Page 29 of Take Hold of Me

It is my turn to shrug.

“He asked about you when I ran into him, even though he was out and about with Geonna—”

Val’s already large eyes widen to the size of saucers and she downs the remainder of her drink. With shaky hands, I put my water bottle on the floor. Finding out that he is withheris a bitter pill. “Are they dating?”

“I think it’s just a PR stunt.”

Rinaldo adores the spotlight, and Geonna certainly brings that. “Have you met her?”

“Yeah. She’s nice in a newbie sort of way.”

I do not want to know her as a human being. It is so much easier for me to compete with her for gigs when she is an abstract. “Has she gotten any of your contracts, too?”

She pets her puppies. “A few. She got the shoot that I was up for in the south of France, which is why I had time to pop over to Ibiza. I considered myself lucky to be able to play instead of work.” She smiles and tilts her glass back again.

My eyebrows raise at her attitude, but I should not be surprised. Val, two years my junior at twenty-three, has always been fun-loving and a live-in-the-moment type of woman. Spending money as soon as it hits her bank account. But still, Geonna is impacting her career—and bottom line—as well. “Don’t you ever worry about the future?”

“Nah. The future will take care of itself. Besides, I’m too busy having fun to worry. C’mon, honey, we have the best life—jetting off to wonderful islands, staying in luxurious places, wearing amazing clothes. Always with hot men, some of whom are straight.” She giggles. “What more could we want?”

Not waiting for me to reply, she continues, “Besides, everyone wants to be us. Did you see that my hashtag was trending on Twitter last week? A whole day! #MochaModelMojo. People posted memes of me strutting the catwalk and out at parties. You were in some of them! You should check it out. Here.” Val picks up her cell phone and shows me her Twitter feed. I do not remember the last time I bothered checking my professional account, which is handled by the Agency. I prefer my private Instagram account, where I can help real people solve real style problems.

Some of the photos she tweeted of us make me laugh. We did have good times. She shows me one from a pool party in Las Vegas, and my smile enlarges. “I am going to be there next weekend.”

“That city is ace for a shoot. I am going to be in Puerto Rico next weekend. Another beach.” She brings her hand to her forehead and sighs dramatically.

I giggle at her theatrics. “Sounds rough, Val. But, no, I am not going to Vegas for work.” I puff up. “I am going to Rose Morgan’s bridal shower. I have been helping with the planning.”

She reels backward. “Oh my goodness, bridal showers are deadly boring, don’t you know that?”

I shake my head. “Not this one. I know about a crazy scavenger hunt the maid of honor planned. It will be fun.”

As I reach for my water bottle, something huge and seriously ugly crawls over my hand. It takes a second for the appearance of a hard outer shell, antenna longer than its head and long, spiny legs to coalesce in my brain as a bug. A huge bug. It has to be at least six inches long.

I start screaming “AAAHHHH!!” just as Val chimes in with, “OOOOHHH MYYYYY GODDDDDD!!!!” Her puppies take one look at the thing and scamper away. Some guard dogs.

Val grabs onto me. Together, we bound off the window seat, still screaming bloody murder.

From somewhere behind me, the door slams open. Wills jumps into the room, his eyes darting everywhere all at once. “Emilie! Are you okay?”

Jumping and shaking my hands—just like Val—I point to the offensive insect. I cannot speak as my vocal chords are otherwise in use. Very loud use.

His head swivels to follow my finger’s path. When his eyes alight on the creature that caused the uproar, the lids close and he takes a deep breath. Turning his head, the light blue dancing in them causes me to shut down my yelling. Next to me, Val stops her screaming on an intake of breath.

Lips pulled tight to hide what I suspect to be a grin, Wills says, “It’s just a bug.”

I swallow to provide moisture to my throat, and reply, “It isnotjust a bug. It is as large as a brick! And it walked over my hand.” I shake my fingers to illustrate, and Val grabs my hand.

Wills walks to the window. With every step forward he takes, Val and I retreat one. She stoops down and picks up her puppies. When Wills stops and drops to his haunches, his t-shirt rises, revealing a portion of his muscular back. Damn, he is hot—even if I am still mad at him for abandoning me when it came to Wade. Val goes still. Turning my head to look at my friend, she ogles his backside as if he were a vat of Dawa cocktails she wants to dive into.

Before I can process her reaction, a young boy races into the overcharged room carrying what appears to be a cage of some sort. He is trailed by an older woman, perhaps his grandmother or a nanny. “Don’t hurt him! Don’t hurt him, mister! He’s harmless.”

As if this scene could not get any more bizarre, all of us adults look at each other. The older woman clears her throat. “He insisted on getting a Titan Beetle as a pet, and his dad couldn’t say no.” The little boy scoops up the bug and puts it into the cage. On their way out the door, he mumbles, “Sorry he got away.”

Wills folds at his waist and starts laughing. Despite how mad I am at him right now, I just know that, unlike the Titan Beetle, I do not want my bodyguard to get away.

---