure.”
I’m heading out when Cassie calls my name and says, “I’m really glad you walked out on that bitch, Donna Kelly. She deserved it.”
Two things suddenly resonate in my mind. She knew who I was before today. And, she obviously knows I’m not just her brother’s friend. She played me. Devious Cassie Black takes after her brother.
***
KIM WALKS INSIDE my dressing room with her iPad in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. This time I have my own private space. It’s small, but I like the modern white vibe to it, and the sweet display of exquisite, full-sized white lilies.
“Where’s your phone, Cavall?”
“Somewhere...in my bag,” I reply, waving around a smoke between my fingers. “I don’t know. Why?”
“Well, your boyfriend has called my phone three times already.”
“Oliver?”
“Do you have a second boyfriend I don’t know about?”
She heads out and demands I call him back. I get up from my chair, run across the room, and pop my head inside my monster bag. My fingers swim through the untidiness—the bunch of receipts, a hairbrush, my wallet, and loose change to find my phone. It is scandalous. It says ten missed calls and two new text messages.
Touching the screen, two messages pop out: Why aren’t you answering my calls?
I type up a reply message as quickly as I can. Oliver, don’t go nuclear on me. I’m at work. I’m finishing typing another message when, in a matter of seconds, a firing chill tingles inside my body. The one I usually feel around Oliver.
“Care to explain?”
Stumped, I turn to see a glare so penetrating it can melt steel.
“Oliver, what are you doing here?”
“It’s nice to see you too.” He tosses a couple of photographs on the table in front of me. Pictures of the photo shoot I did with Caesar stick out like sore thumbs. I knew these pictures would come back to haunt me.
Oliver’s face is an angry scowl as he rakes my body with his burning blue eyes. When he notices that I’m hiding a cigarette behind my back, revealed by the mirror behind me, he grips my arm, snatches the cigarette from out of my hand
, and puts it out. “You are done with this!” he says dramatically. “You hear me? This is bad news.”
This argument is useless, I know, but I go on anyway. “And how is it bad for you exactly?”
“Two hundred and seventy-six thousand men. One hundred and forty-two thousand women. That’s how many people are killed by smoking in the United States every year.”
“I’m an adult, Oliver. You don’t own me. You can’t tell me what to do. If you don’t understand that, then you can leave now.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says flat out. “If you can’t understand that I can’t sit back and let you smoke your lungs away without doing anything about it because it makes me feel incompetent, then the door is wide open and you can walk out. If you do, that really tells me you weren’t really in it in the first place.”
I open my mouth to say something, then close it. He once again manages to leave me stupefied. “I can’t believe this. What are you doing here, Oliver?” I glance at the photographs on the table. “Why do you have these pictures?”
“I know people. It’s not as difficult as you might think. I recall the words, ‘wet, steamy, slippery, and ultra-sexy’ being thrown out randomly on live television.”
Will I forever be reminded of that heinous interview?
“Shall we highlight?” His frown intensifies as he reviews my pictures. “You are wearing borderline suggestive underwear and might as well be nude already as opposed to looking like this.” He flicks the picture. “And what is this? Is this,” he looks at the picture, leaning close to it, “lover boy’s hand groping your body? This is my place, Sophia. My place.”
“Yes. It’s your place. Nothing has changed.”
“You are mine. Say it.”
“What?”
“Say it.”
“No!” I ignore his request, but my knees quaver. “This is insane! Stop this! What is this even about? Are you jealous? Is that it?”
“I don’t get jealous. What I get is mad. What is mine is mine and nobody else’s.”
“You have no reason to be angry, Oliver. It was an ad for Calvin Klein. Get over it. You’re acting like it was a porno movie.”
“Do you always happen to be hovering over a man’s body too? Romeo here seems to be enjoying it all too well.”
“Look!” I say. “I’m not proud of these pictures. This isn’t my idea of a classy photo shoot either, but I wasn’t going to barge my way out of there and look unprofessional.”
“You were unprofessional enough to walk out of Donna’s set just yesterday.”
“I need the money!” I scream at him as brashly as I can, my gaze full of fury and embarrassment.
“What?”
“I don’t make the kind of money I used to,” I say, resignation filling my voice. “I’m barely starting to pay Kim. I owe the agency a lot of money. I live in a really expensive hellhole with a roommate who doesn’t even pay half the rent I do. I help Uncle Pete get by with a couple hundreds. I pay bills, health care, and yes, Oliver, I’m taking any offer available. There, I said it. Happy now?”
He rubs his mouth momentarily, taking in my words.
“You give money to your uncle?”
I let out a long sigh. “Yeah. Uncle Pete was let go from his job. The only reason Aunt Peg told you he still had a job is because she doesn’t know anything. She’s been feeling sick and Uncle Pete trusted me to keep this from her and the girls. I offered to help them just so they could pay for their household utilities.”
“How much?”
I shake my head clear. “How much what?”
“How much do you need?” His look is of concern. “I will give you the money you need.”
“Don’t you dare offer me money, and don’t you dare give me a pity stare. I will do this by myself and get out of it by myself. If you think I’m going to let you walk in here and pay off all my debts, you are seriously mistaken.”
“Why do you have to be so stubborn?”
I hold my head high. “Let me ask you a question. If you needed money, would you borrow from me?”
