A Model Fiancé

by Kaye, Nikky

  Silently, I pried her arms off me and stepped out of the shower.

  Without looking her in the eye, I held up a large white towel in my outstretched arms. A moment later it was wrapped around her like a fluffy cape. When I helped dry her hair a little, bobby pins fell out of her soggy updo. As she adjusted the towel around her shoulders one clinked to the floor.

  Yeah, you could literally hear a pin drop in the silence between us.

  “Please say something,” Audrey begged me.

  I peeled off my underwear then reached for a towel to wrap around my waist. “Um, you should dry off and put your pajamas on. Get in bed.”

  She looked at me longingly, then reluctantly moved into the bedroom. Slowly she reached one trembling hand into her bag at the foot of the bed, the other still clasping the towel. “What do you want—” she began, but I didn’t hear the rest.

  I took a step back, then closed the door of the bathroom and locked it.

  28

  Audrey

  My head jerked up when I heard the click of the lock. The towel I wore fell to the floor when I stood up, a nightshirt in my hand. Well, that went well, I thought to myself.

  Dev Sharpe, superstar model and my teenage dream man, was hiding in the bathroom.

  Shivering, I dressed and got under the covers. It took a minute to root around for all my hairpins and pull them out. Then I finger combed my damp hair as best I could. I sat up against the headboard, watching the door. My stomach grumbled, making my gaze lift to the ceiling. This had to be the worst timing to be suddenly hungry. I was nervous as hell, yet wanted to order everything from the room service menu? Yeesh.

  It was probably inappropriate to scarf down a sandwich while waiting for my boyfriend to get over his “maybe baby” shock. I waited another five minutes. Then I got out of bed to search my carry-on bag for a leftover snack.

  I had half of a chocolate chip granola bar crammed in my mouth when the door opened a few feet away, like a jump scare in a video game.

  “Urmph!” Luckily I didn’t choke, but my face went hot with embarrassment at being caught eating in the middle of… what? An argument? A miracle?

  Dev met my gaze before striding past me wordlessly, a towel still slung around his hips. He dug in his bag for a pair of shorts, then went back into the bathroom and closed the door on me again.

  Damn. I found a bottle of water and swallowed around the lump in my throat. I’d just gotten back into bed when he emerged again, wearing the shorts.

  The first thing he said was, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shut you out—”

  “Literally.”

  “I needed a minute.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t begrudge him that, but it would have been nice to think out loud together. We were in this together, weren’t we?

  “First things first,” he said as he pulled on a t-shirt. He sat on the end of the bed and met my gaze squarely. “Do you think you’re pregnant?”

  “I don’t know,” I said slowly.

  “Do you, uh, want to be pregnant?” He rubbed the back of his neck, his gaze dropping to the floor.

  “No! Yes?” I twisted my hands in the quilt over my lap. “I mean—Dev, you have to understand that I thought I couldn’t ever have kids. I’m only twenty-two; I didn’t think that choice would be taken away from me, so to have it back… it’s a gift.”

  He laughed weakly. “Can you return it?”

  My mouth fell open.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” He jumped off the bed and paced back and forth. “I’m freaking out a little bit, okay? I didn’t expect this!”

  “And I did?”

  “You didn’t stop it.”

  “Well, neither did you!” I snapped. “Besides, I didn’t think I had to, remember?”

  Dev’s head sagged, his chin nearly on his chest as he let out a heavy sigh. “What do you want me to say?”

  Was he kidding? “I want you to say, ‘Everything will be okay, Audrey. I love you.’”

  “I do love you,” he finally said. “Shit, it scares me how much I love you. But you gotta remember, Audrey, this isn’t my first rodeo. This is how my last relationship ended.”

  “But—but she lied to you.” His silent shrug made me feel cold all over. “Do you think I’m lying to you?”

  “No, I don’t think you’re lying. You said yourself though—you don’t know.”

  “Right.”

