Avoiding Intimacy Read online

  “It’s an opera house,” Chyna said nonchalantly.

  “I’m not an idiot!” Brigitte cried. “Stop treating me like one. Stupid American.” The last bit was muttered under her breath.

  “She didn’t have to say you were an idiot, Bridge,” Ravenna responded cattily.

  Even though the woman was bitchy, she still stuck up for Chyna. Chyna wasn’t sure why, but it had always been that way. If anyone else stepped out of line, Ravenna was certain to bite their head off without a second thought. She was a vicious opponent who didn’t back down, and it didn’t take much with many of the twits that circulated the modeling community.

  “Don’t start with me, Ravenna.” Brigitte scowled.

  “Ladies,” Giovanna cooed, “can we not?”

  “Yeah, Bridge,” Ravenna spat her name out. “Keep it together.”

  Brigitte teetered forward in her dress as if she were going to lunge for Ravenna. Giovanna quickly stepped in between them.

  “Will you two please just quit it? It is our last event together. We have been living together for nearly two months now. We have done everything together. Can we just savor our last evening together?”

  “Fine,” Brigitte agreed, stepping back and lounging against a cream chaise. Her blue dress slit open to her hip as she rested backward.

  Ravenna just shrugged, leaning against the wall like a Greek goddess statue. Black feathers trimmed her low-cut gown and held back one side of her cascading red hair wrapping around and over her right shoulder.

  “Thank you,” Giovanna muttered, turning away from the girls, her dress sweeping out behind her in layer upon layer of yellow tulle.

  Chyna hadn’t moved from the large window ledge she had been sitting on throughout the entire confrontation. She had been too concerned with when Marco would come for her. The four of them had disappeared into a private room after spending an hour on their feet while designers examined their gowns, taking no interest in actually speaking to the models themselves. It was dreadfully boring, and they took solace in each other’s company as soon as they could leave. They wouldn’t be able to be gone for too long before someone noticed their absence.

  “Ay! Americano,” Brigitte chirped, saying the name like it was a dirty word.

  Chyna’s head snapped up and found all three girls staring directly at her.

  “Were you listening to anything we were saying?” Ravenna asked with a pointed smile.

  “No,” Chyna said with a shrug. Did they say something they said been important? She assumed they were still arguing as per usual. It gave her a lot of time to drift away.

  “We were just asking,” Giovanna began, glancing between her co-conspirators for support, “what Marco is like?”

  Chyna stared between them, wondering where this was going. She was sure whatever it was would only mean trouble. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, you know!” Brigitte chimed in.

  “I’m sure I don’t.”

  “What’s he like in bed?” Ravenna asked bluntly.

  “None of you know?” Chyna asked, throwing it back in their face. Though, she was mildly curious. It’s not like she spent all her time with Marco. He could have had the opportunity to fuck every one of them if he had wanted to.

  “Oh, why are we even bothering to ask her?” Brigitte asked, throwing up her hands.

  “I don’t know what he’s like,” Giovanna answered, ignoring Brigitte. “I know Bridge has no idea.”

  Brigitte hmphed in frustration. She was the youngest of the bunch, and sometimes it really showed through.

  “Ravenna?” Giovanna asked.

  Ravenna smiled her biggest, most devious smile.

  “Well?” Chyna asked, not buying her act for one minute.

  Ravenna was not Marco’s type. Far from it. She was gorgeous and curvy, but she was unable, or at least unwilling, to take direction. Chyna wasn’t submissive by a long shot, but she knew when to give and when to take.

  “Spit it out,” Giovanna said, planting her hand on her hip.

  “Fine!” Ravenna called. “I haven’t slept with Marco, but Chyna has. So, you spit it out. What was he like?”

  Chyna shrugged, looking back out the window. She didn’t have any desire to parade her sex life before these girls. The only person she had ever shared details with was Alexa, and she wasn’t here. She was in New York, probably where Chyna should be, making Alexa feel better. “What does it matter?”

  “Oh, come on. Don’t be shy,” Ravenna continued.

