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  His hands reach under my ass and he turns his head up. "Look at me, Gidge. Antoine wants you to look at me."

  I do as I'm told and I have to admit, it was a lot easier to do this when we were flirting with the possibility of a relationship.

  "He wants you to be angry with me, but you already are, so I guess that's not a problem, is it?"

  I just stare down at Ronin, my mind going a mile a minute.

  "You mind telling me what I did?"

  "I saw you," I say, as the cameras keep clicking.

  "Saw me do what?"

  "I saw you downstairs, in that apartment with Clare."

  "Oh, fuck."

  "Yeah, oh, fuck."

  Antoine barks out an order to Ronin. "Get up," Ronin repeats after Antoine.

  I do, and his hands are immediately around me, tugging me towards the tree. He leans back and pulls me into his chest. The cameras are clicking and Antoine continues to talk as Ronin's hands wrap around my ass and start to cup my breast. "It's not what you think, Rook," he whispers into my neck as his lips begin to kiss me.

  I move away from his kiss and Antoine growls out something unfriendly.

  "I have to, Rook, it's part of the shot. So just try and forget about all that stuff for now."

  I keep my mouth shut and try to act like this is OK, but then he's unzipping my dress and pretty soon he's got one of my arms out, exposing my breast.

  "You can say stop, you know," he reminds me.

  "I know," I whisper. "But it's got to get done, right? So just go, just get it over with."

  He continues with the other arm, slowly dragging the dress down until it falls to the ground and the tears are starting to build from the humiliation I feel.

  "What the hell is on your back?"

  Ronin's sharp words bring me back from the edge and I cover myself with my arms and turn away from Antoine. "The painting Spencer did yesterday."

  Now Antoine is up next to me as Ronin spins me around so they can take a good long look at my body art. They both talk like I'm not there. And it's not even in French this time.

  "Ah, fuck, Ronin! What the fuck is this?" Antoine growls.

  "I didn't see it, she had clothes on at the scale!" Ronin retorts.

  "Well, how the fuck are we going to shoot her with this paint all over her back? Huh?"

  "We'll just have to wash it off."

  "It will make her skin red!"

  "You guys do realize you're speaking English, right?" I ask. "I mean, I'm right fucking here!"

  They switch to French and Elise brings me a robe so I don't have to stand there naked. "Come on, Rook, this shoot is over. We'll do it another day."

  "But—"

  "I'll still pay you half today, you can leave if you want, but we need to wash that paint off and this shoot is a disaster, so I'm calling stop."

  That one word is all it takes. The crew begins packing up immediately, Antoine stops yelling, and Ronin grabs my hand and leads me back into the studio. He bypasses the dressing room and tugs me up the stairs, and before I can even string together a valid argument on why I should not be going into his apartment with him, I'm already there, sitting on the couch almost in tears.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine - Ronin

  I sit down on the chair opposite Rook in the living room and let out a long sigh as I drop my head into my hands, scrub my face and then look back up. "Tell me something," I ask, trying not to look at her in that make-up, "why do you think I weigh the girls? I mean, you've hinted that I'm some sort of control freak, so is this why you think I do it? So I can control you?"

  Rook wraps her arms around herself. She's still naked under the robe and I take a minute to go get her a blanket from the hall closet. I offer it to her and she squeaks out a barely audible "Thank you," then pulls it up to her neck.

  "You think I'm—what? Looking for girls who gain weight so I can fire them?"

  "Aren't you?" she asks.

  I laugh and shake my head. "Holy shit! No! I'm not looking to fire anyone for gaining weight, Rook. I told you, I don't care how much you weigh, I only care if you lose weight."

  "You never said that, you said you were looking for a weight change."

  "Right, not weight gain." I stop again and lean back in the chair so I can look up at the ceiling as the guilt comes back. The guilt always comes back, and it always comes back to the same girl.

  "There was a model who came through here a few years back. Mardee." I look over to see what Rook thinks about this, but she has her knees drawn up to her chest and her face is hidden in the blanket. "Mardee and I dated, I was only nineteen and she was just barely eighteen. Too young, really, like you, to be taking her clothes off for Antoine's camera. But like you, she did it anyway. And she was good at it.

