by Anna Lewis
“I think… I need…” I tried to break free from the crowd, but one of them wouldn’t let me. He grabbed onto my waist and pulled me close to him, despite my obvious dislike of the moment. It wasn’t anything particularly about him. He was good looking enough. I just didn’t know him well enough to feel anything for him. I had no intention of faking it, and I had a feeling he did not want to stop at just dancing.
“Stay, dance with me,” he whispered into my ear. I tried my best to squirm away from him without dampening the mood but it didn’t seem to put him off. “Come on, loosen up, it’ll be fun.” I didn’t want to loosen up, especially as I got the sense of where that would lead. He wanted me in bed, but unfortunately for this guy his attempt at flirting was doing nothing for me.
I gripped my glass tightly between my fingers, until my knuckles went white. “I need to get another drink,” I lied, despite the fact that my glass was half full. “I’ll be back in a minute.” What I really needed was a miracle, a superhero, but that wasn’t about to happen any time soon.
“You still have plenty to drink,” he said with his face far too close to mine. “Just stay with me.”
I managed to free my wrists from his grip, and I stared at him defiantly. I decided to glare at him while I knocked back the rest of this drink, just to prove my point that I needed to go, but as I slowly put the glass to my lips, and I went to swig it backwards, someone stunned me by snatching it from my hands, pouring it all down my dress in the process.
“Kyle?” I gave him a terrible look as I patted down my dress. “What the hell are you doing?”
***
Kyle
I glowered at Ellie from the other side of the bar, actually resenting her for having a good time. It wasn’t that I wanted to wrap her up in cotton wool, or that I wanted to take complete control of her or anything, I just wanted her to save that smile for me. I didn’t like her giving it to any other guys.
As the male models danced around her and her friends, I could see that Ellie wasn’t interested in any of them, she wasn’t giving them any of those gorgeous, turned-on looks that she gave me, which made me feel a little better, but they didn’t seem to be put off by that at all. I had to keep really regaining control of myself, just to force myself not to go up to them and punch them in the face in turn.
Ellie is new to the city, I tried to remind myself. She wants to have fun, she needs to explore the world, to learn more about herself, and I really need to let her if I ever want her to come back to me. In fact, I’m kind of the one who started it by getting her to go to that first party!
But then she looked like she needed help, so I jumped up on my feet, ready for action at any moment. I held back while she tried to make her way through the crowd, I gripped tightly onto the table in front of me as one of the guys grabbed onto her, just waiting to see what her reaction would be. If she liked it, I couldn’t do anything, not without making a fool of myself, so I made myself wait, however hard it was.
But then I saw him doing something, using sleight of hand. Ellie wouldn’t have noticed it because she was so busy talking to him. No one else would have seen it because they were so wrapped up in their own nights, which was exactly what this guy was hoping for. He wasn’t counting on me watching him intently. I saw everything that he was doing.
He had slipped something into her drink.
With that I pushed my way through the crowds, not even caring about pushing people out of the way. They didn’t matter at that moment, only Ellie and her safety did, but by the time I got to her, the glass was at her lips and I had to snatch it clumsily from her, spilling some of it over her dress.
“Kyle? What the hell are you doing?” she snapped at me, looking very pissed off.
“He slipped something into your drink,” I shot back, glaring at that asshole. I wanted to punch him for what he was trying to do, but I didn’t think Ellie would appreciate that. “I don’t know what it was, but I saw him do it.”
“You were watching?” she gasped in shock, looking as if she didn’t even realize that I was at the party. I had been doing my best to blend into the background when I saw her having fun, however much I didn’t want to, so it was hardly surprising. “You saw?”
“I saw you trying to get away from him, and him grabbing at you, and I saw him put something in your drink.” I got up in the guy’s face, needing him to see that I meant business. “You can get out of my party now. I will make sure that you never work in the modeling industry again.”
“Whatever,” said the male model. He shrugged his shoulders casually at me, not even bothering to deny the accusation that I was throwing at him. “As if you have that much power.”
“You have no idea.”
“This party is lame anyway, so I’ll happily go.”
It got really difficult not to smack him, but somehow I managed to hold myself back. He would have a big shock coming to him when he couldn’t get any work again, especially as I recognized him from past jobs, and I knew that his name was Benjamin Hugh, but he wasn’t my priority at the moment. I needed to make sure that Ellie was okay. It was unlikely that she’d ever been through anything like that before.
“Are you alright?” I said. I wrapped my arms around her, noticing how wet she really was. She was shaking too, trembling with fear, and all I wanted to do was comfort her. “Do you want to get out of here?”
“Yes,” she whispered sadly, tears filling her eyes. “I want to go home.”
“Well, my place is nearer,” I told her without a hint of suggestion in my voice. “I can take you there first and get you something warm and dry to wear.” I just wanted more time with her, to ensure that she was okay. I didn’t want to leave her alone in the state that she was in. “Then I’ll take you home, okay?”
“Sounds good,” she smiled weakly at me through the tears. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry about your dress, I didn’t mean for that to happen, I just couldn’t let you drink that not knowing what was in it.”
