by Emily Bishop
“They can be, I guess,” I admitted. “But it’s a fine line, Demi, one I don’t want you or this agency to fall foul of.” It was as much as I was ready to admit out loud. Besides, I’d told her that I was refusing that she do the shoot in order to protect her, too, not just the agency.
“So, it has nothing to do with you being uncomfortable with my being naked for millions of people to see?” Her voice betrayed a knowledge that there was more to it than I was letting on.
“Nope, but it won’t be good for your career if that’s what you’re associated with—”
She cut me off by sliding around me so that her back was against the window as she peered up at me with a shy little smile.
“If you don’t want me to do it, then I won’t do it, Barrett,” she told me, her eyes churning with a passion so alive that it threatened to swallow me whole. “That’s all there is to it. You only have to say so.”
“Fine, then I’m saying so,” I mumbled, transfixed by her.
“It’s a done deal, then. I won’t do it.” She smiled. “See? It can be easy if you just communicate with me.”
I sighed but I couldn’t help returning her smile as my hands went to her hips and I drew her roughly against me. “Have I told you lately that you’re really something different, Demi Fowler?”
“You know.” She pressed a finger to her mouth and pretended to think. “It’s been a while, actually.”
“In that case, you’re really something different, Demi Fowler,” I said, then claimed her mouth again as one word repeated like a mantra in my mind.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
For the rest of the day, I was plagued by thoughts of her. The shy little smile on her lips, the way they felt when they pressed against mine, and her perfect little sighs. The way she sounded, screaming my name as she came. It was more than sex, though.
I replayed every moment we’d ever had together. The way she’d turned me down originally, the quiet strength when she came over to the booth the next day and asked flat out if the job was still available, her laughter as I’d regaled her with the Adventures of Barrett and Nancie. On and on it went.
By the time I went to bed that night, I strongly suspected that I might have fallen for her. Hard.
Chapter 20
Demi
“Come on, Mom. I promise you I will have my phone glued to my hand, and I will call you with updates every hour.”
The machines from the intensive care unit of the hospital my dad had been admitted to beeped dully out in the hallway where I was trying to convince my mom to take some time to rest.
“Oh, honey, I just don’t know,” my mom protested, wringing her hands. “What if you have an emergency at work or something?”
“I won’t,” I told her. “We have no photoshoot scheduled for today, and it’s not like they’re going to need me for an unplanned surgery or something.”
I was grateful to have some time to spend at the hospital. Every time I had spoken to my mom for the last few weeks, she’d sounded bone tired. I tried to go to the hospital as often as I could to give her a break, but most of the time, she refused to go anywhere, just as she was now. But she needed rest. Exhaustion was wearing her down, and if she didn’t start taking care of herself, I feared I’d end up with both parents in the hospital.
“How about this?” I asked. “If I hear a peep from the office, I’ll call you to come back.”
Adam and Barrett were in meetings all day, anyway, and as much as I hated the thought that Barrett and I wouldn’t be spending the day together at the same shoot, I knew that they were jampacked and wouldn’t be needing me.
My mom chewed on her bottom lip, the circles around her eyes so dark that she looked like she was going to a Halloween party dressed as a vampire. Finally, her shoulders caved, and she nodded. “Okay, but call me every hour.”
“I already said I would, Mom. Go get some rest.”
She planted a soft kiss on my cheek and stumbled toward the exit. It was a good thing they still had their driver on staff, since I wasn’t sure she was even going be able to stay awake farther than the parking lot.
Once she pushed through the revolving doors, I turned to go to her seat at my father’s side. My strong, commanding father who never backed down, who ran his business with an iron fist and wits of steel, was a shadow of his former self in that bed. The sheets were draped over a low cage so as not to put too much pressure on his frail body.
A lump formed in my throat as it dawned on me that I’d thought of him as invincible not so long ago, but something as simple as his bed sheets could now hurt him. My knees shook as I sank into the uncomfortable chair next to his bed, pulling my e-reader out of my bag.
I called my mom every hour as promised and didn’t move from my perch. Doctors checked by every once in a while, measuring my father’s blood pressure and performing other tests while nurses came by often to administer medicine and make sure that he was comfortable. It was only when they were around to rouse him that he was awake.
I highly doubted that he even knew I was there, but it didn’t matter. My mom did, and it gave her peace of mind, knowing I was here with him and he wasn’t alone. That was enough for me.
By the time lunchtime rolled around, I was stiff from sitting in one position for so long, and I wondered how my dad felt, having been stuck in that bed for so long. He wouldn’t want pity, but I couldn’t help feeling bad for him.
My stomach grumbled, alerting me to the fact that I wasn’t being fed intravenously and would have to leave my seat eventually, even if only for a little while to grab some food.
The hospital cafeteria smelled like onions and mystery meat, bad coffee, and worried families. It wasn’t surprising that the mood in here was subdued, almost as if everyone in there was carrying the world on their shoulders. Although, I suppose that we all were, in our own ways.
After I ordered what I considered to be the safest option, grilled cheese and fries, I settled in for the wait. My phone started buzzing in my bag. Mandy was calling, my screen told me when I finally managed to fish it out of my purse.
