Page 26 of Total Obsession

As much as I wanted to be mad at Zoey for how this evening transpired, I knew it also wasn't her fault. I had let her distract me, but she didn't understand that she was a distraction. It's just that I'd lusted after her demise for so long. To be able to finally initiate my plan for her, the plan that preceded all the rest, well, I guess I got a little carried away.

Within the hour I was cleaned up and sitting at my writing desk. The rowhouse I owned in Chelsea had been one of my better projects. A complete gut job to bring the thing up to a modern standard of living. I'd had bright new hardwood placed throughout, and the furniture was tastefully modern but still functional. In my opinion, some people went too far with the concept of modernism and ended up creating houses that were unlivable.

My office was on the third floor, and when I was in London, which was often enough, it's where I did my planning. There wasn't much in the room. The bright white shelving was mostly empty save for a few of my favorite history books. A simple black desk stood in the middle of the room atop an area rug. The place was a tad bit sterile, but that's how I liked it.

I didn't want distractions in this room.

I typed the code into the locked drawer, letting it release, and the bottom slid aside, letting my black notebook and tablet drop into my hands. I opened my notebook up to tonight's target and reviewed everything that I'd set up. Opening the tablet, I took a look at the timestamps of when I was sent the police raid photos, compared it to my own schedule, and then contemplated where things had gone wrong.

There was no getting around it.

Where things had gone wrong was that I'd been focused on Zoey for the last 36 hours. The email had come in before our flight. I should have seen it. Except, I wasn't paying attention.

I was watching how good she looked with her lips swollen from my kisses. I was watching how peaceful she looked sleeping. I was watching the curve of her hips and the lift of her smile.

What I wasn't watching was my email or my back.

I let out a deep sigh and leaned back in my chair. I needed to figure out a way to continue doing what I needed to do for work, but also see my plan with Zoey through to the end. It was too important to me not to see it through, and I'd regret it if I didn't.

I'd need to think more about that particular problem in the morning. For now, I'd been up for going on 36 hours. If I didn't sleep soon, I'd be in a worse situation.

Making my way back down to the second floor, I climbed into the plush bedding. Just because I was in the business of murder didn't mean that I didn't enjoy the finer things in life.

I went to set my phone on the nightstand next to me, but there waiting for me was one lone notification.

eight

ZOEY

It seemed surreal to be coming back to my Milan apartment. I was scheduled to start filming back in New York within the next two weeks, so I knew that my time here was limited.

I also knew that I had some serious planning to do because as of right now, I'd not yet been able to find an apartment in New York that was close enough to where I needed to be but still within my budget. The city had gotten exorbitantly expensive, and even though it looked like I was living the life of glamour, I was still a relatively new actress. It's not like I was pulling in huge dollar amounts with this new gig. It was more about exposure than anything else.

For the moment, I'd planned to just show up in New York and stay at a hotel for a bit. It's not like I really had much to move. Just a few suitcases of clothing. The rest of the furniture I was going to leave in Milan. Trying to pay for international movers for an IKEA-style full-size bed and a particle board dresser didn't really make sense.

Yet, despite these very important matters, not to mention reviewing my lines in anticipation of the actual filming itself, all my mind wanted to do was wander back to the last 36 hours I'd spent with Axe.

"What's got you looking so chipper?" Cassie asked me. She was holding a glass of white wine, which was basically all the girl consumed these days. The agency had told her that she was looking a little heavy, despite the fact that you could see basically all of her ribs, and her cheekbones had become even more pronounced on her face these days.

I shook my head frantically as I crashed onto the couch. "Nothing." I really did not want to start getting into it with Cassie. I just was not in the mood to deal with one of her jealous fits.

She widened her eyes and seemed annoyed. "Fine. How was New York?" She asked the question, but it seemed like she was doing it more out of obligation than anything else.

"Fine," I said, returning her tone.

She rolled her eyes at me, and I feigned a yawn. "I'm exhausted. I think I'm going to head to bed."

"Right, sure," she muttered. "I'll just ignore the fact that you got dropped off here in an overly large executive sedan a day later than expected rather than a cab back from the airport."

I hesitated. I had to resist the part of myself that couldn't stand the idea that someone was mad at me. I tried to tell myself,"so what if she's mad at me? I'm allowed to see an old friend, and he's allowed to hire a car to bring me back from his private jet."

I sighed. Even to myself, it did seem a little over the top. Except, this was the dream for girls like us, right? Find a rich guy when we started getting to the age where the industry didn't want us anymore. Some guy who could revel in the fact that he had a "model" as a wife.

Well, that wasn't my dream, but I was pretty sure it was Cassie's. So, I guess I could understand her jealousy.

"Okay, sounds good," I finally said to her, making my way to my bedroom. I closed the door and tried to push down the guilt that I was feeling about how I'd responded. I knew it wasn't nice, but then, it wasn't nice what she was doing to me, either. She should be happy for me.

I crawled into my tiny bed and pulled out my phone. The last text from Axe was sitting at the top of my messages.

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