Page 106 of Play Dirty

Ugh.

That means I’ve been tagged somewhere.

Brenna better not be up to something.

I open the app and the first thing that pops up is a picture of Stevie.

With L’il Barracuda.

Laughing up into his face, his arm slung casually around her shoulders.

Well, I guess that tells me everything I need to know.

I can’t believe this is happening again.

She’s technically not cheating, but I can’t help but think of the last time she was out with him. Had it been as innocent as she made it seem? Was I that gullible to have believed her?

I don’t know, and I probably never will.

And it fucking hurts like hell.

Chapter34

Stevie

The one goodthing about modeling is that it keeps you busy. In my line of work, that can be a good thing or a bad thing, but right now I’m only focusing on the good. The fact that I have a reason to get up every morning, somewhere to go, and that I’m making money. It doesn’t make up for the loneliness, but it keeps me from dwelling on it.

I don’t know if anything will help me get over Marty, or stop missing him, but work is the one thing that distracts me.

And living in Paris for the last month has been as wonderful as I always imagined it could be, loneliness notwithstanding.

I gave my agent the go-ahead to find me jobs, and offers started coming in right and left. Photo shoots, fashion shows, two commercials, and then that same perfume company that wanted me as a brand ambassador of sorts reached out. They’re located in Paris and asked me to fly out to do a test run. Once I got here, they set me up in an apartment and I never left.

The contract they offered me is…well, life-changing. I was rich before; now I’m fucking loaded. According to my attorney, it’s the biggest women’s fragrance deal in history: three years for twenty-five million dollars. They’re even structuring the payments so that I take a smaller tax hit.

Of course, the name of their new fragrance line, Adieu à L'amour—goodbye to love—is as ironic as possible, but I don’t care what they call it. They treat me like royalty, the owner of the company is a delightful octogenarian who makes me laugh every time we’re together, and she told me she chose me specifically because of what I went through with Damien. They were already considering me before the accident, and though they’ve tested other models since then, she always knew it would come back to me. What happened to me solidified it in her mind—she was just waiting until I was ready.

Honestly, Madame Bertrand has been a lifesaver, inviting me to dinners and evenings at the opera. Helping me explore the city and even practice my very rudimentary French. Our friendship is lovely, but at the end of the day, I’m still alone.

I’ve been losing weight again too, which means I can eat whatever I want. The issue, unfortunately, is that I just don’t want to; food has been tasteless since the breakup, so that’s part of it.

I’m doing my best to move on, find a new normal, and rediscover some semblance of my old life as a supermodel, but none of it feels right anymore. It’s almost like I’m not me, and I don’t know what happened to her.

The blank slate I’ve been so excited about seems to be mocking me and I’m frustrated because I knew who I was and what I wanted to do when I was in L.A. Now that I’m not there anymore, I just can’t seem to get a handle on it.

I’m not stupid. I know this is at least partly due to breaking up with Marty. I have a lot of distractions, but he’s always there, lurking in my subconscious. I’ll see something in a store and want to buy it for him. I’ll eat something I know he likes and wish he was here to share it. A children’s book will remind me of the kids… it’s all so frustrating.

Why does doing the right thing feel so shitty?

My melancholy thoughts are interrupted by my phone buzzing, and I see my lawyer’s name on the screen.

“Hey, what’s up?” I ask when I answer.

“We have a court date,” she says without preamble.

“Oh, geez. When?”

“Starting October fifteenth.”

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