“The question insults me. It’s absurd. I don’t need your money.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No, I wouldn’t borrow money from you or anyone else for that matter. The reason I sleep very comfortably at night is because I have no debts.”
“You just proved my point,” I say. “You don’t owe me anything. First, you take over my bodyguard, and now, you want to give me money. I won’t take charity from you. I stand on my own.”
“For fuck’s sake. It’s not charity,” he says angrily. The pit of my stomach feels cold. I don’t think I’ve heard him curse before. “You are the woman in my life, the only woman. I don’t see why you shouldn’t accept my help. I’ve done more for less important people. And to be honest, writing a check for five, ten, fifteen thousand dollars is like loosing a hair. You have to trust me, otherwise what’s the point? I wish you would come to me with your problems, Sophie, because I have solutions.”
“I’m not looking for a man who’ll solve my problems, Oliver.”
“Then what?”
“If I tell you about a problem I’m having, I don’t want you to fix it. I am not complaining, it means I trust you. All I really need for you to do is listen.”
“Listen?” He looks at me hard, thinking. Frantically thinking. It seems like he’s trying to digest my words. “So,” he puts his hands on his hips, “you don’t want me to say anything?”
“Sometimes talking is all I need to feel better.”
“I’m an advisor to heads of state around the world. Why would you want me to just sit there and listen? That’s not productive.”
“Oliver, you’re my boyfriend. Not my mentor.”
“Tell you what, next time a problem comes up, I’ll ask you if you want me to listen or do something about it. Can we agree on that?”
I sigh. “Sure.”
“You’re telling me this photo shoot...it was just for...pittance?”
“No, not pittance, Oliver. I make good money, but I have many expenses. I just...break even.”
His eyes go wide with shock. “Break even?”
“What do you think? I’m an independent contractor!” I shout in outrage. “I don’t work every day and it sure isn’t a steady job.”
“Well, not everyone is earning top dollar in their respective fields.”
“The market is flooded! There’s a talent pool of teen girls out there, new models, with an undeveloped ego. These are girls who haven’t even gotten their periods yet and they’re just waiting to make it to Fashion Week. It’s their holy grail and they’re thirsty. There are a lot of tall skinny girls with pretty eyes and good symmetry. Naturally, when I ask for payment, a less demanding girl from the pool replaces me. They’ll get paid with trade...clothes or accessories or whatever...Kim works hard to get me the most money, but it’s not always the case. I’m sure you know this, anyway.”
“I act as a special consultant to the existing board of a modeling agency in case of a corporate scandal, Sophie.” He sounds aggravated. “It doesn’t mean I know who is who, who gets paid what, and so forth.”
“You don’t need to know everything about me.”
“Granted. But I do need to know you more if you and I are going to get anywhere.”
“I would have to be working outside of the States to even think of turning a profit. But I’m not in a position to do that right now. I did the whole flying across the globe thing. I’m not going to do that again.”
“Why not?”
I glare at him. “I’m not going to answer that.”
“Please do.”
“You think I’m some sort of celebrity, reveling in my impressive success and my six-figure income. The truth is I’m not, and that’s the only thing you need to know.”
“Then why don’t you quit? Not only do you hate it, but it pays pocket change.”
All I hear is a demand that I validate
myself, and all I create as a result is a programmed defensive response. “I thought you were here to discuss my photo shoot, not give me a lecture about what I should do.”
He raises an eyebrow. “I don’t understand. You say you’ve been around for a while...yet you’re still learning how to stand up for your rights and say no. That’s all I ever hear from you, ‘no this’, ‘no that.’ I don’t see why you can’t say, ‘No, I won’t do a photo shoot in the nude.’”
“For the last time, I was not naked!” I yell.
“Semi-nude.”
This man reduces me to dust and ashes in the grasp of his maddening allegations. “You’re not listening to me. I had to do this. Calvin Klein pays cash up front. Eight thousand dollars to be exact. I don’t expect you to pat my back, but I did what I had to do.”
“You don’t have to do anything. You have a choice in everything you do.”
“I hate when you say that!”
“It’s the truth.”
“Well, I don’t want to hear it anymore.”
“Be rational about this, Sophie. If you’re not satisfied with where you’re at in life, then make some changes.”
“Easy for you to say. Easy to live and laugh and make choices when you’re wealthy. At the end of the day, you still get to slide into Egyptian cotton sheets and rest your head on an eight hundred dollar Siberian goose-down pillow. Some of us aren’t really lucky. Some of us actually have money constraints.”
“Nothing is luck but effort. Yes, I enjoy my financial independence as I have defined it for me, but I started out with nothing. It takes wanting something. Most people don’t have that kind of hunger and resolve to get what they want. It’s a price too high, but look at me. I have no complaints and mostly everything I want.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re so full of yourself.”
His voice drops. “Am I?”
“Yes. You’re so patronizing and so judging.”
“Am I?”
“Yes!”
“What is it with you and my money? You have me for some idiot rich guy. It’s ridiculous. Yes, there is no doubt I have money. It gives you freedom, the ability to consume. But I didn’t go into my business with riches in my mind. I went deep into it because I wanted to make the world a better place for all. I wanted to help people. I still do. That, Sophie, is my entrepreneurial drive. Not money.”
A Diamond in the Rough Page 16
