Page 25 of Picture Perfect Love

Abby

My cheeks were red hot as I returned to work, trying to look and act as busy as possible despite how flustered I was. The looks my co-workers were shooting me certainly wasn’t helping matters any.

“What!?” I snapped at Valerie, brushing at my cheeks as if I could wipe the flushness away.

“Nothing,” she said snidely. “I just couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with rich Mr. Hottie out there.”

“We all overheard it,” one of the other girls added.

“Yes, Val. We can all see he’s hot, but I don’t see what him being rich has to do with anything.”

“It matters when he’s offering to move you into his mansion and pay for you to finish school without working these shitty waitressing shifts.”

“He doesn’t live in a mansion,” I shot back, but she stared back at me, not backing down. “It’s a penthouse.”

“Uh-huh. I figured as much,” she grumbled. “Look, I’m just saying I wish I had some good-looking millionaire making me that kind of offer. I would have been walking straight out that door with him, and I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you—That’s for damn sure.”

“You don’t know what you’d do,” I defended. “I don’t know him well enough to start depending on him like that. Hell, even if I had known him for years, I don’t know if I could ever put myself in that kind of position with someone I was seeing. What if he changes his mind? Then what happens to me? I end up with no job, no money, no place to live…”

“I guess you’d just have to try and finish school before that could happen,” she suggested.

“You’re insane,” I told her, rolling my eyes.

“I’m with Abby on this one,” our co-worker, Cassie chimed in.

“Thank you,” I flashed a smug grin.

“A guy like that is too unpredictable. I wouldn’t trust him. How do you know he’s not going to go after some other girl next month or next week? Then Abby would be heartbroken and screwed… and not in the way she’s wanting.”

I looked over my shoulder at the guys cooking along the stove and countertops behind us. Their lips were curled in perverted smiles. “If we could not talk about me getting screwed right here in front of everyone we work with, I’d appreciate it.”

“Here, look at this,” Cassie added, pulling out her phone. She started scrolling through the most recent gossip profile on Joshua. “He’s jumped from actress to model to any other skanky floozy who catches his eye. Notorious playboy.”

“I knew that already,” I assured her.

“Yeah, but he’s also known for being the freeloader at his company. He rakes in all the money and status without doing any of the work.”

“We’ve talked about that some too. It’s more complicated than you think.”

“Sounds like you do know him after all,” Valerie chided.

“I’m just saying you can’t trust a guy like that,” Cassie warned.

“Well, our girl is nothing like these money chasers and random chicks he’s getting weird with at the clubs,” Valerie defended. “She’s different. She’s special.”

“Special to us, sure. But to him?”

“She’s special to anyone who has eyes and half a brain and doesn’t want me coming after them to beat their asses for not treating her like a goddess, as she deserves.”

“Alright you two. That’s enough,” I groaned. “Thank you. I love and appreciate all of this. Well, some of it anyways. But I’m a big girl. I can make my own decisions. And I don’t need some guy I just met a few weeks ago trying to support me through school.”

“You just might,” our boss announced, huffing into the kitchen. “If he keeps showing up here like that and getting all of you all worked up, you’re sure as hell not going to work here anymore. You might want to reconsider his offer.”

I started shoveling trays of food into my arms, as many as I could carry, and started out the door just to prove to him that he didn’t have to worry. But I could still feel his distrusting eyes burning into me for the rest of my shift. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he called me later that night to fire me instead just to ensure he had me around to finish the shift before letting me go.

But somehow we made it through the rest of the event without any more word from Joshua, or any more gossip about him among the others. That didn’t mean I had any luck in not thinking about him though. Every idle second in my brain was devoured by thoughts about his offer, or his charming smile, or that irresistible body of his.

Cassie’s take on it all stood out to me as well. So much so that by the time I made it home after work, I couldn’t resist doing some more digging on him myself. The tabloids and paparazzi seemed to be mildly obsessed with his shenanigans, so there was quite a bit to read. But in all of it, there was nothing about a serious relationship of any kind. Any girl he was photographed with never appeared by his side more than once. They were there one day, gone the next—replaced by his next conquest.

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