All Chapters of Oh! My Pretty Boy: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

I watched the trees sway and disappear in the rearview mirror. For almost four hours, the road had belonged to me. Wide lanes. Empty fields. Small towns that blurred past my windows as if they were too ashamed to be remembered. The city had fallen away mile by mile, taking with it the billboards, the cameras, the girls who screamed my name outside hotels, and Elise’s endless reminders that my face was not allowed to rest for too long. My hands tightened around the steering wheel. Elise had given me a break from modeling, but only because my doctor had said the word exhaustion in a room full of witnesses. If it had been up to her, she would have powdered the shadows under my eyes and sent me back beneath studio lights with a bottle of imported water and a smile. She called it discipline. I called it ownership. She did not care about my body except for how it looked on camera. She did not care about my name except for how much brands were willing to pay to be placed beside it. She

Yvette woke like someone coming back from the dead angry about it. One moment, she was lying still beneath the white sheets of the guest room, pale against the pillows, her hair spread over the linen like spilled ink. The next, her eyes flew open and fixed on me with pure, violent alarm. I had been sitting in the chair beside the bed for most of the morning. Not watching her. Waiting. There was a difference, though I doubted she would appreciate it. Her gaze moved from my face to the room, then to the tall windows, the carved ceiling, the dark wooden wardrobe, the Mercado crest stitched into the blanket over her legs. Her breathing changed. Fast. Uneven. Then she scrambled backward so quickly that the headboard struck the wall. “You should not come near me,” she said, grabbing the nearest pillow with both hands, “or I’ll shout.” The threat would have been more impressive if her voice had not cracked on the last word. I leaned back in my chair. “Good morning to you too.” “

The contract arrived after breakfast the next morning. Elise brought it in a black folder, because apparently even lies needed formal clothing. She placed it on the library table between Yvette and me. The folder made a soft, final sound against the wood. Outside, rain tapped against the tall windows, turning the gardens silver and blurring the reporters beyond the gate into dark, patient shapes. Yvette sat opposite me with her hands folded in her lap. She had refused the pale dresses Elise suggested and chosen one of Grandmother’s old blouses instead, white cotton buttoned high at the throat, tucked into a long navy skirt borrowed from some forgotten wardrobe. It made her look older. Stricter. Less like the girl in the library photograph and more like someone who might sign a treaty, then stab the man who broke it. I liked it. I did not tell her that. Elise removed three copies of the contract and spread them out with the efficiency of a woman preparing a body for burial. “Rea

Elise did not sleep that night.I knew because she made sure no one else did either.At two in the morning, my phone rang beside my bed. I opened my eyes to darkness, rain against the windows, and Elise’s name glowing on the screen like a threat.I answered without sitting up. “If someone is dead, start with that.”“No one important.”“That is not no one.”“Get dressed.”I stared at the ceiling. “Elise.”“Now, Sandro.”Her voice was too flat for drama.That woke me properly.I sat up. The room was cold. My curtains had been left half-open, and beyond the glass the garden was black except where security lamps caught the wet leaves. For one second, I thought of the hidden house behind the trees. The portrait inside. The woman from my dream with blood on her folded hands.Then Elise spoke again.“I found the source of the west room photograph.”I was out of bed before she finished the sentence.The house at night belonged to older things.During the day, the Mercado mansion performed ele

Elise chose white for Yvette.Yvette refused it.“No,” she said from inside the dressing room.Elise stood outside the door with both hands on her hips. “It is not a wedding dress.”“It is white.”“It is cream.”“It is white pretending to be humble.”I sat on the sofa near the window and watched Elise close her eyes as if asking heaven for either patience or a better client. The morning had already been unbearable, which was impressive because we had not yet stepped outside.Reporters filled the road beyond the gates. Their vans lined the walls. Their cameras pointed toward the house, waiting for the first official glimpse of the country’s newest obsession. Yvette’s name had not stopped trending since dawn. Neither had the west room portrait. Elise had spent breakfast threatening news desks, negotiating with platform representatives, and drinking enough coffee to make her hands unsteady.Grandmother had insisted Yvette eat.Yvette had managed three bites of toast and half a cup of cho