  “Yeah, I mean, we all knew what you were really doing all those days and nights trapped in his apartment,” Brigitte pointed out.

  “Do you, now?” Chyna asked, a smile playing across her features as she stared out at the darkened sky.

  The moon was bright overlooking the city, but the stars weren’t all that visible with all the lights reflecting up into the atmosphere. It reminded her of New York, and for the first time, she felt a twinge of homesickness.

  “Forget it,” Giovanna sighed. “She’s not going to tell us. She has kept it a secret this long. She didn’t even tell us she was having sex with him.”

  “What if I wasn’t?” Chyna asked, turning back around. She crossed one bare leg over the other and watched the shimmer of her nude dress play off the dim lighting in the room.

  All three girls laughed and shook their head in disbelief.

  “You were,” Ravenna insisted. “The man is too obvious.”

  “Well, we did work in his apartment,” Chyna said, licking her lips.

  “Yeah, I bet you used his camera.” Giovanna winked.

  Chyna couldn’t hold back her laugh at that comment. It was too true for her to even begin to deny it. Marco was obsessed with his camera, and he liked to capture everything behind his lens.

  “Oh my God! Did you make a sex tape?” Brigitte cried, standing from her chaise when the thought hit her.

  Chyna bit her bottom lip and raised an eyebrow as she tried to hold onto her sense of mystery.

  “You did! That’s so hot! Can I see it?”

  “Brigitte!” Giovanna yelled.

  At the same time, Ravenna cried, “Me, too!”

  “I’m not showing it to you!” Chyna shouted, also standing in her excitement.

  “So, you did make one!” everyone cried at once.

  Chyna covered her mouth. She was laughing so hard. It hadn’t seemed so funny at the time when they were making it, or when they had watched it after, or when they had immediately jumped right in between the sheets again because they were so hot from watching it. Now, standing there with Brigitte, Ravenna, and Giovanna, the idea that she had made a sex tape seemed utterly hilarious.

  Ravenna put her hand against the wall to steady herself. “So, really, can we see it?”

  “No!” Chyna cried. “I’m not showing anyone else.”

  “Ugh,” Brigitte muttered. “At least tell us if he’s good or not.”

  “He’s better than good,” Chyna finally relented.

  “Natasha told me he was kind of kinky,” Ravenna said, straightening and eyeing Chyna more closely.

  Natasha? Chyna didn’t know a Natasha. They had worked with more than two dozen other girls this summer, but Natasha didn’t sound familiar. “Who?”

  “She was selected as Marco’s centerpiece two years ago,” Ravenna told her. “I was a favorite, but Natasha was selected before me. I’m not really sure why. She wasn’t all that spectacular.”

  Chyna had never thought about whether or not this had happened with another girl before. To be perfectly honest, she hadn’t cared whether or not he had been sleeping with other models while they had been together, let alone whom he had slept with before her. She was still getting the personal attention, and as. As long as she was still getting what she wanted—the modeling and the man—then she didn’t care if he diddled half of Milan. He still came back to her either way, so it hadn’t mattered. But, she was curious about this Natasha character.

  “And,
she said he was kinky?” Chyna asked, desperate to ask a different question.

  “Yeah. I wasn’t that close with her, but a friend of mine said that she’d tell her stories about getting tied up to some kind of furniture. I wanted all the dirty details, but Natasha was pretty tight-lipped, kind of like you. So, tell me,” Ravenna said with a curious expression, “does he tie you up? And, what kind of sex furniture does he have? I’ve been dying to know!”

  “This conversation is getting a little out of hand,” Giovanna said, pulling Ravenna back.

  Desperate to have answers, Ravenna had moved forward until she was mere inches from Chyna’s face.

  Ravenna swept her hand through her long red locks and walked around the room.

  “She’s a bit nuts,” Brigitte said, pointing her thumb at Ravenna. “Running for two years off of hearsay.”

