CHAPTER 9

The model stared at me with an affected look before she turned to Ivan. A flirtatious smile stretched across her face and she flicked her hair.

'Oh, please. Is this fucking high school?'

“Let’s get started,” Ivan said casually.

You wouldn’t believe that, just seconds ago, he was leaning over me, half threatening me.

He casually picked up his camera and directed the model where to stand. I hooked one of my ankles over the other. Resolve was building inside me. 'I will stick this shoot out.'

'I’ll sit here, jealousy and anger and possibly a little hatred building inside me, and I’ll watch the whole damn thing.'

Just to make a point.

I rested my elbow on the desk and placed my chin in my palm. I was not sure who the model waz or what she was doing, but she had a really annoying laugh. All high pitched and almost squeaky. The ones you cringe at.

I tapped my nails against my leg, watching the shoot play out before me. I knew how it worked. I knew how shoots go.

And the model wanted Ivan to shoot more than just his camera.

But it was cool. I mean, this happened all the time. He’s hot. She’s crushing on him. I can cope with that.

Model Girl looked seductively at Ivan. Not the camera. Him. And laughed.

Jesus, it was like nails on a chalkboard.

My foot took up a steady rhythm tapping against the floor. Onetwothree. Onetwothree. Onetwothree. Like a motherfucking waltz. Tap, tap, tap. Over and over, silent against the carpet.

What wasn’t silent was the way both Ivan’s and Day’s cameras clicked. Ivan’s quiet orders. Model Girl’s breathing. Hell, I could hear the fluttering of her fucking fake eyelashes. I could hear the swishing of her hair.

Shit, she was flirting so hard that I could practically hear her gushing into those designer panties.

It went on and on. Her eyelash-fluttering, her smiling, her giggling, her hair-flicking… Every fucking thing she did made me wonder if she was there for the job or for Ivan. And it pissed me off.

It twisted my stomach and tightened my chest with an intricate knot of jealously. I hated sitting there, watching him watch her, when she was so obvious.

And I couldn’t.

My resolve wavered until it shattered. With my stomach coiling with nausea and hot tears stinging the backs of my eyes, I grabbed my purse. I slipped my hand inside, set my phone vibrating, and answered my fake call quietly.

I slipped out of the room with it attached to my ear. I couldn’t stay. I was dumb to think I could.

It’d been days and I was already done.

I pushed open the door and stepped outside. Rain was falling lightly as I made my way to my car, and I heard the door open quietly behind me.

“It’s a good thing you’re a better model than you are actress,” Day said softly. “Your trick isn’t fooling me.”

“You created the trick, dumbass. It wasn’t to fool you.” I yanked my car door open. “I’m going. If I stay there much longer, I’m going to strangle her with her own fucking extensions.” I threw my purse across the car into the passenger’s seat.

“What do you want me to tell Ivan?”

I looked at her. “Tell him whatever the hell he wants to hear.”

With that, I got into my car, slammed the door, and reved the shit out of my engine. I teared out of the parking lot before she could respond and told myself that the emotion in her eyes wasn’t real.

There wasn’t an abundance of fear and worry in them. They were simply concerned.

I had to believe that. Perhaps wrongly, but I had to. Sometimes, believing the wrong thing was the right thing to do. Sometimes, believing the wrong thing will keep you sane.

So I drove through the city, telling myself that what I was feeling was totally natural. That any girlfriend felt the same way.

I parked outside my apartment block and locked my car with way too much vigor. I took the elevator in the same way, jabbing the buttons way too hard. My key fitted in my keyhole after three forced attempts, and the way I slammed my front door surely shook the whole building.

I threw my purse across my apartment. It landed with a thud on my floor, waking Angus and making him screech. The high-pitched sound went right through me and I responded with one of my own.

I screamed into my hands, bending over onto the kitchen table. All my frustration, all my jealousy, all the ramifications of my need for that infuriating fucking man were tangible and audible in my cry.

Only I didn’t know who I was madder at. Model Girl for making me feel that way or myself for allowing me to. I didn’t know if I was madder at Ivan for reminding me where the door was or myself for using it.

In the end, it all came down to me. I let myself feel things and do things that were sometimes irrational.

But you couldn’t always help it, I reminded myself. I couldn’t control the addiction. The addiction controlled me.

But was that only true because I let it?

Was it only my controller, the truly dominant thing in my life, because I allowed it to be?

No. I assured myself no because I didn’t want to believe that my addiction was causing that. Through it all, through my fears, I didn’t want my addiction to be the reason I walked out of that studio. I wanted my stupid fucking heart to be the reason.

I wanted to believe that there was more to us and our fucked-up fairytale.

I wanted to believe that there were feelings, real feelings, that tied us even deeper than the bonds of our addictions.

And maybe that was the problem.

Maybe my addiction was ruling me because I had not allowed reality through.

Maybe I am falling in love.

Maybe I am falling in love with his crisp accent, his dirty words, his burning touch. Maybe I’m falling in love with the snark and the cockiness and that stupid love for snuggles.

Maybe I’m falling in love with the way he made me feel.

Maybe I’m falling in love with more than just love.

Maybe… Maybe, in a cruel twist in Fate’s Big Fuck-Up, I was falling in love with Ivan sands.

I pushed off from the table and yanked open the cupboard that stored my alcohol. I dragged out the bottle of vodka and poured some in a short glass. I threw it back without thinking. The hot burn of the spirit sliding down my throat wass better than the burn of my realization.

The burn of alcohol would always be better than the burn of a maybe-love.

Alcohol didn’t hurt half as much as love. And the pounding head alcohol would give you was fixed with a glass of water and a couple of Tylenols.