The clerk reaches up. “This one?”
“Yes.”
He drops it onto the counter. The sound is soft.The impact is not.
She’s lying on her back, on the cover of this skin mag. Her long blonde hair spilled across white sheets. She’s not smiling. I honestlycan’t decipher what emotion is present in their depths. Eyes that were always so expressive sitting across from me. They’re her usual mesmerizing blue, the camera catching the golden flecks dancing in her irises. Grace’s arms are stretched over her head like she’s offering herself to the world.
To everyone but me.
And printed across her body at the bottom of the magazine in bold black letters:
WELCOME TO GRACELAND
My head is spinning. I feel like I’m going to be sick. This is how I find her again? On glossy paper. How many strangers’ hands are groping these very pages right now?
Groping her?
This woman I’ve admittedly fallen so hard for I can’t see straight, being sold at a convenience store for less than the cost of my beer. The money shot is inside. It has to be. They don’t put innocence on covers of magazines that are kept behind the counter.
I swallow hard. My throat burns. My chest feels too small to hold what’s crushing into it.
Why would she do this? Have I been that wrong about her?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not judging her. Or any girl who decides this is the type of modeling she’s into. I go to a damn gentlemen’s club for fucks sake. I’m not that big of a hypocrite.
Yet, nothing about this woman screamed Playboy Bunny. Hell, she kept covered the night we shared that bed together. Grace didn’t feel comfortable having sex. There’s nothing about the woman I’ve come to know that says exhibitionist.
My mind reels through our twenty questions conversation that night in the hotel room. Had there been any indication this was her career choice? She’d said she wanted to be a nurse. And referred to wanting stability.
Did she need the money that badly? Or was this an ego boost?Does she think this is all she’s worth? Fuck, I would’ve given her anything she?—
“Sir?” the clerk’s voice barely reaches me.
“Sorry,” I murmur, unable to look at him. “Can you… can you add the rest of those?” I gesture weakly at the stack.
“All of them?”
“Yes, all of them,” my tone is curt. “And any others you have in the back.”
He starts piling them onto the counter. Every soft slap feels like another blow to my heart. My emotions are nearly spiraling out of control. A viscous tornado of anger and disappointment, worry and protectiveness all swirling together.
She’s being sold piece by piece, and I’m standing here letting it happen.
I throw down cash, far too much I’m sure, but walk out before I completely lose it. My beer, the so-called dinner… still left on the counter as I lug the stack of magazines to my truck.
Outside, the night air hits me like a wall. I open my trunk and dump the stack inside like it might burn me if I touch it too long. My hands are shaking with rage now. My chest hurts. My eyes sting. Sliding into my car, I lean forward, resting my forehead against the steering wheel, breathing like I’ve just been hit.
I know I have no right to have an opinion. It’s her life. But from the moment she cried into my chest on the side of the road, I’ve felt overly protective of her. Then she sweetly went along with my ruse with Milton, purely to help me. She’d hypnotized me every bit as much with her simplistic goodness as she had her physical attributes. The image of her holding those water goblets in front of her before sticking her tongue out at me flashes in my mind.
I just can’t believe it. This isn’t the girl I came to know.
This had to be why she was in Vegas on business. I should’ve checked on her while I was there. Gotten Max to do more digging. I should’ve fucking stayed. I should have fought harder. But it’s probably best I didn’t know what was happening, because I would’vemade a fool out of myself trying to swoop in to save the day if she really wanted to take those damn pictures.
But did she?
Maybe the knowledge of what’s happened is making me unhinged. Yet my gut tells me this wasn’t what she wanted. It’s more than simply not wanting to believe it. That little frown on her face when I asked again if she was going to tell me why she was in Vegas. How grateful she seemed that I’d offered her my number. That odd sense of foreboding I felt when she waved at me over her shoulder before walking away.
Why the hell didn’t you call?
