Page 61 of Shape Of My Heart
Chapter14
Amy managedto closethedoor.
They’d destroyed the lock when they got in so she couldn’t secure herself in properly. She put the bin in front of the door to hold it shut because that was all shecouldmove.
Everything was gone. Her clothes, all her stuff, everything. All she had was what was on her back and inherbag.
Agonized by despair, she sat in the darkness, crying. Not knowing what to do or where to turn. She thought of Josh but didn’t want to call and involve him. Dom had a gun and he just told her he’dbeback.
What shouldshedo?
She was shaking so much she had to hug her knees to her chest to hold it all in. Fear knotted her insides, pulling her between anticipation anddread.
She stayed that way all night, crying and shaking until she watched the sunrise. Dom hadn’t come back but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t. She’d thought of every escape route she could use, but each would be bad. She was too high up to go through the window and there was no ledge or anything to grip on. It would be sure death. She thought of going out the corridor and making a run for it, but that was terrible, too, because either Dom or his lackeys wouldseeher.
She saw the way things worked here and always kept her head out of it for fear of getting mixed up. Now lookather.
As the time pressed on she thought about work. How was she goingtogo?
Amy managed to send both Josh and Hilda a message. She said she had a bad cold and wouldn’t be in today. Hilda messaged back instantly telling her to take care of herself. Josh didn’t message back. It was fine, he never usually responded to her messagesanyway.
She had to think of a way to leave. The only viable plan was to just make a run for it. The only problem was finding the strength and the couragetogo.
* * *
Josh shookhis head as he watched Hilda. They’d been at Zuma Beach all day with the crew from Sports Illustrated taking pictures of him for another ad he hoped would be the last. These sorts of events took up his precious time, precioustrainingtime.
“I can do this pose, or this.” Hilda did her best model’s pout and pose for the Sports Illustrated photographer who was having a field day with her. The poor guy had taken a shine to his pretty maid and had jumped at the chance to get a few snaps of her when he was donewithJosh.
Hilda was only too happy to accompany Josh to this dreadful shoot. He really hated anything like this and had been eager to get it over and done with. She’d come along to help with the PA stuff Amy would do and for the opportunity. Unknown to him, Hilda wanted to be a model and loved being in the spotlight. So this was goodforher.
He missed Amy today, missed her a lot. He’d gotten used to the fact of not seeing her on weekends, but the middle of the week felt off. He planned to take her some flowers tomorrow if she was still sick. She more thandeservedit.
Hilda skipped over to him with a bright smile on her face. “Oh my gosh, he just took my number and said he’d put me on the list for extras.” She looked soexcited.
“Sweetheart, you can do much better than working as an extra.” She could, she was beautiful, with her striking eyes and rich wealth of dark hair. “Hey Robert, or whatever your name is.” Josh signaled the photographer. He couldn’t quite rememberhisname.
“It’sRobin,sir.”
Josh knew it started with an R. “Does she look like a damn extratoyou?”
Hilda looked horrified. “Josh, I’m happy with whatever I can get.” She nodded at Robin and turned back to Josh. “This is the furthest I’ve gotten, please don’t ruin it for me,” she hissed at him under herbreath.
He ignored her. “You didn’t answer my question, Robin.” Josh eyed him with curiosity. “You just took a host of pictures and she proved she’s a natural. Why’d you do that if you were going to just add her to a list ofextras?”
“Okay, I’ll put you forward to be added to themodellist.”
Josh had a lot of influence with magazines like this. They knew he could always say no, and they didn’t want that because his pictures sold their magazines. There were plenty other athletes they could ask, but they seemed to like him. It wasn’t his fault that he was blessed with all the great looks God could give a man, and thebodytoo.
Hilda screamed and hugged him. “Thank you, oh my gosh.” Now she started jumping upanddown.
“I’m going to get back to sorting out those shots. But if you’re free we can go over some stuff on how it works,” Robin said. His tentative manner told Josh that was just a clever ruse to askHildaout.
Josh spoke before Hilda could answer. “Man, why don’t you just ask her out and be donewithit?”
Hilda’s face turned red, but wasn’t worse than Robin’s, whose face colored fiercely, making his fair features and blond hairstandout.
Josh wasn’t into this beating around the bush crap and making up clever excuses to ask a woman out. He’d never been like that and found it to be such a wasteoftime.
