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“Chin down for me, Chloe. Bit more. Lovely. And give me the shoulder…perfect.”

The camera clicks, and a second later, Chloe appears on the laptop screen beside the photographer, hand on her hip, in a grey Razor Athletics hoodie and matching leggings. Before I’ve even taken it in, the camera clicks again, and there’s another Chloe, almost identical to the first.

I’m in a folding chair at the side of the studio with a latte, trying to look like someone who belongs here. Ryan is off in a changing room, getting into his first outfit. Which leaves me free to sit back and take it all in.

There are a lot of people here. The photographer and his two assistants. A woman from Razor Athletics with a clipboard. A stylist with a pincushion strapped to her wrist, preparing the next outfit. A runner, who brought me this latte. Hair and make-up, who occasionally swoop on Chloe, smoothing a strand here, dabbing powder there. And Mara, standing by the laptop, art-directing the whole thing with a coffee in one hand.

But it’s Chloe my eye keeps being drawn to. Tall and glossy under the lights, with legs that seem to go on for ever, being made even more beautiful by a team of professionals.

Ryan told me days ago that she’d been booked for the women’s pieces. He asked whether I was okay with it or whether he should try to get it changed. I liked that he asked, but I told him that it was absolutely fine.

I wasn’t going to be the girlfriend who caused chaos in somebody else’s line of work. And I certainly wasn’t going to be jealous of a fling he had before we were together.

Or so I thought.

She’s so polished and poised and perfect, and I’ve got this funny little knot in my stomach. Which surprises me, because I’ve never thought of myself as a jealous person.

“Briony! Thought I’d pop over and say a quick hello.”

I tear my eyes away from Chloe. Mara is standing beside my chair, smiling, and I arrange my face into something I hope looks professional and not at all like a woman glaring at a model.

“Mara! Hi.”

“Lovely to see you here. I’ve got another bridal shoot coming up, and I’d love you for it. Dates are still being sorted, but I’ll be in touch as soon as⁠—”

“Mara?” the photographer calls. “Can you look at this?”

“Sorry. Duty calls.” She squeezes my shoulder and heads back to the laptop.

A minute later, the door to the changing room opens and out comes Ryan, in black joggers and a black hoodie with the Razor logo on the chest. He barely gives Chloe a glance. He looks at me, though. And he grins.

Just like that, the knot loosens.

He sits down in the make-up chair, and I watch, with great amusement, as a woman half his size powders his nose and then tidies his eyebrows with a tiny brush. The Axe King, ladies and gentlemen. Fearsome cage fighter, and now number-one contender in his division, having his brows groomed.

He catches my eye in the mirror and winks.

After that, the afternoon settles into a rhythm. While Chloe is changing, Ryan is in front of the backdrop, and while Ryan is changing, Chloe is, so the camera never has to wait. I stay parked in my chair with nothing to do but watch.

I’ve done a couple of shoots myself now, so how long it all takes doesn’t surprise me. The photographer keeps up a running commentary—eyes to me, weight on the back foot, hold it, one more—while the stylist darts in between frames to tug at a sleeve, and they take what must be fifty near-identical photos of the same hoodie.

Ryan, it turns out, is very good at this. He barely needs any direction, seeming to know instinctively how to stand, how far to turn his head, when to scowl and when to smirk. It’s a different kind of focus from the one I saw at Braehead, but it’s focus all the same, and there’s something about watching him be very good at his job that I find quietly, deeply sexy.

The trouble is that with every change, there’s a little less clothing.

Chloe goes from the hoodie and leggings to a fitted top and shorts. Holy moly, the woman really does have legs for days. As I stare at her pulling a whole range of poses, jealousy stabs at me again, and I’m thoroughly unimpressed with myself. She can’t help her legs. Nobody chooses their legs.

Then it’s a crop top and even smaller shorts. Good grief.

For his last solo setup, Ryan comes out of the changing room in a vest and fight shorts. Black, with the Razor logo up one leg.

The photographer runs through a batch of frames—arms folded, hands on hips, fists up—and then says, “Let’s lose the top, Ryan.”

Ryan pulls the vest off over his head, hands it to the stylist, and then drops to the floor and does a set of press-ups, right there on the studio floor, as if this is a perfectly ordinary thing to do in front of twelve people. When he gets back up, his chest and shoulders somehow look even bigger. Something to do with blood flowing through them, maybe? The make-up artist steps in and mists his chest and abs with a spray bottle until he glistens. Ryan stands there, chest out, looking bored.

Well. That didn’t happen at the shoots I’ve worked on.

A few more frames. Then the photographer says, “Right, fight shorts off.”