“With him? Laila, what’s going on with you?”
“You know I don’t get out often on my own, Lexi. Just give me this, will you? I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
Lexi sighed. “You already have.”
With that, she hung up.
I stared at my phone screen.
Storm rubbed the back of his neck. “Are you sure you shouldn’t go back? I can take you. I don’t want you to be in trouble because of me.”
Storm had no idea what it was like to be me. A top model. A beautiful woman who was sexualized on the daily just because she was, well, a woman. Sure, my job was about looking good. My job was my body, and my face, and my looks in general. But there were consequences to profiting off of such things. In the last month alone, I’d received fan mail that both expressed how inspired I made some people and how furious I made others, promoting my “fat” body. Apparently a size ten was considered fat to some people. Misogynistic men who didn’t desire my body type wanted to make sure I knew I wasn’t worthy of their lust. Misogynistic women wanted to tell me I was doing a huge disservice to women in general by putting my body out there like a whore.
Teenagers with body image struggles wrote to me all the time thanking me for my vulnerability.
Strangers wrote to me about how they were learning to see their bodies in a more positive way.
Others wrote about less savory things. The first time I got a death threat, I stopped modeling for months. As it turned out, death threats were pretty common in my line of work because I was “polarizing.” After working with some lawyers, I’d learned that every woman who acquired a little bit of fame was doomed to get some form of a threatening letter at some point in her life. Some were lucky to only get a letter, but others were not as lucky, experiencing stalking and all kinds of terrifying things at the hands of their supposed fans.
Since then, I’d always traveled with Lexi or my security detail.
But today? Today I felt totally safe in Storm’s car. He put me at ease, and for the first time since my modeling career exploded, I felt like a normal girl again—aside from the fact that I was in a billionaire’s car, of course.
I smiled at the man behind the wheel, who smiled back at me. He had more layers than I ever gave him credit for when we first met.
“I’d like to break the rules a little longer,” I said. “It’s refreshing to be out without my security or paparazzi hanging over my shoulder.”
Storm rubbed his hands together. “Baby, if you want time away from your cling-ons, you only had to say so. Don’t forget who I am. I can buy you any kind of privacy you want. Tell me your favorite mall.”
“Sorry?”
“I’ll book the whole place for us. No other shoppers, just you and me, and you can enjoy a totally private shopping spree. I know how much you love your shoes and handbags.” He pumped his eyebrows. “Just say the place. I’ll make it happen.”
“Oh.” Of course. How could I have been so stupid?
Naturally, Storm would think a shopping spree would fix a girl like me right up. Naturally, he thought I was shallow. Naturally, didn’t I have to be? I was a model. Everything I did was about how I looked and how I was perceived.
The frustrating part? I did love shopping. I adored it. Sometimes I told myself it was because I’d earned the luxury of being able to buy whatever I wanted, but deep down I knew my shopaholic tendencies were because of the deep-rooted pain I felt over being misunderstood by everyone in my life. Misunderstood and used.
Nobody had made me feel taken care of since my mother died. Ever since I lost her, I’d been the one scrambling to make sure the people I loved, like my father and my sister, had me to take care of them. Somewhere along the way I forgot how to let people take care of me, and I was too far down that road to know how to let them in properly anymore.
People let me down, but shoes never did. I might have had a shopping problem, but I hated that the first thing that came to Storm’s mind to make me happy was so materialistic.
I hated it even more that he was right.
“Actually,” I said, reaching over my shoulder and putting on my seatbelt, “on second thought maybe I should go home.”
“What? Just like that?”
“I’m actually pretty tired. This was fun though. I just… I shouldn’t leave things with Lexi like that. Besides, we have a big weekend ahead of us. I need some down time to get myself ready.”
He considered me for a long, quiet moment. Part of me thought he might push back, but eventually he started the car and pulled out of the alley, turning toward the Citrine Tower. There were so many things I wanted to say to him and so many things I wanted to yell, but I swallowed them and kept them buried deep down, telling myself it wasn’t his fault that he thought I was vain and materialistic.
It was my own.
CHAPTER 15
STORM
Garrett pressed his fingertips together and regarded me over the top of them. He sat behind his desk in his office—the office next to my father’s, which had been given to him instead of me as a blow to my ego by my old man many years ago—swaying back and forth in his chair.
“Perhaps in the future, we can refrain from stunts like the one you pulled yesterday with Miss Hunt?”
I moved to the window and gazed out at the foggy New York afternoon with my hands clasped behind my back. “No promises.”
“It wasn’t a suggestion.”
“I know.”
Garrett sighed, and I imagined he was either rolling his eyes or massaging his temples behind my back. “We’re in the final stretch here, Storm. Just don’t fuck it up by getting too reckless, all right?”
My reflection in the window contorted into a grimace.
That was the exact kind of shit my father used to say to me.
Just don’t be yourself, and things will be fine.
Garrett’s phone rang and he answered on speaker phone. Our receptionist’s voice filled the speaker. “Mr. Thornton? Miss Hunt is here and your limo is downstairs. Should I let her know you’re on your way?”
“Yes please,” I said. “Thank you, Anita.”
Garrett hung up the phone, got to his feet, and moved to his office door. I heard it open and turned from the window.
“There are going to be a lot of important people at the party tonight,” he said with a proud chin and straight posture. Garrett always held himself like a man of importance. I had a sneaking suspicion he’d mimicked my father’s posture until he adapted his own. “Make sure you arrive on time and looking sharp. You’re there to impress, not party.”
I moved from the window and paused in the doorway, standing mere inches from my righthand man. “Garrett, I know you mean well, but every now and then I think you need an important reminder.”
He cocked his head to the side. “And what might that be?”
I closed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “That this isn’t your company. It’s mine.”
He blinked.
Satisfied, I left him staring after me and went to meet Laila at reception. She stood with Lexi, who shot me a dark ominous look when I emerged. Anita greeted me with a smile and handed me the invitations we’d need for the party tonight, as well as our booking information for our hotel suite. The party would likely run late into the evening, and Laila and I were expected to stay until wrap-up. Odds were high that wouldn’t be until well into the next morning, and the hotel room would provide a close at hand option to catch some rest.