  "She got a lot of offers and pretty soon there were agencies and clients calling, she dumped me and started dating older guys, she got herself mixed up in a lot of bad shit and the worst of it was the drugs. In case you haven't noticed, this neighborhood is not the best. Sure, it's family friendly during the day and when there's a game in the stadium, but the reality of these streets is just half a block away. So she met some of the locals, all people I've known since elementary school, so you know, I was at the very least hesitant to tell her they were all a bunch of losers."

  "What happened to her?" I have Rook's attention now and her eyes watch me carefully even as she tries to continue hiding her face in the blanket.

  "She did a lot of heroin, that's what happened to her. She wasted away to nothing just as she started to make all her dreams come true. She ruined her life, she gave it all away for drugs. She'd show up here high as fuck and I pretended not to notice because I was in denial, or too busy to see how bad it was getting, or maybe, if I'm being honest here, I just didn't give a fuck about the girl beyond sleeping with her in one of the old rooms downstairs. And three months shy of her nineteenth birthday, she was dead."

  "Oh, I'm sorry, Ronin."

  "She died in one of our artistic rooms on the third floor. I fired her but I felt sorry for her after and let her stay in a room we rarely used. I found her down there, a tie-off still strangling her arm, the needle still sticking out of her vein."

  I take a deep breath and then let it out and take responsibility for what I did. Maybe for the first time ever, I admit that this girl is gone because of me. "And not only did I know she was using, but I saw all the signs that she was losing. And the weight loss was the first clue. The weight loss, Rook, is the first clue in this business that something is wrong. And not just with drugs, either. With depression, and eating disorders, and all kinds of nasty things that plague people who rely on how they look to make their living.

  "So that's why I check the girls every day. I'm looking to make sure that if they lose a pound or two, they gain it back pretty quick. Otherwise I start paying more attention to their habits and if I find out they're using, I fire them. That's the deal you signed on both of those contracts. I keep an eye on you for your own damn good."

  I see her eyes flash, ready with the retort, but I'm way ahead of her.

  "And if you think you can navigate this business alone, you're already dead, Rook. Because you can't. This business will use you up and throw you out like trash."

  "So you think I'm stupid for signing Spencer's contract?"

  "No, I get it. I really do. You got caught up in something bad and now you think money will save you from it ever happening again. And maybe it will, but money, from the way I see it, is the fucking cause of all the bullshit that happened to Mardee. If she had no money, she wouldn't have been able to buy drugs, or accept dates with rich losers, or sign contracts to do porn and whatever else she was doing at the end. Money won't save you, Gidge. Money is a tool and nothing else."

  "Maybe," she admits. "But it's better to have bad options than no options. And people won't save you either, ya know."

  I shake my head and let out a long breath. "God, that is the saddest shit I've ever heard."

>   She looks away now, her eyes glassy with the threat of tears. "No one came to save me. No one gave a fucking shit about me and the only reason I'm still alive right now is because I got myself out. I saved me, Ronin. Me."

  I get up and join her on the couch. She turns her back to me so I push the blanket away and pull the robe down to look at the painting on her back. "Did Spence tell you what he wrote?"

  She shakes her head and looks over her shoulder at me. "What'd he write?"

  "He wrote, I belong to Ronin and Spencer Shrike knows this."

  "Oh, God!"

  "It was meant for me, not you, Rook," I say, tracing the outline of the bird on her back. "He was sending me a message. We fought over Mardee. Spencer and I were best friends in high school and halfway through college, but I found out he was the one who introduced Mardee to the local scum dealers. Even though he grew up in Park Hill, he spent enough time down here with me to get to know them all. I pretty much poured all my guilt into hating him"—I stop to look Rook in the eyes—"so I could forget that it was really me who killed her. With my indifference."

  She drops her head and sniffs.

