Page 86 of Educating Arrogant Mr. Hunter

I thread my fingers through his, enjoying how well our hands fit together. “When he died, she became my manager. I hated it. I didn’t realize how much my dad protected me from the jerks and perverts. She didn’t care. She was too wrapped up in her career and resented the time she had to spend managing mine.”

“What an asshole.” He had no idea the depths of her hatred of me.

“Did anyone—”

“No, I was lucky. I knew enough to make friends on set, and stay in a crowd as much as possible.”

“Thank God,” he murmured against the top of my head. “I can’t believe how she could resentyouof all people.”

“Not in the way you’d think. She loved the extra money my modeling gave her to spend. But one day, we were reviewing next month’s jobs and working out the logistics, and she realized I had more scheduled than she did. She began to make it a competition to see who could book the most photoshoots. She wanted to be better than me, prettier than me. If she could have gotten rid of me without raising eyebrows, she would have.” I’d never admitted that out loud.

“What the hell!” His horrified response was exactly how I felt. I’d wanted Cynthia and I to be close, and it took a long time for me to understand her hatred stemmed from jealousy.

There were many days I wondered how far my stepmother’s obsession with beauty would take her, and what she’d do to me to get there. “The crazy thing is that my stepmother is gorgeous. She’s so beautiful that you look at her and think, how can one person be that perfectly created, but her insides are a direct contrast to her outside. People in the industry refused to work with her.” Flashes of her abuse raced through my mind. I hadn’t realized my breath was coming out in sharp pants until he started to make a shushing sound. Slowly, with his help, my breathing returned to normal.

“And she blamed you.” Bingo.

“She blamed me. Even though we never competed for the same jobs. I was a plus-size model almost my whole life. She’s a size two at her heaviest. Suddenly, when I turned eighteen, I started getting fewer jobs. She belittled me, said it was all my fault, forced me to go on diets, and reminded me daily I wasn’t society’s definition of true beauty. I found out later I didn’t get those jobs because people didn’t want to work with her, not me.”

“Fucking bitch.” His arms tightened around me as though he could have protected me from it.

Bitch was a pretty fair assessment of her. “By the time I was twenty, modeling was all I knew. I wasn’t qualified to do anything else, and she never wasted a chance to tell me that.” I swallowed hard, working to force down the lump in my throat.

He rained kisses down on my head and whispered soft words of support.

My voice shook as I recounted that last awful day. “She booked me a job but wouldn’t share the details.” I sniffed, my throat tightened as memories of that day washed over me. “She said it was going to jumpstart my career. When I got to the studio and asked where my outfits were, I was shocked when I was told I didn’t have any.”

His body stiffened as he guessed what was going to happen.

“I have nothing against models who choose to bare their bodies, but it wasn’t something I wanted to do or was ready for. When I told her to take me home, she refused. Said if I didn’t do this, I was finished, my career was over. I could go home, pack my bags, and move out. She knew I wouldn’t do that. I didn’t have access to my trust fund until I was twenty-five and had no money of my own.”

“She’s a disgusting waste of a human being for taking advantage of you.” If Cynthia was here, I have no doubt he would have decked her.

“That was the day I found out she’d recently taken my name off the bank account my paychecks were deposited into. I finished the photo shoot, and once I got home, I cried myself to sleep. The next morning, I decided that as soon as I could find another job, I’d quit modeling.”

“Babe. I can’t even… Hate isn’t a strong enough word for how I feel about her right now.” His body vibrated in anger. “Why the hell did the photographer allow her to coerce you?”

“They were friends. She kept insisting I was just nervous.” I sighed, feeling exhausted having to relive all of this. “I did end up calling the guy who owned the studio, and when he realized I hadn’t been a willing participant, he let me buy the rights and all the photos from him, and also signed a statement agreeing not to sell them.”

“What a champ.” His sarcasm was like a balm to my soul. I didn’t know how badly I needed someone to be on my side and agree that what happened wasn’t right. “How did you get the money to pay him off?”

“The guidance counselor I mentioned. I ran into her at the grocery store, and everything came tumbling out. She lent me the money, found me a decent paying job, and helped me apply to college.”

“She’s a fucking angel.” He had no idea.

“I sent her money later under the guise of her winning a contest.”

“Great minds think alike.” I laughed with him at the memory of him trying to do the same with the pizza he sent to my classroom.

“With her help, I went to school part-time and worked full-time. When I could access my trust, I had ten more classes left. The money I paid my guidance counselor and to pay for school were the only two times I ever touched that account. I paid off my tuition, put aside money for living expenses, and took my remaining classes. The next year, I finished my internship and graduated.”

He tilted my chin up so he could look into my eyes. “You are even more amazing than I’ve given you credit for.”

“Oh, stop it. Plenty of people have had crappy lives and pulled themselves out of a bad situation. I’m not unique in that.”

“No, but your continued positive outlook on life is. I grew resentful after my dad left us. I let his mistake color my view on relationships and life.”

“Think about it though. If we hadn’t gone through what we did, we wouldn’t be here today. And I love my life.”

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