  “So let’s say, for the sake of argument, you are… pregnant.” He visibly swallowed. “I could lose this contract.”

  “Come on, you really think that—”

  “There’s a morals clause,” he said. “I checked.”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded, his eyes on the big diamond ring on my finger. “So, do you want me to marry you?”

  Um, if that was an official proposal, then it really, really sucked.

  My eyes stung, and I stared at my knees. “Dev, what did you think was the long-term plan, here?” I asked in a small voice. “I thought we loved each other. You said it was all real.”

  Was it all just a show for social media?

  “I need to get out of here for a while.” He shoved his feet into some shoes and his keycard and wallet in his pocket. The look in his eyes was nothing short of pure panic when he met my disappointed gaze.

  “Please don’t go.” I reached my hand out to him. “Let’s talk about this, please.”

  It only took him a few strides to go from the door to my bedside. I sighed with relief as he bent over to cradle my cheek. His thumb wiped my tears away.

  “Baby, don’t cry,” he said softly. “I hate it when you cry.”

  “Then don’t make me.” I glowered at him as my nose ran.

  His hand dropped from my face. “I’m sorry, Audrey.”

  Silence stretched between us. My chest squeezed. It was as though Dev and I each pulled one end of a rope taut, and my heart was the knot tightening in the middle. Finally, I had to break the silence

  “I need a tissue,” I announced with a big, snorking sniffle. And you. I need you.

  “Just… give me some time,” he said in a hoarse voice.

  Then he got up and left—without bringing me a box of tissues.

  * * *

  When I woke in the morning, I realized three things:

  1. It was possible for your eyes to be glued shut.

  2. I’d slept for fourteen hours straight.

  3. Dev hadn’t come back.

  I lay in bed, watching the early morning light slice across the bed through the crack in the curtains. My eyes were swollen and sore from crying myself to sleep.

  Even though it was my idea in the first place, my worst fear was that my time with Dev was just a fling. I’d trusted that it wasn’t, but I’d put my trust in the wrong man before.

  Was I wrong in falling for Dev? I believed that he loved me, but maybe he loved me now and wasn’t thinking about the future. What did he think would happen, though?

  Surely at some point over the next three years, Mr. Sharma would press us for a wedding date. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if he wanted to plan and host the whole thing for publicity.

  With a heavy sigh, I reached for my phone on the nightstand. It was dead; I’d forgotten to plug it in. When I got out of bed to charge it, the wooziness hit.

  I dashed to the bathroom and went to my knees in front of the toilet, but nothing came up. Damn it. I didn’t want to feel like this all day, like I was on the verge of retching. After flexing my abdominal muscles, inside and out, it became clear that nothing was going to happen—except now desperately needing to pee.

  Dev’s damp towel sat on the tile floor next between the toilet and the sink. The sight of it reinforced my anger and disappointment. What was it with men? It was amazing how Dev and Brett could play endless games of basketball in the driveway growing up yet fail to make a successful shot at a laundry basket or towel hook.

  Aching, I got up and went back to the be
droom to check on my phone. There were a bunch of texts from Dierks.

  -You okay? Then, later: –You didn’t come back to the wedding. Worried

  It felt strange to smile, like I hadn’t used those muscles in a long time. Dierks was a good friend. If Dev had given me the opportunity to spread my wings, then Dierks was the one who showed me how to take off.

  Unfortunately, I’d missed the class on how to land safely.

  Just after midnight, another text from him: -Now I’m throwing up—maybe I’m pregnant? lol

  I stared at the phone for a moment before remembering that Dierks sat beside me during my question-and-answer period with Dr. Patel.

  Below that, the last text from Dierks sounded bleak: —Tell Dev I called Tanya to do the shoot in the am, call time 8. I know she was following the bridal party yesterday for candids, but she’s free until the afternoon. He’s not answering my texts.

