Page 2 of The Last Kind of Kiss
Luxury emanates from Rebecca’s slender frame, and her fine taste is obvious from the black, sculpted blazer hugging her shoulders. Her bob of hair is slicked back to utter perfection, and even though the gauntness of her cheekbones alludes to her being older, her makeup doesn’t make her look a day over thirty. A cherry tint fades over defined lips, thick brushstrokes of mascara line feathery lashes, and full-coverage foundation conceals any possible blemish on her otherwise flawless skin.
“As you know, we’ve been looking at you to be the face of the newest Menoulé fragrance. You’re exactly the kind of model needed to sell this. You’re sophisticatedly elegant with an understated sensuality; you’ve got a fresh look; and you’ve got an astronomical social media following. Honestly, this job is yours to lose,” Rebecca says, flicking her eyes up to me in a nearly knee-buckling look. She sears a hole right into my eyes, and the air-conditioning does nothing to combat the flush of my skin or the film of sweat over it.
It’s mine to lose. So all I have to do is convince them that I’m the right choice without seeming desperate. I have to come off confident, but not arrogant. If I say the wrong thing, I can kiss this opportunity goodbye.
I straighten my spine as a smile gradually crawls across my lips. “I assure you, I’m the right person for this job.”
Rebecca mirrors my smile with one of her own, clasping her long fingers together on the table in front of her. “That’s what we like to hear. However, before we make our final decision, we need one more thing from you.”
Anything!I scream internally, trying to quell the desperation slowly overtaking me. I can taste this victory. It’s just within reach. I’m so close, and there truly isn’t anything I wouldn’t do. Do they want me to fight the other contending models to the death in aHunger Games-style arena? I’ll do it. Oh, I’ll so do it.
Thankfully, my sensibility catches up to me before I blurt out the insistence that’s, well,insistentabout airing out the fame-hungry demon inside me.
“Of course. I’m up for anything,” I assert confidently.
One of the more unamused casting directors scoffs under his breath, but Rebecca remains poised and professional, maintaining a disturbing amount of eye contact with me. “As you know, you’ll be starring with another model for the perfume ad and the subsequent magazine covers, yes?”
“I am aware.”
“We want to do a chemistry shoot with you and the male model. As soon as possible so we can go ahead with shooting,” she explains.
I’ve done plenty of chemistry shoots in the past with other models, and I’ve aced them every time. Playing up romance for the public is all show. It rarely ever turns into something substantial. I’ve tried to date in this industry a few times, and I’mdefinitelynot doing it again. Men make me…ugh. They make me want to strangle them most of the time.
Luckily for me, though, sex appeal is something I’ve never struggled with. This will be a piece of cake. All I have to do is bat my eyelashes, touch his arm a little bit, inflate his ego so hethinks he’s the shit, and thenwham, bam, thank you, ma’am, the job is mine.
“Of course. When would you need me to come back down for the chemistry shoot?” I ask, scrambling for my phone to set a calendar reminder.
The casting director who’s done nothing but stare at me with blistering disdain curls his lips. “We were hoping you’d be up for doing the shoot right now,” he discloses, turning his aquiline nose up and still eyeing me like I’m a piece of half-melted gum stuck to the bottom of his hideous Ferragamo loafers.
I’m calling him Gangrene Dick in my head. I said that in my head, right? Yeah, I think I did.
Right now? Uh. Right. Okay. Minor setback. I wasn’t mentally prepared for a chemistry shoot today, but I can do this. I think. I just need to focus on what’s at stake here—which is only the future of my career as a successful model.
I’m not sure how long I wait to answer them, but all five pairs of eyes blink expectantly at me. I have to clear my throat because my saliva’s dried up in the time it took for the inner panic to set in.
“Of course. I’d be happy to do a shoot right now.” My voice cracks toward the end, and I try to keep a mask of professionalism plastered to my face.
“Excellent,” Rebecca says, pleased. “For the male model, we’ve decided to go with a rising athlete in the sports world. With the traction he’s getting from games, he’s the perfect candidate to bridge the gap between high luxury consumers and sports fans. His rugged edges juxtaposed with your feminine curves will be a winning pairing. And we think you two would look great together.”
An athlete? I’ve never done a shoot with an athlete before, but hey, there’s a first time for everything. As long as he’s not ahockey player. That would be,hah, that would be a fucking disaster.
I’ve been down that slippery road before. And the worst part of it all? I was really starting to fall for him…until he ended things with me out of the blue, insisting that he was “just not ready for a relationship,” even though he’d been stringing me along for months.
I set my purse by my feet. “Sounds perfect.”
“Great, we’re gonna have him come in, and you two can introduce yourselves.”
With bated breath and a concerningly fast heart rate, I lock my gaze on the door, starting to feel more than antsy as I drum my fingers against the sides of my legs. I don’t know what to do with my arms. Do I fold them? Do I just let them hang? If I don’t move, I’m going to explode.
I’m being ridiculous, right? I have nothing to worry about, so I should just chill. Yeah, Lila.Chill.Casting directors can smell fear from a mile away.
A few seconds of silence hang thick in the air before thesnickof the door echoes throughout the room, and I can hear my potential future costar laughing about something that someone must’ve said outside. His body is turned away from me, but from the back, it looks like he has a muscular physique. He’s clearly been gifted with some God-given height, and his luscious hair curls down his nape in a way that tells me this man’s hair probably won’t recede until he’s seventy.
But as he turns around—which feels like some kind of weird slow-motion sequence in my brain—realization hits me with the force of a speeding Mack truck. My first reaction is to freeze. My second reaction turbocharges me with a rush of rejection and lovelorn heartache. Because the model they’ve hired—the one they could’ve picked from hundreds of teams from any sport inthe world—just so happens to be the very person I never wanted to see again.
Bristol Brenner. Captain of the Riverside Reapers hockey team. And the ex-fling that ripped my heart in half, shoved it into a shredder, then used those sad pieces of me as a cushion for his shoes as he walked out of my life.
Aka the man who’s incited so much anger in me that he’s become a main talking point between me and my therapist.