  "And I'd do anything to prevent that from becoming your future. But I can't stop you and honestly, I'm just a big fucking hypocrite because this is how I've made all my money too. This is how I bought into the partnership Elise and I have with Antoine. How I paid for this apartment, the cars, the truck, the bikes, the trips. I enjoy a lot of nice things in life because girls like you take off your clothes for guys like Antoine and me. So I've got no room to judge."

  She sniffs again and the last thing I want is for her to feel defeated so I give her what she needs to hear right now. "But if you're going to take another contract, this body painting one with Spence is probably the best-case scenario because I know for a fact that Spencer Shrike is a good guy."

  She looks over her shoulder, confused. "So you're not mad about that?"

  "Fuck yes, I'm mad! But the truth is, Rook, you don't belong to me. You're free to do whatever you want. I can't stop you. I can give you my honest opinion, I can warn you when I see the dangers—but I can't make you do anything.

  "And Rook, just so you know, I'm not looking for a girl to corner, or control, or use up and throw away. I've had that, I can get that anywhere. What I can't get anywhere is a partner who trusts me and loves me. So if you think I'm trying to trap you, you're wrong. I'm not interested in a girl who wants to get as far away from me as she possibly can."

  She sits in our silence for whole minutes before turning her body so she can look me in the face. "I might like to belong to you, Ronin," she whispers. "Someday. But right now, I'm still running scared. A few months ago I looked at myself in the mirror and I had no idea who that girl was."

  Chapter Forty - Rook

  "You wanna hear a tragic story?" I ask Ronin, feeling ready to talk about it. "Because I really do have one."

  He leans forward and kisses me on the top of my head, and then pulls me back into his chest. "Tell me, Rook."

  "Well, one thing before I tell you, I just want you to know that I'm OK now." I wait to see if he has anything to add but I can tell he's just going to let me talk it out. "It's over, I'm gone, and I'm never going back. So, I'm not looking for anyone to go back and get him for me, or take pity on me, or any of that. But if I act a little distant or I make decisions that maybe don't fit with how you think, well, just know that I have my reasons. OK?"

  He nods beneath me and I take a deep breath.

  "Last year I was pregnant but I had a miscarriage. My ex caused it actually, and as terrible as this sounds, it was a blessing because not only did it prevent an innocent child from being born into a family of abuse, but I also got one of those implant birth control things while I was in the hospital." I pull the blanket away and rub my finger along my fleshy upper arm. "I knew what a baby with Jon meant and it wasn't an extension of our love or a chance to create something beautiful." I look up at Ronin. "It meant eternal captivity. He kept me locked in a prison—not the kind with bars and locks, but the kind that takes over your mind and holds you hostage. So I got the secret birth control implant because that was his plan. Get me pregnant and then use that baby against me for the rest of my life and hold me like a prisoner."

  "Rook, I'm so sorry." He pushes some hair out of my eyes and kisses my head again.

  I take a deep breath and continue. "I kept it secret for a while but one night while we were having sex, his hand was gripping my upper arm and he felt the little matchstick-sized implant. And he beat the living shit out of me. Pulled me up off the bed by my hair, slammed me down onto the ground, kicked me in the back so hard I thought I was paralyzed. Except I could feel the pain radiating up and down my spine, so I knew I wasn't paralyzed. I don't even know how many times he punched me in the face, I only know that both of my eyes were swollen shut long before he was done.

  "When I didn't get up, he carried me to the shower, dropped me in the tub and turned the cold water on to wash away the blood. I could only lie there, motionless, or at least trying not to move because of the shooting pain going up my back. The water turned a dirty red color from all the blood spilling out of my nose.

  "Usually, I never looked at myself afterward, but the next day I made myself. My face was unrecognizable—just swollen and—well, not me. And that's when I knew. If I stayed here with this man, he'd kill me. I'd be giving up my life if I stayed."

  Ronin hugs me tighter and whispers into my neck, "And you left on a bus, all alone."

  I nod. "After I was healed I left on a bus and ended up in Denver. It took exactly thirty-one days for my face to go back to the way it was. I wasn't working at that point, he made me quit my job long before then. So no one even knew. I had no family, I had no friends, I couldn't even ask a neighbor for help because we lived out on some land his family had. There was just this dumpy house in the middle of nowhere.