  Crap, I’d forgotten about that shoot or whatever Dev had today. A quick check of the time told me that Dev was hopefully already there. God, he must be exhausted—argh! Stop worrying about him! It was no surprise he put work before me, before us, but I was still disappointed.

  His image came first for him.

  It took a moment for it to click in that Tanya was the photographer who filled for Dierks in Goa. She was also Dev’s ex—the one that lied to him about being pregnant. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry that Dev was working with her this morning.

  Either way, I was pretty sure it was karma in action.

  I sent Dierks a quick text back. —Hope you’re feeling better. ttyl

  Then I scooted back on the bed, propping myself up against the headboard to check my email and social media.

  Yeah, okay, I was checking the #MrsDevSharpe hashtag.

  There were a few pictures taken of me at the wedding when I wasn’t looking. Even Dierks posted a few. Dev and I sat together, our hands joined. In one picture I must have been asking him a question because I was leaning into him and he had a small smile on his face.

  We looked… happy.

  Well, it just goes to show the power of social media to distort reality, right?

  A text popped up from Dev. My fingers spazzed so badly trying to open it that I almost erased the whole conversation.

  —I’m sorry.

  “You’re kidding,” I said out loud. That was it?

  Disgusted, I threw the phone down on the bed. It skipped like a rock at a lake, bouncing off and hitting the floor. When I got up to retrieve it, I looked around and nearly dropped it again.

  My body went cold as I realized that not only had Dev not come back to the room last night, his suitcase was not beside mine. I stumbled to the bathroom, bracing myself against the doorjamb as I saw only my toiletry bag. No laptop bag, no sunglasses on the dresser, no pile of dirty laundry under the desk.

  All of his stuff was gone. He was gone.

  I bit my lower lip, my throat tightening as I tried not to scream or cry—but still breathe. What the hell was he thinking, running off? We were in this together!

  Then I ground my teeth together in determination, bruised but not broken. It was ironic that my immediate reaction was something that Dev himself would likely say in this situation—

  “Screw this.”

  29

  Dev

  “Do you remember how to smile?”

  I scowled at Tanya. “It’s my job, remember?”

  She shook her head, lowering the camera. “Hard to tell. You want to talk about it?”

  “With you?” God, I sounded like such an asshole. I was surprised she didn’t slap me. Is that what I sounded like to Audrey last night? Jesus.

  She shrugged and raised an eyebrow. “I’m here if you need to vent, but I’m not here to be a punching bag.”

  When she lifted the camera again, I had the unsettling feeling that the lens had special powers that allowed her to see right into me. The irony that my ex-girlfriend was filling in for Dierks—again—this morning was hitting me harder than my sleepless night.

  When I arrived earlier, the makeup artist took one look at me and winced. “How late did you party?” she asked.

  I gave her a wan smile as I sat in the chair and closed my eyes. “Pinch me if I fall asleep,” I told her.

  After I left Audrey, I needed to go somewhere to think. I’d like to say I was noble and romantic and went up to the roof, playing out some kind of flashback of better times in my head, like a damn movie montage, but… I ended up in the hotel bar. A few drinks screwed with my judgment even more.

  When I opened the door to our room again, Audrey didn’t stir. I approached the bed as quietly as I could, not wanting to wake her. How was she sleeping so peacefully? My heart and mind felt like someone had thrown them in a high-powered blender.

  If she knew how long I stood there beside the bed, watching her sleep, she would have been embarrassed—or creeped out. The opportunity, however, to drink her in, selfishly and indulgently, was too much to turn down.

  She was curled up and faced my side of the bed, her hair a dark cloud against the white pillow. In the light washing over her from the open bathroom door, I could see tear tracks on her face. My stomach turned itself inside out at the knowledge I’d put those there. I sighed, rubbing my hands over my face.

  If I woke her, there would be more talking and more tears. She didn’t deserve that, and I sure as hell didn’t want to put either of us through that right now.

