I sit up with a start, the night before slowly returning to me. Did Luka ever come back to bed? I glance over and see the covers on his side look untouched. There’s no sign he’d slept next to me. Maybe he spent the night on the couch in some backwards show of chivalry, or maybe he’s just a light sleeper and prefers his space. Either way, there’s no note on the nightstand, and it strikes me that we’d never exchanged numbers—so he couldn’t have texted me even if he’d wanted to.
My belly flips.
Maybe he got called in to work.
Maybe he went to get us breakfast. Maybe he’smakingus breakfast.
I smile, rub my hands over my face, and find the restroom, then clean up a little and get dressed. My cellphone says it’s almost nine. Shit! My parents are going to notice that I didn’t come home last night. I’m an adult, but my mom has a hard time remembering that.
Looking for my heels, I find my way back to the kitchen. The scent of fresh coffee hits me in a glorious wave. Sounds are coming from there, like someone is moving around. My heart leaps. A leisurely breakfast with Luka? Yes, please. I smooth my hair as I step into the kitchen.
“Hey, I—”
An older woman in a maid’s uniform gives me the barest glance as she wipes down the counter near the espresso machine.
I pull up short. “Oh, hello.”
She replies with a noncommittal grunt. The air seems thicker, and it’s clear how much I’m not wanted here. On top of that, my brain is starting to catch up with what my heart already knows. Nausea rises in my throat, my pulse picking up. “Um, is Luka here?”
The look the maid gives me is no-nonsense. “Let me guess. He didn’t leave a note. You don’t have his number. And you woke up alone. You’re a model, right? He offer you a contract?”
I feel myself nod slowly, dread curling in my belly.
“I shoo girls like you outta here seven days a week,” she explains.
The nausea burns now. Threatening to choke me. “Are they…always models?”
“Not always.” She shrugs. “My advice? Walk it off. If he’s interested, he’ll find you.”
Suddenly it’s like the wind just got knocked out of me, and I’m struggling for air.
“Okay,” I say, but my voice wobbles and I’m shaky on my feet.
The maid sighs, seeming to soften. “Let me pour you a coffee, hon. Have a seat there. I’ll call you a cab. You know where you’re going?”
My brow furrows.
I don’t know anything.
Except that I’m the worst kind of naïve.
Brooklyn
Chapter 4
Iblink a couple times and try to clear my head, but it’s hard to forget the past when I’m staring it right in the eye.
Luka coolly rifles through the papers in front of him and glances down, writing something on a page. There was no recognition in his expression when he saw me. The best sex of my life, and the guy I’d had it with couldn’t even spare me a second look or tell me I seem familiar.
It’s like we’re meeting for the first time here, and I’m incredibly embarrassed—and angry. He’s apparently erased me from his memory. I wish I could do that so easily. Forget how I’d checked my cellphone a thousand times just in case he’d gotten hold of my number and tried to get in touch. How I’d obsessed over my social media to see if each new follower was possibly him. I wish I could forget how humiliating it was to realize—after three agonizing months—that Luka Zoric wasn’t going to call. That he probably hadn’t thought of me even once since we’d slept together.
Even still, I continued hanging on to the hope that he was eventually going to reach out to me on a strictly professional basis, give me the contract that he promised. But at the six-month mark, I had to face the facts. During the entire “audition” I’d done with him, there had been zero paperwork involved. He may have taken down my stats, but there was no contract besides the promise he’d made verbally—no request for official headshots, no exchange of contact information, nothing. The entire thing had been off the books.
He’d used the “private audition” to get laid. I’d bet anything it was his standard method of banging pretty girls.
I guess, in a twisted way, it worked out in my favor that I’d been too embarrassed to follow up with the agency about my audition and Luka’s empty promises, considering everything that’s come out about the place now. I may have been naïve, but at least I didn’t end up getting linked to the prostitution ring the elder Zoric got busted over. I’m confident that mess is behind the agency now, though, and I’m willing to give them a legitimate shot. I just need to suck up my humiliation, be a grown-up about the whole thing.
“Good morning. I’m Luka Zoric, VP of Talent Acquisition and Management,” he says. “Please, take a seat.”