“It’s okay,” she nodded quickly. “You saved me. If you hadn’t been looking then anything could have happened to me. It doesn’t even bear thinking about.”
Luckily I’d spent the entire night sober, wanting to keep my head on my shoulders, because that meant that I could drive her away from the party right away, without having to wait for a driver.
As I wrapped my arms around her, and I led her from the room, I realized how strong my protective side was. I enjoyed being the one to save Ellie then, it made me feel really good about myself. I’d never been able to do that for anyone before, Heather hadn’t needed it because she was too busy screwing other people, and I hadn’t cared enough about anyone since. It felt good to have someone who needed me to protect her vulnerability. It made me like her that much more.
***
Ellie
As the car whizzed along the city, my mind was all over the place. I couldn’t believe that Kyle had been watching out for me, and that he protected me, when he really didn’t have to.
Surely if all those things that his ex-wife had been telling me about him were true, then he would have moved on to someone else by now. He would have found a girl much more willing to drop her panties for him. He must have seen by now how inexperienced and unsure about myself I was, he must have realized that I wasn’t about to jump into bed with him, so why was he still here?
Was it possible that he actually cared about me?
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye as he drove, feeling my heart skip a beat as I saw him there, concentrating hard on the road. He’d shaved off his stubble, but he still looked just as rugged, just as dirty, just as gorgeous. Damn it, why did the one person I really liked have to be my boss? The man that I had to model with? The man that I’d been warned against?
“Where do you live?” I asked him, recalling him saying that it was nearby. But he didn’t answer me. Instead he pointed to the mansion in front of us, one that I could have fit about twenty of my apartments in. “Here?
” I gasped in shock. “Are you serious?”
“Yep, this is my home, brought with my own hard-earned money.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that. Kyle Mercer was known for coming from a fairly well of background, but the riches he’d made were all his own doing. I wasn’t sure how well the clothing brand had been doing in recent times – I guessed that his involvement in the advertising campaign was to give the new range a much-needed attention boost – but it had been making a lot of money for a lot of years. It was something to be admired really.
“Well, it’s lovely,” I finally finished lamely, doing it no justice. It looked like a house from a movie, as if it should have been a set rather than real life.
As we walked through the massive front doors, and into the luxurious reception area, my eyes were everywhere trying to drink in everything at once. This was the sort of life style that someone like me could only dream of having.
“Come into the kitchen with me,” he grinned at me, with that adorable cheeky twinkle in his eyes. “I’ll fix you a drink and get you something dry to wear.”
“Have a lot of women’s clothes lying about, do you?” I teased, referring to his reputation.
“Of course I do, I run a clothing brand, remember?” he chuckled, causing me to laugh alongside him. “Now, what do you want to drink?”
“Coffee, please,” I shot back quickly. I’d had enough alcohol to last me all night long, and after what I’d just been through the last thing that I needed was more booze. “Thank you.”
I slid into the nearest chair, trying to make myself at least a little bit at home, but the whole place was utterly intimidating. How could Kyle live in this house all by himself without freaking out every single day?
“Okay, coffee is on, let me go and get you something to wear.” As he left the room, my mind was everywhere, trying to work out how I felt about this man. I knew what I’d been told, but he hadn’t been anything other than good to me. Should I trust what I’d heard, or what I saw with my very own eyes? I just didn’t want to make a naïve, silly mistake that would taint my New York City experience, but I didn’t want to throw away a good opportunity either. I didn’t want to cast Kyle aside, when actually he could be really good for me.
Unfortunately, I was too tipsy for this deep subject matter. I needed to be far more sober before I could make any rational decisions, so I decided to concentrate on something else for a while…
He handed me his tee-shirt, with a bright grin on his face, bringing the feelings that I was trying my best to ignore, back to the surface again. “Here,” he said.
I stepped closer, and took the tee-shirt from him, our hands brushing as I went. I kept my fingers lingering on his much too long, and our eyes connected in an intense moment, where feelings were silently exchanged.
Eventually his head moved closer to mine, and I found myself pulled in as if we were magnetized. This was wrong. I shouldn’t have been doing this, but I couldn’t stop myself however much I tried.
Our lips connected and fireworks exploded within me, making all my cares simply float away. He felt so good against me, so right, but then his arms started to snake around my waist, startling me and causing me to jump backwards.
Kissing was one thing, but anything else was too much to handle. Not yet, it was all happening too quickly!
“Don’t freak out,” Kyle pleaded with me. “Don’t run away. Just give me a chance.”
“But… it’s all too much,” I told him honestly.
“Then we’ll take it slow,” he said sincerely, with a promise in his eyes. “Will you give me a chance to prove myself to you if I promise to take it slow?” He gripped onto my hands, staring intently at me.
I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to agree with him, but I wasn’t sure if it would be a good idea. This was Kyle, my boss, but also the man that I felt a lot for.
Maybe it was time to stop worrying about what everyone else had told me. Maybe it was time to make up my own mind about this man. Maybe I needed to trust my own intuition and judgment, rather than the words of others, and actually give him a chance.