  "But he gave me money every week so I could go shopping, before that beating anyway. And for three years I'd been planning for the day I'd have to leave because even though before that last incident I was too scared to really do anything about it, I knew that one day I'd have no choice. I knew that eventually he'd kill me. So I saved a few dollars from that allowance money he gave me when I could get away with it. Sometimes he checked my receipts and he kept a running inventory of all the food in the house, so it was very difficult to get enough to even buy that bus ticket, let alone a bit of money to get me through once I got away. He checked the mileage to make sure I never went anywhere in the car and he logged keystrokes on the computer to make sure I wasn't using it while he was gone. So I couldn't talk to guys or some stupid shit like that."

  "He controlled everything."

  "Yeah," I say. "He owned me." I turn around now so I can see Ronin as I talk. "And that's why I need this, Ronin. I need this, or I swear I wouldn't do it. You have to believe me. I don't want to do drugs, or stop eating, or make modeling my career. I have my own dreams and I'm not ready to give up on them yet. I just want the money so I can make my own decisions. And maybe this contract with Spencer is a mistake. Maybe I'll regret it, but I don't think so, because Spencer Shrike was gentle and he makes art on nude bodies. It didn't feel… dirty."

  "Like TRAGIC."

  "Yeah, this contract is definitely dirty. I mean of course I'll finish what I need to do to get paid, but I'm not interested in this modeling stuff, Ronin, I'm not interested in the clothes, or the attention, or anything like that. I just want the money so I can move on."

  Ronin lies back on the couch and pulls me down with him so that my cheek rests on his chest. I'm still naked under the robe, but I don't care. He feels good.

  "So you don't trust anyone."

  "Right," I breathe. "I mean, I'm pretty well-adjusted I think. When I was at the shelter I talked to some counselors. It was very difficult at first, but every day away from him I healed a little more. And I know I have issues and maybe I'm making all the wrong decisions right now
. That's possible, I get it. But even if what I'm doing is all wrong, I still need to do it. I need to be in control, I need to have these choices and I need to make my own mistakes. It's the only way to really make things right with me."

  "But Gidge, you have to let people help you. You can't live in a vacuum."

  "I know, I get that too. And maybe one day I'll trust someone else and let them take care of me again, but not today." I turn and look up at him. "That day is not today. I need a little independence, Ronin. I need to be able to think for myself. And honestly, I was about to give in to you after our date at the zoo and the night we spent together afterward. But then I saw you with that other girl and I realized that I'm just not ready yet. I'm way too vulnerable right now. I need a little more time, I need a little more control."

  I relax back into his chest and we think things through in the silence.

  "Well," he says a little while later, squeezing me a little tighter. "I'm sorry you had to see Clare and me like that, but I'm not dating her, Rook. I've never dated Clare. She's Antoine's niece and she's a mess. She came home high yesterday morning, that's her apartment, by the way. She lives here in the building. Antoine called me yesterday morning and I should've just told you what was up before I left you in bed, but I didn't. I'm sorry. Everything that happened yesterday was my fault."

  He pulls back so he can see my face and I give him a little smile.

  "Anyway, Clare has got a lot of problems and we were very close to getting her to check herself into rehab, so I stayed with her to make sure she didn't leave before the people came to pick her up. She's up in the mountains right now, hopefully she'll stay there and complete the program, but to be honest, she's been there before and nothing's helped."

  He shrugs underneath me.

  "She stresses us all out, you know? It's like, on the one hand we just want her to go away and kill herself somewhere else so we don't have to watch. But we can't let go. We let her come back, we take care of her, but it's not working. I don't think she's gonna make it, Rook, she's not strong like you. That day you showed up for your test shoot was the first time we let her model in months. And even though Antoine never lets her do anything but fashion and glamour shoots, we set her up for that sexy artistic shoot for one reason only. So I could check her body for indicators. And if I found anything that even hinted she was still using, we were gonna fire her for good.