Page 7 of Dirty Damage

The prospect of sitting across from Oleg Pavlov—discussing God knows what while he looks at me with thosestrip-you-naked-and-spank-you-raweyes—makes my stomach twist into a knot.

I’ve spent two excruciatingly long years learning how to avoid men who make me feel like that.

The ones whose attention feels both exhilarating and terrifying.

The ones who look at you like they already know all your secrets.

“I just…” I exhale shakily. “I hate confrontation.”

“No shit.” Mara’s expression softens. “Remember when that dad yelled at you for not finding his kid’s missing shoe, and you cried in the supply closet for twenty minutes?”

“It was fifteen minutes, max.”

She pats my shoulder. “Listen, it’s probably nothing. He’ll ask about the incident, tell you not to use the executive gym ever again under pain of death, maybe make you sign something saying you won’t sue if Chloe’s parents find out she was unsupervised while you did a strip tease. Then it’ll be over.”

I nod, but my throat’s still tight. Confrontation, dates, lawsuits—they all require the same thing: standing up for myself.

And that’s exactly what I’m worst at.

My afternoon break can’t come fast enough.

After the Princess Belle fiasco, I hide in the staff bathroom, obsessively refreshing my email and messages, waiting for the executioner’s digital ax.

But it doesn’t come.

Nothing from Pavlov Industries HR.

Nothing from Mr. Beast himself.

Maybe he forgot about me? A girl can dream, right?

Right on cue, my phone buzzes. For a heartbeat, panic seizes my chest—until I see it’s just an email from Starlight Photography in Vegas.

The subject line reads: “Your Glamour Session Photos—Ready for Download!”

Oh, God. I’d almost forgotten.

I tap the link, enter the password, and?—

Holy. Mother. Of. Cheesecake.

Guess it’s my day to remember I have boobs. First, the costume disaster; now, this.

The universe is really hammering home the point.

No points for subtlety in this life, I suppose.

The first image loads: me, draped across a velvet chaise lounge in black lingerie, hair tumbling over my shoulders, looking at the camera like I actually know what I’m doing.

Which, to be clear, I absolutely did not.

The photographer kept saying things like “Give me smolder!” and “Channel your inner goddess!” while I tried not to die of embarrassment.

I swipe to the next photo. Sydney and me, back-to-back, her in red lace, me in black, both laughing at some stupid joke she’d cracked about taking a ride on the photographer’s handlebar mustache.

My throat tightens.

Sydney’s smile in these photos is real—not the plastic one she wears around Paul, but the one I remember from when we were little girls.

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