“Okay,” I finally heard myself whisper. “Sounds good.”
***
Kyle
I had to admit that things were going great between me and Ellie. I really wasn’t used to taking things slowly. In fact even when I heard the words spilling from my lips I’d been unsure about it, but surprisingly I could do it. I didn’t even mind it.
I was hanging out with Ellie a lot, a little bit as friends, a little bit as lovers – but of course only with kissing. She was definitely warming up to me, which was great. But she had barriers protecting her. I wanted to bring them down, but I was prepared to do it slowly.
I just hoped that it would be worth it when I finally got there. I had the strong sense that it would be, and I really wanted to be proven right.
She swayed towards me in a slightly more revealing dress than she usually wore to my parties. “Are you ready?” I asked her.
“I am,” she said. She trembled a little from fear. “But what do you think everyone will say when they see us together?”
I knew how gossipy the fashion world could be, and I was very used to it after hanging out with so many well-known women. I wasn’t sure that Ellie had been through enough of it yet to have developed the much needed thick skin.
I pulled her in for a hug and held her close to my chest. “Don’t worry,” I said kindly. “I will be there with you every step of the way. Yes, people will look at us, and yes they will probably talk, but it doesn’t matter. It’s all water of a duck’s back. Just be true to yourself, be true to us and who you are and nothing else will matter.” I pulled back to look at her, staring deep into her eyes. “We know the truth, and that’s all that matters.”
“Okay,” she gasped, practically clinging onto me. “Okay, I trust you. Let’s just get there already!”
As we walked through the crowds of people, everyone slowly turning to look at us, I felt a sense of pride. I was aware that most people would simply assume that Ellie was the next target on my hit list of women, but I didn’t care. I knew that they were wrong, so I didn’t think that anything else mattered.
“I’ve got you,” I whispered to her, holding her hand tighter in mine. “Don’t you worry about anything. I have you.”
Her breaths were coming out ragged and labored, but I knew that she’d be alright. She would get used to life in public with me. She was going to have to, if we were going to carry on being together.
I remembered when Heather and I wed, back when I thought that she was a nice person. She was happy to blend into the background back then, but as the business grew and people started to know who I was, she wanted more. She became entranced by the limelight, keen for more, even applying to be on reality TV shows just to get noticed.
Of course, the ironic thing was that if she hadn’t cheated, she would have ended up with all of the attention that she craved, but she’d blown that herself.
“Come on, let me get you a drink, help you to relax.”
***
“That was so much fun!” Ellie squealed excitedly. “What an amazing night.”
“See, I told you that you would be fine. You just needed to relax. Everyone was fine with you, weren’t they?” She’d been surrounded by a lot of people most of the time, but she’d been smiling and happy, not looking like anyone was saying terrible things about me. That had to be a good thing.
“Everyone was so lovely,” she said. “Some people were a little shocked, but not too badly. Talia and Katya had guessed anyway, after your act of heroism the other night.” Of course, the drink spiking. I couldn’t have let that happen anyway, so I didn’t care that it gave the game away. “And it helped that you were so nice to me all night long; bringing me drinks, checking I was okay… I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
I intertwined my fingers in hers, before leading her outside. Now that we’d gone public, allo
wing people in the fashion industry to know that we were together, I could finally start taking her out on real dates. We’d been to dinner once, but she’d been too nervous the entire time. Hopefully now this would help us progress and finally take things to the next level…
“Oh my God,” she said, gripping tightly onto my arm. “There he is, that’s him.”
I followed her eye line to see the shadow of a man hiding behind the dumpster. “Who? Who is that?” I racked my brains, trying to figure out what I was so clearly missing here, but I was drawing a blank.
“The… the photographer, the paparazzo, the one I told you was following me, don’t you remember?”
“No,” I shook my head. “I don’t think you did tell me. You mentioned that they were intense.”
“Well, this one keeps hiding from me, jumping out at odd moments, he really freaks me out,” she was shaking, absolutely terrified, which made me cling tightly to her.
“That is strange,” I admitted, as we both watched him run away with his face covered up. “But they are scum of the Earth, I wouldn’t worry too much. He’ll get bored of you soon enough.”
“Hmmm,” she murmured, unconvinced. “I hope so.”
“Come on,” I said. We both had too much alcohol swilling around in our systems to allow this to get us down. “Let’s go back to my place, we can carry on the party there.”
She moved into my body, clearly not wanting to be alone. The appearance of the paparazzo had upset her out far more than it should have, which brought my protective side out.
“Sounds great,” she said, “Thanks Kyle.”
***
Ellie
As Kyle took me to his home, I tried my best to forget about that photographer. He was creepy as all hell, but if Kyle didn’t seem too bothered, then maybe I shouldn’t have been either. He was far more used to the paparazzi than me, so he would know better how they behaved.
Plus, to be perfectly honest, I had a million and one other thoughts circling my mind. Everyone had loved me and Kyle as a couple, they had said only good thing about him, which convinced me further that he was a good man, and that all Heather had told me was the vendetta of an ex-wife that couldn’t let go.