As I paint the vision for them, Jamie and Isabella exchange a look that makes something hot and dangerous curl low in my belly.
“I say go for it,” Jamie declares, throwing his feet up on the bench. “Model it yourself. Make them uncomfortable. Make it unforgettable.”
Later that evening, I’m curled up on the couch, a chipped bowl full of pasta balanced on my knee. The TV glows in the corner, flickering images of French reality stars screaming at one another over dinner plates.
But my mind keeps circling the same two phrases.
Make them uncomfortable. Make it unforgettable.
Could I do it? Dare I?
A year ago, I wouldn’t have even considered it. But now, the idea of creating a scandal has excitement thumbing through my veins. Maybe the only way to survive the pain is to set it ablaze and let it become art.
I glance around my flat—pattern papers littering the table, a half-finished hem draped over the chair, my sketchbook open toa rough outline of my design. It smells like coffee and faintly of lemon floor cleaner. My life has become scraps of silk, late-night streaming sessions, and the hollow echo of a man’s absence I wish I didn’t still crave.
I hate that I still love him. It constricts around my ribcage until I can barely breathe.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table, dragging me out of my thoughts.
Incoming request: Private session (Recurring)
Username: BegForMe
Details: Hour-long stream, four times a week, £5k a stream
The name makes my pulse thud.
I stare at the notification for a long moment, thumb hovering above the accept button. There’s a sharp twist in my chest, equal parts rage and longing.
If only my mother could see me now. Living in exile, using the body she hated and weaponising my stepbrother’s obsession one high-definition moan at a time.
Let the games begin.
Chapter 10
Age 18, London
The room is too big, too still, and every thought I’ve tried to bury is whispering at the edges of the silence. I’ve lain here for hours, staring into the dark, but the dark stares back, pressing in until it feels heavy on my chest.
In a few weeks, Christmas break will be over, and I’ll be back at St. Theresa’s, drifting through lectures like a ghost. No closer to knowing what I want, or where I’m going. Outside of school, life used to feel like a far-off country I wasn’t ready to visit. Now it’s here pressing against the glass, watching me.
Soon, there’ll be talk of marriage contracts again. Paper lives drawn up by people who think they own me. And how am I supposed to tell Jen that the only person I want is the one I can’thave? The thought of being presented to some stranger like a gift makes my skin crawl, as though I’m being set alight from the inside.
The duvet feels suffocating, so I shove it away and slip from the bed, my bare feet sinking into the soft carpet. I head for the ensuite, thinking cold water might shock me back into something that resembles calm.
But when I catch sight of myself in the mirror, I freeze, the tap still running.
For a moment I hardly recognise myself—eyes too wide, hair a tangle, the faint shadow of sleeplessness beneath my lashes, my oversized hoodie drowning me. And then I notice it—a thin ribbon of light spilling from beneath Matt’s door.
I should turn back. Crawl under my duvet, lie still until morning. Pretend I don’t care that I’ve hardly seen him since his birthday. Pretend I don’t miss the smell of his cologne in the hallway, or the way we could sit outside together without speaking and still say everything. Pretend I don’t ache for the quiet intimacy of him passing me a cigarette and tilting his head at the night sky as though the stars were ours to count.
But the silence in my bedroom feels like a blade tonight. My chest is too tight, and my thoughts are too loud. I need him, and I don’t have the strength to pretend otherwise anymore. Before I can think better of it, I lift my hand and rap my knuckles against the door.
“Yeah?” His voice comes through, low and rough, the kind of sound that settles somewhere deep in me as I push the door open.
His room is dark, swallowed mostly in shadow, illuminated only by the faint blue glow of his laptop screen and the spill of streetlight bleeding through the half-closed blinds. The lightcatches on him in pieces—his jaw, the curve of his throat, the hard line of his shoulder—like he’s carved out of night itself.
He’s changed out of the suit he wore earlier. Now he’s just in a pair of soft grey sweats slung low on his hips, his hair a complete mess, rumpled and pushed back like he’s been dragging his hands through it for hours. A few curls have fallen across his forehead in a way that shouldn’t be devastating but absolutely is.
