Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
“Ah, Stil, you’re worth your weight in chocolate.” I grab the coffee and slurp greedily. “I thought I was going to have to set up a caffeine IV. Thank you.”
My assistant, formerly my makeup artist, is also formerly Stella Miller. Early on she was obsessed with all things Stila. All of us models teased her about buying Stila eyeliner when she didn’t even have money for food. So over time, Stella became Stila, and Stila became Stil, and Stil has become one of my few true friends. In this transition from model to mogul, she’s my right hand. She’s helping me keep life on kilter.
She always had the most organized station at the shows, all her pots and potions and liners and lipsticks almost OCD level neat. She brings that same obsessive attention to detail to my life. Thank God someone can.
“The rest land in half.” Stil follows me into the larger office, where we’ve placed my desk.
We have our own verbal shorthand, Stil and I. We can conduct entire conversations in a roomful of people and no one be the wiser of what we are actually saying.
“Oh, good.” I settle behind my desk and into the lumbar-loving leather seat molding the line of my body. “Thirty minutes to do a few things. I’m ready when they get here.”
“How was last night?” Stil leans her too-slim petite frame against the doorjamb. Pink strikes like lightning through her onyx hair, short and pixied. She’s not too slim because she doesn’t eat. The girl has a “man meets food” appetite. She just also happens to have the metabolism of a hamster on Ritalin.
“It was okay.” I keep my face neutral. I really don’t feel like rehashing being at the table with Walsh and Kerris, or seeing Kyle Manchester again, or why that’s a bad thing. And I certainly don’t want to talk about Trevor Bishop.
“Did you do it?”
“Do what?” I raise cautious eyes to Stil. We’ve been through some wild times together. There’s no telling what she thought I was going to do last night.
“Break it off with Rip last night.” Stil rests her fist on one bony hip. “Or was it an ‘o’ for the road?”
“Neither. I didn’t break it off, and no orgasm as a parting gift. So the night was truly a bust.”
“Tonight then?”
“Maybe after the party.” I grimace, taking a sip of my caffeinated lifeblood. “The break, I mean. I think I’m done with the sex. It has to be soon. If he used his tongue only to service me, we could probably stretch this out, but he keeps…”
“Talking?”
“Yes!” I slap my forehead. “He keeps talking, and it’s driving me batty.”
“He could use that tongue for so much good.” Stil shakes her head and sighs. “I’m sorry he doesn’t know when to shut up.”
“C’est la vie, yeah?”
“Yep. Just be gentle. He seems kind of fragile to me.”
“Fragile?” I scoff. “Rip’s tough as nails. We both knew this was no grand love affair. Just fuck and fun.”
“Okay, well, you know what you’re doing. I’m gonna get ready for the meeting.”
“Me, too.”
I pull out my iPad, and instead of pulling up the figures for my meeting, seemingly without my permission, my fingers type “Trevor Bishop” in the search bar. He has a TED talk? Who has TED talks? The word “incite” snares my attention, and I click on the video link. He’s addressing a group of college students at a university, dressed more casually than I’ve seen him so far. He wears a Kelly green T-shirt and dark wash jeans, his ruggedness more pronounced in the less formal clothing. He turns to a whiteboard to write, and my jaw almost hits the desk.
That ass. Tight and round and muscular, I want to take a bite. To pluck it like I’m testing ripe fruit. I sink my teeth into my bottom lip, imagining what he must look like without the wrapping. I need to know how a Princeton dropout turned businessman gets this body. I’m so caught up in how good he looks, I almost miss what he’s saying, but the urgency of his tone arrests my attention.
“It was my junior year at Princeton.” He faces the lecture hall packed with students. “As part of a course study on international business, my then-roommate Harold Smith and I spent the summer visiting Southeast Asian and African countries. I was struck by how lands so rich in natural resources had such poverty. We were just a few days away from returning to the States when I experienced an inciting incident that would change the course of my life.”
He props himself on the desk, connecting his dark eyes with as many of the students as he can from his spot at the front of the room. He folds his arms, biceps straining in the short sleeves, across his chest before continuing.