Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 115833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
“Damn, who is that?!” someone yelled over my shoulder. EJ, our top point guard, hopped over the couch and wedged his six-foot frame between me and Javier. “Nah, for real. Who is that?” EJ asked while panting like a dog.
I side-eyed him. “Why the hell are you breathing so hard, man?”
“Oh, when you sent me that text, I was fucking Lula on the balcony. You know how it is, bruh.” EJ supplied a shit-eating grin. “Who you looking at?”
“Nobody.” I turned my phone away from him. “Just a girl I work with.”
“You fucking her?” he asked. This dude. So damn nonchalant.
“No, dumbass.”
“So why you all in her pics, then?”
“It’s not like that,” I muttered, then stood and slipped my phone into my back pocket. “We’re heading out.”
Javier followed my lead, giving EJ a nudge on the side of the head with his fingertips. “Choose better people to surround yourself with, EJ. This is ridiculous. I saw a woman in the bathroom with her fucking face in the toilet.”
EJ followed us to the door, going on about how lit his parties were, but of course we didn’t make it out without getting stopped over a dozen times to take pictures or to talk to a few of those B-list celebs.
When we were clear, I found my Ferrari and told Javier I’d meet him at our favorite bar, Rossi’s. I went through more of Davina’s pictures at the stoplights. I couldn’t help myself.
She didn’t post much, and she didn’t have many images of herself either. Most were of her products or scenery images from places she’d traveled to. There were a few off guards of her peppered throughout the feed, one of her showing off a dragonfly necklace she was clearly proud of, and then a picture posted four years ago.
She was in an ivory linen dress on the beach wearing a straw hat, and a man was holding her from behind, his hands low on her belly and his chin resting on her shoulder.
She seemed to be midlaughter as he gazed into the camera. He had tan skin, like he might’ve been biracial, curly dark hair, and bright eyes.
Ah.
So he was the lucky man.
I shut the screen of my phone off and gripped the steering wheel tighter. When the light turned green, I peeled off, ready for a strong drink to wash away my desire for a married woman.
SEVEN
DAVINA
“Today is fucked,” I grumbled. I blew out a gut-deep sigh and faced Tish, who was already standing beside me.
“No, it’s not, Vina. It’ll be fine,” she insisted. “We still have Kenji, and we’re on schedule.” Kenji was our backup photographer.
It was Deke’s photo shoot day, but our original photographer had ended up getting into a car accident on the way to the studio we booked. That was the last thing we’d expected.
“You’re right. You’re right.” I wrung my fingers around my phone while biting into my bottom lip.
“Stop that before you make yourself bleed,” Tish scolded, before dropping her eyes to her clipboard again.
“Sorry—I’m just . . . I really need things to go smoothly for the rest of the day.” That was a fact. I hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, too busy thinking about Lew.
I’d been thinking about him a lot more since that dinner with Deke. A part of me felt guilty for enjoying my time with another man. Acting like I hadn’t been clinging to my husband’s dead body just months ago.
“Everything will be okay. Relax.” Tish’s voice snapped me back in place. “Deke is getting dressed now, and Kenji is setting up. It’ll be great.”
Tish was right. Other than the terrible news from our photographer, the shoot went well. Deke was skilled, and watching him in action was a sight to behold. He didn’t complain and didn’t mind being instructed on what to do or how to pose with the products.
It was fun watching him be so calm and relaxed, shifting from pose to pose as if he did this for a living—well, let me retract. He did do this kind of stuff for a living, but never with body oils and lotions. It was always for sportsy stuff—Gatorade or Nike.
Deke was photogenic, to say the least. It was no wonder the media loved him.
When Kenji instructed him to take his shirt off, a few people whistled, and he couldn’t contain his smile. I found it hard to look away after that, drinking in the sleeves of ink on his arms, the sculpted abs glistening from one of my body oils. I was almost jealous of the assistant who’d helped spread the oil all over him.
Dear Heavenly Father, he was just too much. I had to grab a water and chug some of it down to calm myself.
When the shoot was wrapped up, relief washed over me, because it meant there could be no more hiccups. Kenji showed me a sneak peek of the raw images, and hope blossomed inside me. They looked so, so good. After editing, the images of Deke were definitely going to change the game.