Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 68743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
“Stop.” He grasped her hand, aware of the size difference, his large fingers over her smaller ones, and how cold her palm was from the frozen drink. He wrapped his fingers around hers. “You don’t owe me an apology. I get it.”
She met his gaze and a wry smile pursed her lips. “Maybe now you do. But back then? You thought I was a spoiled kid, right?”
His face grew warm and why was that? Since when did he get embarrassed? “I might have believed that, yes.” Thanks to his dealings with his model ex-girlfriend, youth, and a stubborn need to think he was right. “But I know better now. What else has happened? You mentioned these things keep happening to you.”
She sighed. “Well, my contract makes me sound like I’m difficult.” She pulled her hand back and rested her elbows on the table, her chin on her hands.
“In what way?”
“I can’t eat peanuts, so that has to be spelled out so there are none in food supplied to everyone at a shoot or on a runway walk. Otherwise, I need my own specially made meal provided for me.” She used her straw to mix the contents of the thick drink and took a sip.
He did the same with his. “Sounds reasonable.”
“It is. But told without context, it can be misconstrued, and someone leaked the contents of my contract, making me sound like a demanding diva.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “The next day, at a high-end photo shoot, the other girls whispered behind my back, treating me like I was too difficult to be around.”
Jesus. No wonder Derek said she had problems making and trusting friends.
“And that was only part of it. Social media sites posted exaggerated stories,” she went on. “Girls I work with claimed I would only drink a certain kind of expensive water, that someone had to pick almonds out of my salad, rude things like that.” She shrugged, as if she were used to it.
But how did anyone get used to people spewing lies and being mean around them?
“I tried to let it go, but my mother hates my name out there in any negative way, and she gave me hell about my behavior. As if she wasn’t fully aware of what was in the contract and why.”
“Why wouldn’t your parents take your side? Be there for you?” Asher’s family would go to bat for any one of them.
She swallowed hard. “Because all that matters to her is that nothing reflects negatively on my father. His goal has always been the White House. Nothing could get in the way. Not even their kids.”
He shook his head, unable to comprehend it but believing her entirely. Derek had always said as much, but he was the prodigal son, the good guy who never got into trouble. Apparently that role fell to Nikki.
“That all sucks,” he muttered. “I take it there’s more?” He wanted her to purge it all.
She nodded, staring at him with those trusting green eyes. He now understood how precious that trust was.
Reaching over, he squeezed her hand, urging her to continue.
“I get lost easily,” she said.
“Okay?” he asked, unsure what the issue was. “I assume many people are geographically challenged.”
She sighed. “I have a form of directional dyslexia, though that’s not the preferred term.”
He wrinkled his brows, still confused.
She tucked a strand of hair that had fallen out of her bun behind her ear. “It’s complicated but I truly have no sense of direction. I have to reteach myself left and right and I often forget. I can’t read a map. My parents never believed it was real, but trust me, it is.” She went back to circling the straw in her glass.
“And this impacts your career,” he assumed.
“Yes. But I’m aware of the potential for being late, so I’d leave early wherever I was staying. Even if I take a car and give them the address, finding where I’m going once I step out of the vehicle is a challenge. Add in a foreign country and language and it’s always worse.”
“That can’t be easy.”
“It’s not. I was late to photo shoots and that looks bad. It adds to the things that make Nikki difficult,” she said with finger quotes around the words. “It gave the girls reasons to be annoyed with me. Forget the fact that many of them went from the hotel to a shoot together and nobody called me to go with them.”
“They were jealous,” he concluded. “Of your family name and your beauty. No doubt they worried you’d outshine them.”
She blushed but didn’t deny the possibility. “Anyway, you get the gist. I don’t like sounding sorry for myself.”
“And you don’t. You sound like someone with legitimate issues who hasn’t been treated fairly. And now with the photos taken without your permission, you’re at your breaking point.”