  Chyna managed to laugh through her hammering heart. She wasn’t sure why she was so worked up at the moment. It wasn’t like it meant anything that Marco had tied up another woman to a sex toy. He had to have had them for a reason, but it was something in Ravenna’s eyes that had made her uneasy. She couldn’t even place it, but now, all she wanted to know about was Natasha. Whatever happened to Natasha?

  “What…” Chyna cleared her throat. She couldn’t ask that question. “What was she like? Natasha. To catch Marco’s eye? If she wasn’t that talented.”

  “Oh, she’s talented enough,” Ravenna said, waving her hand. “Just took her a long time. Marco was obsessed with her, like he is with you. She was a bubbly blonde with short curly hair. An American. Guess you have that in common, too. Actually, I think the centerpiece was American last year, too. Don’t remember her name.”

  “What happened to Natasha? After they were together, I mean.”

  Ravenna smiled, looking more and more true to the animal form her name was a derivative of. “Modeling still, I think. I remember my friend saying she was pretty devastated when Marco left her.”

  “Why did she get attached?” Chyna asked with a flippant air about her. She had been wondering that about herself for the past couple of weeks. She didn’t care if he fucked someone else, but she cared about him keeping her. Not even keeping her in the sense of a girlfriend by any means, but she wanted him to finger her irreplaceable. He needed her.

  “How could you not?” Brigitte asked softly from a corner of the room.

  “Yeah, I mean, I’m attached,” Giovanna whispered into the silence that followed.

  Chyna looked over to Ravenna. Ravenna was too strong, too abrasive. No way would she feel attached, too.

  Ravenna sighed, her eyes softening. “That’s the reason I’m back, isn’t it?”

  Chyna stared around at the three beautiful faces in front of her. Had she been in her own world so much the past two months that she hadn’t even noticed everyone else’s reaction to Marco? They didn’t talk about it. It had never come up. Yet, here they were all feeling the same thing in varying degrees of obsession.

  And then, there was Natasha.

  Chyna didn’t know what to make about her or that scenario. She hated the feelings running through her body. All she wanted to do was push them away, stomp on them in her high heels, and bury them six feet under. Was it terrible that she had thought she was special? Was it worse that she was disappointed?

  The only time she had ever felt completely and singularly special was with Adam. Look at what she had done with that! Stupid Adam! Why was she even thinking about him today? That was the second time.

  “I think I should get back to the party,” Chyna said, her strength returning. “I have an Italian designer I need to speak with.”

  “Just one thing,” Ravenna said, grabbing her arm before she passed through the door, “was there kink?”

  Chyna smiled at her like she was a child. “If you think tying me to a chair is the kinkiest thing Marco is interested in, you should think again.”

  With that, she brushed past Ravenna and walked back into the ballroom. The room had started to clear out, but there were still plenty of stranglers binging on the free booze. Her radar went off as soon as she entered, and she spotted Marco with the same reporter from earlier. He was blatantly flirting with her at this point. Guess he wasn’t coming for her after all.

  She passed a drunk couple who started discussing her dress behind their hands. When she looked over at them, they straightened as best they could and turned away. Apparently, whatever they had been saying wasn’t pleasant. Even better.

  She just wanted to go home—not back to her penthouse but back to New York. Her Italian tour was basically over, and she wanted out before she was completely jaded to everything that had happened. She preferred to look back on what had happened here with a smile, knowing it was her first real modeling gig.

  A passing waiter offered her a drink, and she graciously took it. She was being melodramatic about the whole affair. She had gotten nothing out of it she hadn’t asked for herself. Who was she to think that Marco wouldn’t discard her with a passing fancy?

  The champagne swirled around in her glass as she stared down at it, contemplating her predicament. Maybe she should just leave with someone else. She smiled up at the cute waiter who had given her the drink, and he smiled back. His cheeks turned crimson as her heated gaze landed on him. He would do just fine, if she had any interest at all, but she didn’t. She hated knowing she could do better, and she let that small fact dictate who she took home. It never had before, but she had gotten even pickier since Adam. God, that man was stuck in her thoughts! They had broken up! Who cared what he was doing now or that Alexa had said he was hurting? It had been mutual, and he had delivered the final blow anyway.

