Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 126485 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126485 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
I flushed. “I—don’t.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He hung up. I gnawed on my lower lip, hoping this wasn’t a mistake.
The girl in front of me rolled her eyes then tossed her hair over her shoulder, slapping me in the face with it. I took a step back and leaned against the wall. I resigned myself to hours of boredom unless Lorcan sent me someone. I wasn’t sure if he would. Maybe he saw it as a lesson for me.
“Wow. Do they do male models too?”
“He could play the new sexier version of Wolverine,” another girl muttered.
Leaning with my back against the wall, I had started to doze off, bored to death and tired of the bitchy glares from the girls around me. My lips parted in surprise when Lorcan climbed up the steps to the first landing where I waited. He was sweaty, dressed in oil-smeared cargo-pants and an olive-green wife-beater that accentuated his muscles. Heavy steel-toed boots rounded off his outfit; his attire would have gotten him the role of the villain in any movie.
Seeing the lusty looks of the girls around me, I felt a hint of jealousy that caught me by surprise. Lorcan said I wouldn’t have to share him, and now I realized I definitely didn’t want to.
Lorcan stopped beside me and bent down for a very long, very dirty kiss that had my cheeks blasting with heat when he finally pulled back. Everyone’s attention was on us now. I had to stifle a smug smile at the stunned looks on the girls’ faces.
“I’m here to help. Now let’s hurry. I have actual business to attend to.” Lorcan took my hand and tugged me past the girls in front of me.
“Hey!”
“Even if you’re her manager that doesn’t give you the right to cut the line!”
Lorcan gave the girls a harsh smile. “A word of advice. Kittens should keep their claws in when playing with a tiger.”
They blinked and he pulled me farther up the stairs, through a door and into a waiting room that was also filled with waiting girls. The woman behind the reception counter rose to her feet and immediately shook her head. “That’s not how it works!”
“You’re obviously new here, so I’m going to cut you some slack.” Lorcan pushed us past the waiting girls, and he leaned over the counter. “Get Greg. Tell him he needs to talk to my wife.”
The woman still shook her head, completely aghast. “Greg is busy, and if you don’t leave right now, I’ll call the police.”
Lorcan chuckled. The woman reached for the phone on her desk, but Lorcan rammed a knife through the screen, splintering it.
“Greg can suck dick later. Tell him Lorcan is here. He’ll make time. Now.”
My face burned in shame, but I held my head high as if I was used to this. I didn’t come here to play nice. I came here to succeed, and if that required using Lorcan’s very effective scare tactics then so be it. I’d just confess everything to Gulliver and ask him to absolve me. It had worked for the Devaneys for years, so it should work for me now too.
The woman was frozen in place. A door down the hall opened, and a man with intricately styled hair, a pink blazer and sneakers with sparkling glass shards all over them walked out. His hair was died blue, but the pale tint of his skin and his freckles told me he was Irish. I just knew it without a single word out of his mouth.
“Greg,” Lorcan said.
Greg’s eyes widened comically. He looked at his receptionist, cleared his throat, then said, “It’s okay, Masha. I’ll handle it.”
He waved Lorcan and me toward the room and ordered the rest of his team outside. He scanned me with a small frown. “I do everything I can to make you happy, Lorcan, but I need very tall girls for my upcoming show.”
I laughed. “I don’t want to be a model.”
Greg glanced between Lorcan and me. “I paid what I owe. You know I’ll pay the rest after this show. It’ll be a success. The critics love my new collection, and I have so many new girls under contract. It’s amazing.”
“Greg’s the owner of this agency but also a budding fashion designer. A fox to guard the henhouse.”
“I’m gay. These girls don’t have to sleep with me to be successful.”
“Wasted chance, if you ask me.”
I wasn’t sure if they were teasing each other. Greg definitely held a great deal of respect for Lorcan, even fear, but there was something more … as if they had known each other for a long time.
“What can I do for you if you’re not here to make this girl a model?”
“This girl is my wife, and I’d like to keep her sexy body to myself.”