  I peered at my phone, thinking about what to do. We both needed sleep. The message from Dierks I ignored a little while ago reminded me I had an early call time. I set the alarm on my phone right then, so I wouldn’t forget.

  So, I made the impulsive decision to grab my stuff and move it to our other room, telling myself it was because I didn’t want to disturb Audrey. In all honesty, it was partly because of paranoia and insecurity. We’d kept both rooms for propriety’s sake, but when I dropped my bag in it I felt anything but proper. In fact, I felt guiltier than when we’d been sneaking around.

  My head spun from all the thinking and drinking and I felt like I was missing something, but when I checked my bag, I realized that the only thing I’d left behind in the room was Audrey. At some point I fell asleep, alone on my side of the bed, until my alarm went off all too soon.

  Today’s photo op was still part of the never-ending Sharma wedding. The billionaire head of Hessa decided that he wanted me to be part of the gift opening. It wasn’t until I arrived that I realized that a gift opening for the daughter of a billionaire was more like cutting the ribbon on a new shopping mall.

  There was a lot of stuff—from gold dishes to matching mopeds. Did the bride and groom go to a luxury car dealership and register there by zapping all the latest models with the little gun SKU reader thing?

  They would need a dozen people to clean up all the discarded wrapping paper and ribbons. As it was, I was lucky that I didn’t get a tag and a bow tied on me, the way Sharma offered me around the room like a party favor.

  Even if I weren’t in the shittiest mood of my life, the waste of it all would have irritated me. It was all so… pretentious. Fake—like the smile I’d been throwing around with every hand I shook and every picture I posed for. So far, Tanya was the only person who’d caught on that I was more grimacing than smiling. I sure as fuck wasn’t ‘smizing.’

  “Hanging in there?” she asked in a low voice as the bride’s mother and a friend approached for a selfie with me.

  “Hashtag kill me now,” I muttered. My face will crack by noon, I know it.

  After the picture, she schmoozed for a moment with the two women. Standing there brought back an odd memory of holding Tanya’s purse at a mall. Just when I was about to interrupt, she gestured to me to go take a break.

  Thank god.

  First, I stopped at the make-up artist’s chair—they had recruited her to give ladies at the party free makeovers—to beg for some eye drops. Then I had to find a quiet spot. Waving politely at
a handful of people, including my billionaire boss, I found my way to a kind of garden area. It had enough nature to be calm, but not so much as to feel natural.

  Kind of like my life.

  I sat on a bench, the sun on my face and my eyes closed, weighing the decisions before me. Formulating plans. Wondering when this event would end.

  “I said take a break, not take a nap.”

  My eyes opened at Tanya’s voice. “You know, you have a bad habit of sneaking up on me in my moodier moments.”

  “Maybe that’s because you’re always in a foul mood when I’m around.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “Hmmm. Wonder why that is?”

  She sat down on the stone bench next to me. The woman could not take a hint. “How’s Audrey?” she asked casually.

  My “Fine” was a little too quick, a little too curt.

  “Remember last time we saw each other, in Goa?” Tanya said as my eyes drifted closed again.

  I grunted. “Yeah, it was unforgettable.” The sand, the romance, the anti-emetics.

  “And how I apologized?”

  That wasn’t the part I remembered the most about that trip, but I nodded. “Sure.”

  “Something you said on the beach stuck with me.”

  I’d said a lot of things, most of which were probably pretty fucking rude. But her tone now was shy, which made me open my eyes and tilt my head at her. “What?”

  “You said you were, um, disappointed that I wasn’t really pregnant.”

  I did?

  The large, black sunglasses that Tanya wore made it difficult to read her expression. What was her angle? She stared straight ahead, not looking at me. Her legs were stretched out in front of her, crossed at the ankles, but she practically vibrated with anxiety. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “If I had been pregnant, do you think we would have stayed together?”

  My mouth fell open. What an impossible question to answer. “I, uh, I… shit, I don’t know.”