  “Whatever,” she mumbled, breaking eye contact with the cute waiter. She didn’t even bother to acknowledge happiness that his face fell when he realized she wasn’t going to approach him.

  Chyna took another sip off of the expensive imported champagne and turned her attention back to Marco. He better fuck her right tonight. If she was being discarded, she damn well wanted a consolation prize. But, she didn’t see him. Had he left with the reporter already? No, she zeroed in on the reporter who now looked sullen in his absence. That bitch had been trying for some Italian ass all night, and it was kind of comical that he had likely turned her down. What a tease. Guess Ms. Cupcake didn’t cut it.

  But then, where was Marco? Her eyes darted around the room for her man. Usually, she could spot him in an instant, but he wasn’t there. If he wasn’t’ at Glam Ball, where was he and why had he left her?

  Not finding him, Chyna’s frustration got the best of her, and she left the main ballroom. The party was basically over. If Marco had, in fact, left the building, then it was officially over. Everyone else in that room didn’t matter to her. If she wanted, she could get another job with any one of them without the proper introduction. But, she wanted the best, and she was going to fucking get it.

  She stomped back to the director’s office where her clothes had been discarded. When she walked in and saw that big fucking desk sitting in the middle of the room, her body warmed all over, and her body clenched up at the dirty thoughts running through her mind. He should have fucked her on that desk. That way she wouldn’t be so horny and desperate for him to be inside of her now.

  “Asshole,” she grumbled, coming around the backside of the desk. She reached out for her pile of neatly folded clothing, and on top of her clothes, she found a small envelope with her name scribbled on the front. She would recognize that handwriting anywhere. Her lower half pulsed as her imagination took off, but her heart also constricted in fear that this was the end. Would he leave her with just a note?

  She opened the crisp white envelope and pulled out the gold-trimmed card stamped with Marco’s logo on the front. Her shaky hands flipped it over and read the short message on the back.

  Backstage entrance. Blue Bugatti. Don’t think about taking off that dress.

  Chyna wasn’t sure she had ever moved that
fast. She left her clothes, sitting discarded on the desk, and rushed out of the director’s office. She turned away from the party and down the empty hallway, following the signs to the stage. A stray janitor gave her a suspicious look as she bolted past him, but he didn’t do anything to stop her. Soon enough, she found the stage and the big sign indicating the exit. Without a backward glance, she pushed the heavy door open and walked into the back alley of the theatre.

  As promised, a shiny blue Bugatti revved in the narrow street. The car was fucking gorgeous. Panty-dropping hot car! She licked her lips and cautiously approached the passenger side. The windows were tinted so dark that she couldn’t make out an outline of the driver, but she could hazard a guess.

  Slowly, the passenger door lifted upward, rather than out, as it turned a hundred-and-eighty degrees vertically, displaying the cream leather interior. Chyna picked up the train of her dress and slid into the car without a second thought. The door closed behind her automatically, and she turned to face the man sitting in the driver’s seat.

  “About fucking time,” Marco said, shifting into gear and pressing on the acceleration.

  He turned around the corner and onto the main street. He looked over at her and smirked. That was all the warning she was given before he punched the accelerator, going zero to sixty in just over two seconds, throwing Chyna backward into the seat.

  “Holy shit,” she muttered, quickly buckling her seat belt. This thing was fast!

  He merged into traffic, out pacing every other car by a long shot. Other cars mercifully got out of his way as he flew past them. The images blurred in her vision and made her stomach twist. She looked up at the sky to ground her. How fast were they going anyway? She turned her head to the speedometer and saw the top speed written as four-hundred-thirty kilometers. They were sitting at just over half that. Her head spun. How fast was that? She couldn’t do conversions in her head.

  “How fast can this thing go?” she asked as he veered around another car.

  God, we were so close to that thing. One wrong move…

  But, Marco hadn’t made a single wrong move. He was a natural behind the wheel, handling the beautiful car with the ease of a race car driver. Why had they never gone driving before if he had this thing?