“You couldn’t wait any longer for details of the date, could you?” I smiled as I answered.
Mandy’s easygoing laughter sounded at the other end of the line. “Nope, are you at work? I have some time off this afternoon. I thought we could catch up.”
“Catch up on all the juicy details, you mean?” My voice was light, teasing. My mood lifted slightly in the dreariness of the cafeteria. “But no, I’m not at work. I’m at the hospital, actually.”
Mandy hesitated. “Are you okay? Why are you at the hospital?”
“Long story.” Shit, I hadn’t actually told her about my father yet. “Want to come keep me company? I’ll catch you up. It’s my dad.”
“I’ll be right there.” That was the thing about Mandy, she was loyal to a tee and always there if anyone needed her.
Ten minutes later, Mandy burst into the cafeteria like a whirlwind, just as my food arrived. Her sunglasses sat on her artfully tousled hair, her green eyes dark with concern as she slid into a chair opposite me.
“Look at you, future top model, eating lunch in a hospital cafeteria. Nice to see fame and fortune haven’t changed you.”
While I loved her for trying to lighten the mood, I could also see that her heart wasn’t in it. It was time to come clean.
“My father has cancer,” I said.
Mandy face fell and blanched, her light smattering of freckles standing out starkly against her pale skin. “My god, how bad is it?”
“Quite bad,” I said. “There’s no firm prognosis yet. It started in his prostate, so they removed it but it seems to have spread.” It was the first time that I was saying those words out loud, and it did nothing to calm me. If anything, it made it feel all too real.
“I’m not going to say that I’m sorry, because it doesn’t mean anything.” Strangely enough, the fact that she understood did calm me down some. “It just sucks. That�
��s all there is to it.”
“It does,” I said, nodding sadly. “What sucks even more is knowing that there’s nothing we can do but wait. Wait for the doctors to tell us news, wait for them to treat him, wait for the treatments to work.” My hands started shaking as reality sank in.
“Yeah, that sounds terrible.” Mandy nodded, then reached for my hand. “I’m here for you, okay? Anytime you need to talk, scream, whatever you need.”
“Thanks, I might need to take you up on that sometime. I just hate feeling so helpless. I used to think that money could fix everything, you know? Like with health problems? If you have enough money to afford the best treatments, the problem would go away. I’m starting to realize that’s not the case.”
It was tough to think that while I’d been blaming my parents all this time, Gabbi would probably still have passed away, no matter what they did or how they acted.
To my knowledge, there still wasn’t a cure for what she had. At best, her disease might have been managed but there was no guarantee.
“I get that,” Mandy said. “There are things that no amount of money can buy.”
“Good health being one of them?”
“Now you’re starting to get it,” she said. “I mean, you know I would kill to be able to afford my retail therapy addiction.” That made me really smile for the first time that day. “Being here makes it easy to put things in perspective. I’m healthy, I have people in my life who love me, and maybe that’s not so bad, you know?”
It was amazing how she was putting things into perspective for me, too, things that suddenly started clicking into place from the deep recesses of my mind. “Exactly. When it comes right down to it, it’s about the people, not the money they have.”
A shadow crossed Mandy’s face. “What is this thing you have about money, anyway?”
Time to face the music, Demi, my subconscious prodded me.
Breathing in deeply, I finally told my best friend my story. “I grew up with money. A lot of it. I had the best of everything but I didn’t have parents, not really. They were always busy with something at Athena’s.”
Mandy sucked in a deep breath. “Athena’s belongs to your family?”
“For now.” I nodded. “Mom thinks we might have to sell it off soon.”
“Wow, that’s...” She trailed off. “Sorry, this is a lot to process. Please carry on.”
“So, they were always busy. Gabbi, my nanny, practically raised me. When I was sixteen, she got diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder.”
I swallowed past the rising tears, taking another deep breath. Mandy squeezed my hand in a silent show of support.
“She went for all the treatments she could afford but they didn’t help. I begged my parents to pay for the better stuff but they refused. So, after she passed away when I was eighteen, I turned my back on them, their money, their lifestyle. Everything.”
“And that’s why the rich girl ended up at the diner?” Mandy finished for me. “That must’ve been really tough.”
“It was but I didn’t want to turn into them, so I wrote them off. I haven’t taken a cent of their money since, and I never went looking to make more than I needed to survive.”
“Until now?” Understanding lit up her eyes. “Your father being sick, that’s why you took the modeling gig?”
“Ding ding,” I said dryly. “The company’s going under, and in an ironic twist of fate, my parents are now the ones in need of money.”
“Which also explains why you’re not spending any of it.”
A weight lifted off my shoulders to finally being able to talk to someone about everything. “You’re on a roll.”
Her eyes were wide as she took it all in. “Wow, friend. This is some hectic shit you’ve been going through. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
I shrugged. “I don’t really know anymore. At the time, I figured that I’d walked away from it, and it was all the past but now...”
“It’s just not?” Mandy asked, lifting the last bit of weight from my shoulders by voicing my exact thoughts.
