Page 88 of On a Fault Line

“Please don’t tell Collins that I freaked out.”

He’ll never allow me at another photoshoot again if he learns how upset I got at this one. Maybe it’s too soon to be here. Maybe I’m not as healed as I pretend to be.

If Collins sees me now, he’ll know right away something is wrong with me.

Gino watches as I pick myself up out of the water and wring out my outfit. “I’m sorry I ruined the photoshoot.” Then I notice Chris is soaked from the knees down. “I’m sorry.”

I can’t stop apologizing.

I literally ruined everything.

“Sweet girl,” Gino soothes, “you didn’t ruin a single thing. I got so many amazing shots.”

“Ones of me crying?”

“You’d be surprised how gorgeous someone can look when they are a slave to their true emotions. It’s not just pretty posed pictures that sell merchandise. Real women sell it.” He gives me a warm smile. “And as far as I can tell, you are beautifully real.”

I wipe at a tear running down my cheek. “Thank you,” I whisper, feeling vulnerable again. I’m long overdue for a therapy session. If I’m going to stay out of the facility, I need to start taking better care of myself.

When we make it back onto dry land, Gino’s assistant hands me a towel. I wrap it around my upper body, twisting the ends between my fingertips. He eyes Gino, who brushes him off with the sweep of a hand.

Chris is back to his hovercraft ways.

Taking out his cell, he appears to send out a text.

Dammit.

“Please tell me you aren’t betraying me.”

He sighs. “I don’t think you quite understand my self-preservation skills or Collins’s need to make sure you are safe at all times. If I choose to lie, I choose to die.”

“I’m safe,” I grumble.

“You need to be mentally safe as well,” he chides.

I shrug. “I cried. People cry. Let’s move on.”

A chill hits my body again, as I remember seeing Mark Tanner’s face in the audience of onlookers. He’s haunting me, and he isn’t even dead.

And I don’t think there are enough therapy sessions that can negate the impact he made on my entire future.

He tainted me.

And his memory is a stain that can’t be eliminated.

I hate him.

I fucking hate him.

And as long as he is on this earth, I feel like he’ll always have a choke hold on me.

I am wrapped in a blanket that I don’t even remember being placed around me when Collins arrives.

There’s no point being mad at Chris. He was just doing his job—just as Collins is doing his.

I am the assignment.

The assignment…

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