Beside me, Bojan propped up on one elbow, his stomach covered in a thin carpet of dark hair, and flipped a football into the air, then caught it. Pointing it at the drone, he reared back his hand.
“Don’t do it….” Vidal’s voice warned through the walkie-talkie beside me. “We’re almost done, I promise. Bo, put your hand on Emma’s ass.”
I felt Bo’s warm palm settle on my bare ass cheek, and I rolled away, shrieking in pain when my elbow connected with a handle on the yacht’s deck. I kicked in his direction and connected with his shin.
“Stop it,” Vidal said sharply. “I only need a few more shots, then you can both be idiots. Emma, roll over for me.”
I groaned and rolled onto my back, stealing one of the fluffy blue pillows off the pile and stuffing it under my head. I glanced slightly left, giving my good angle to the camera, and shifted my hips, moving the bikini tie higher and positioning the Luli Fama emblem to a place of higher visibility for the camera. Everything was about the angles. A slight hip swivel made me look thinner. A twenty-degree head tilt made my face prettier. Good posture made my small breasts bigger, my stomach flatter, and a slightly arched foot would trigger #footfetishnation to surge to their, well, feet.
“That’s it. Spread the ends of your braids out more. I’m going to get a close shot, then a far. Bojan, can we get your watch in? And move your drink closer where we can catch the colors from it.”
Bojan tossed the ball in the air again, and caught it. “Ten seconds, V.”
There was a fumble of sound and I heard Edwin mutter in the background. “Bo…” I warned him, my lips barely moving.
“Okay, we got it,” Edwin came on the walkie, exasperated. “You’re done until four when the girls arrive.”
Bo arched back his arm and let the ball fly. I shaded my eyes with my hand and watched it completely miss the drone, which dipped to one side. The football bounced off the bottom deck of the yacht, then skittered to one side. I reached over and flipped off the walkie, which connected us to the chase boat—a mini version of our own that was housing Vidal and Edwin. Dion had stayed in LA, but packed me nineteen different garment bags, each with its own perfectly coordinated and sponsored outfit, down to the sunglasses. We were on day two, and I was already six outfits in. This one—an emerald green bikini with Versace sunglasses (perch on top of the head, not on the face) and a gold Tiffany’s anklet. Pale pink polish on toes and fingers. Hair in low twin braids. In addition to the captain, chef, photographer, and butler—I had a makeup and hair stylist who had already slept with Bojan, a development which had quieted down his level of bitchery quite a bit.
This afternoon the other influencers would arrive. It was a bit of a cheap hack to more followers—put four girls in bikinis on a billionaire’s yacht—but it worked. The girls were all carefully selected, all in the three-million-follower category, and with varying audiences. Our combined reach would get us trending, and our followers were the sort that were easily courted and captured. We had cultivated my last twelve posts to appeal to their market, and I should get a three or four hundred thousand bump, easily, if it was performed correctly. Lots of open mouth laughter with the right ratio of cleavage and fun. Water gun fights on jet skis. Cannonballs off the top level into the Aruba water, set to a song selected from a music studio that was paying for the placement and would share it on their feeds.
I was at eight million followers and growing. Cash Mitchell, despite my reluctant click on his ‘follow’ button, had not returned the favor and joined the ranks. Since our awards argument, we’d crossed paths three times, and he’d completely ignored me at each instance.
I leaned forward and pulled my phone out from underneath the towel. Checking my feeds, I flipped to Cash’s. His numbers were insane, and his latest post—a sponsored ad for Ray-Bans—had a nine percent engagement. I growled under my breath and fought the urge to like it.
“Stop being a stalker,” Bo intoned, pulling my phone out of my hand and tossing it toward my bag. “You’ve got to get over this obsession, Em.”
“It’s not an obsession,” I said tartly. “It’s an annoyance. Cash is annoying.”
“Completely agree.” He pushed his sunglasses up on the top of his head. “The guy is a tool.”
I swallowed an automatic defense that seemed to rise, unwelcomed, whenever Bojan trashed him. “Sure.”
He groaned. “He likes beauty queens. No offense, but nothing is going to happen with you two.”
“Obviously,” I griped. “He won’t even look at me.” I twisted the cap off a bottle of Evian.
He squinted at me. “I bet he looked at the thong pic. Every man alive looked at the thong pic.”
The thong pic had been a holiday one where I stood on a half-ladder in four-inch stilettos, my body lit by Christmas lights, a Santa cap on. In it, I’m stretching up to put a star on the top of my tree. Well, not my tree. I was wearing, if you haven’t guessed already, just a thong. It was a Victoria’s Secret placement, and one I had gotten a ration of shit for, due mainly to the skinniness of my legs. They were scrawny, yes. They’d always been scrawny. Bird-legs, my mother used to call them. The internet had other words for them. Toothpicks. Chicken bones. I was trending under #anorexia for four hours before Vidal squashed it. That week’s video, I focused on thin shaming and went viral again, this time in a more positive light.
I took a healthy sip of the water. “Tell me it’s a lost cause.”
“It’s a lost cause.” He stretched back against the cushions, his hands propped under his head. “You’re too damaged for him. He likes caviar, not jalapeños. You want to win that boring heart, go volunteer somewhere. Adopt an orphanage in Africa. Then, you know.” He shrugged. “Hope he doesn’t see through it.” One corner of his mouth lifted in a wry grin. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have something to take care of before your models arrive.”
I followed his gaze to Mattie, my beauty girl, who was coming up the stairs to our upper deck. I grabbed my phone and pushed to my feet. “I’m going to go get a nap. Don’t let Vidal catch you on the drone.”
He said something in response, but I didn’t catch it and didn’t care. I passed her and smiled, then took the steps down to the cramped private bedroom on the bottom deck, where I stretched out as best I could and stared at Cash Mitchell’s social feeds.
Bojan was right. I was too damaged for Cash. The girls he was photographed with, which was a rare event in itself, were polished and perfect, the sort who attended private schools, wore pearls and spoke Latin. They were the complete opposite of me. Another reason why it was laughable for me to hold onto my deep-seeded crush.
I locked the screen and laid back on the mattress, fighting a wave of nausea.
30
#byefelicia
Losing Vidal was such a cliche. I couldn’t have picked a more boring parting of two individuals. I had considered, over the last fourteen months, the concept that he would drop me as a client. In the early days, when we were just starting to gain traction, the idea scared me. Once I had Dion and Edwin, my concern lessened to the line just above not caring at all.