Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 46223 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46223 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
He grunts. “Doubtful.”
My PA, Lina, thrusts a bottle of water into my hand, already talking in list form. “Steamer’s on, mics are charged, pins are in my pocket, you’ve got your secure phone—” She pats my bag as if she can soothe last night’s ghost away. I squeeze her fingers, grateful.
Elodie leads me behind a velvet curtain into the fitting area: three stalls, one mirror the size of a door, another mirror angled to catch the other mirror, which makes Riggs twitch. The lighting is warm and generous. The rack is a dream—silks in colors that make you say oh aloud, a slinky column in black, a gold lamé slip that looks like the inside of a champagne flute, a navy suit cut like sin.
Riggs stations himself just outside the curtain, feet braced, profile set. His gaze does its sweep: front door, back door, a delivery guy with a box of ribbons, a girl across the street pretending not to film. He doesn’t look into the fitting room, but I feel him like a gravity shift.
“Look one in sixty seconds,” Brice chirps, clapping. “Back-to-front pan, snatch and twirl—”
“I am not snatching,” I say, laughing. “But I will twirl.”
Elodie helps me into the blue drape, a one-shoulder silk that feels indecent just to touch, let alone step into. “It was made to move,” she says, eyes gleaming. “Let it.”
I step out. Riggs answers with silence that says more than words. His eyes track me head to toe in one slow pass that heats every inch his gaze touches. He doesn’t move his hands. He doesn’t have to. The air moves.
“How do I look?” I toss it to the room, but I’m aiming for one man.
Brice says, “Perfect!” Elodie sighs, “Iconic.” Lina beams like a proud cousin.
Riggs finally blinks. “Like trouble,” he says quietly. “The good kind.”
Warmth blooms under my skin. “Use it,” he adds, and the way he says use feels like permission and a dare.
We film the first reel. I walk toward the camera, turn, laugh at nothing and everything, let the silk catch the air like a secret. Riggs shifts with me, always at my periphery. Between takes he hands me sips of water without looking away from the door, murmuring, “Two steps left—mirror,” or “Hold—reflection,” and I adjust like we’re dancing. We kind of are.
Look two is the black column. No slit, no lace—just line. I slip into it and forget to breathe. The fabric slides over me like a yes. I step out, and the room gets quieter. Even Brice pauses.
Riggs’s throat works. He stands up straighter without moving. “Vanessa,” he says, my name a low rasp that does not belong in a workplace. Heat curls low in my belly.
“Professional feedback?” I ask, because if I don’t keep it light I will step straight into him and forget the cameras exist.
“Professional feedback,” he says, steadying. “Your hem will catch if you move too fast. And people will stop thinking. Plan accordingly.”
I grin, savoring the way his restraint frays at the edges when he looks at me like that. “Copy.”
Look three is the gold lamé slip. I step into it and swear under my breath because it feels like warm light. The mirror says: dangerous. The mirror also says: worth it.
I step out. The room exhales. Riggs goes very still.
“Absolutely not,” he says.
My mouth drops. “Excuse me?”
His eyes flick to the front window, and then back at me. “You can’t wear that for the world to see.”
I smile, and am digging the protective vibe, but I won’t let any man tell me what I can or can not wear. Even if every reckless bone in me wants to swing a leg over him like a rookie cowgirl at her first rodeo. “I’m a master at angles. They won’t see all of me, but thank you for looking out.”
He growls. Like a literal growl just escaped him.
I laugh, and I feel ridiculously turned on by the fact that he’s acting this way.
“Back room,” he says. “You should do this where there’s less eyes.” He glances around the shop, and Elodie nods.
“He’s right. We have a back storage room.”
In the storage room, the light is softer. Someone leans a painting against the wall, and the coloring does wonders with the gold. Brice sets up a handheld, and Lina checks my hair. Riggs stands in the doorway, eyes on fire.
The microphone’s cord snags on the nearly invisible strap. “I got it,” I say, twisting to reach. I don’t, not in this dress.
A large, warm hand appears. “I got this” he says.
He steps close, careful as a prayer, and lifts the cord free. His knuckles brush against my bare spine as my breath stumbles. The air between us contracts to inches. I feel the heat off him, the restraint. He leans back, fingers ghosting down once more to make sure no fabric is caught, and steps away like it cost him.