“Yeah. I guess that I’m starting to see the humans my parents are, instead of the callous, rich machines I remember. Being around Barrett and his niece has also helped. Being rich doesn’t necessarily make people jerks, just like not having money doesn’t necessarily make people kind.”
“I know plenty of poor jerks,” Mandy said with a small laugh, squeezing my hand again.
“Pretty stupid reasoning, right?”
“Not stupid at all, actually. You were basing it off your own experiences. All that matters is that it was your reasoning.”
“Maybe.” I chewed on my lower lip. “I’ve just been learning a lot recently, I think.”
Mandy eyes narrowed as she thought. “From Barrett?”
“Among other things, but he has been a key part of the process. I really didn’t expect to like him. I didn’t want to. I just assumed that he would be a jerk.”
“Because he’s a billionaire?”
“You got it,” I said. “But instead of being the completely horrible person I was expecting, he’s caring and attentive and charming. He had a dream, and he built it into an empire because he happened to have the skills to back up the dream. The money just sort of followed but it didn’t change him, I don’t think.”
“So, you really don’t care about his money, then?” Mandy asked, a hint of incredulity in her tone.
“Not in the slightest.” It was the absolute truth.
Mandy stayed quiet for a beat, and her brow furrowed before her eyes popped wide open. “But you do care about him?”
“I do, in fact, I think I might be in—” My phone buzzed on the table again, interrupting my confession. Butterflies danced in my stomach when Barrett’s gorgeous face stared up at me from the display.
“Were your ears burning?” I answered, laughing.
“Hot as lava,” he joked. I loved it when Barrett was in a playful mood. “What were you saying about me?”
“That’s for me to know,” I teased.
“You know, that’s just another thing I’m going to have to persuade you to tell me later. Don’t think I forgot about the Nancie secret the other day.” His voice had gotten slightly lower, more seductive. “In fact, what are you doing right now?”
“I’m at the hospital.” That immediately snapped him out of flirty, playful Barrett mode.
“How’re things going over there?”
My heart warmed at the fact that he cared enough to ask. I wished that I could tell him things were better but they weren’t. “Same, I guess.”
“Shit, that sucks.” I laughed at the fact that he used the exact same words as Mandy. “What’re you doing later? I want to take you somewhere special, get your mind off of it for a bit.”
My heart started doing flip flops in my chest as my palms grew clammy. “Okay, pick me up at seven? I’ll text you my address.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal, beautiful,” he purred, leaving me with very inappropriate thoughts for being in a hospital cafeteria.
Chapter 21
Barrett
“Fuck, that was a long day,” I told my driver as I collapsed into the passenger seat of the SUV.
Norris smiled knowingly. He’d been with me for a decade, and while I often drove myself, he knew me well enough to know that I hated days of back-to-back meetings. “Am I driving you and Adam to the Highlander, then, sir?”
“Not today; there will be none of the usual drowning of my sorrows tonight,” I told him, smirking at what, or rather who, I would be drowning in. There was definitely no sorrow about it. In fact, I was bursting to get inside her, but first, I had a surprise planned.
After our conversation, I’d spent the afternoon mostly ignoring the droning meetings and instead, devoted my time to texting with my assistant to set up something special for Demi.
“Where am I headed instead?” Norris’ voice drew my attention to the fact that we were still sitting in the of
fice parking lot while I was staring into space like an idiot.
“We’re headed to, uh.” Damn. There was a tiny snag in my plan. I’d never been to Demi’s place before, and she hadn’t texted me the address yet. Presumably because it was still early.
Norris’ eyes shone with amusement. “I’m not sure where ‘uh’ is, sir.”
“Shut up,” I grumbled. My staff and I had great relationships, but I hadn’t been able to get Norris to drop the ‘sir’ thing yet. It was my plan for the next decade. At least he’d relaxed enough in the past decade to joke with me sometimes.
When I first started hiring personal staff, it had been a priority for me to form actual relationships with them. It was a good thing, too, since they knew every in and out of my life, and I didn’t want to have to buy their loyalty.
It was important to me that they kept my personal life private because they wanted to, because I was a good enough person to them that they didn’t feel the need to sell me out.
So far, so good. There had been no leaks from inside Camp Hart. I was infinitely grateful for it, and I made sure that they knew it with generous bonuses, time off when they needed it, and treating them like the family they’d become to me.
“Sir?” Norris prompted again, a wide grin on his face. “May I ask, who is it that has you out of sorts this evening?”
“Demi Fowler,” I answered honestly.
Norris’ eyes grew wide. “That new model you’ve hired as the face of the company?”
“One and the same, but my being out of sorts about her and having hired her as the face are two completely unrelated things.” I didn’t know why I felt the need to explain it to him, but I did.
It felt important that he should know that I’d hired Demi because she was perfect for the job, not because I wanted to fuck her. She was beautiful and talented, and I didn’t want anyone to think anything else.
“I would never have thought otherwise, sir,” Norris said kindly. “You’ve always been good about keeping business decisions separate from pleasure. Are we headed to her, then?”
