Brothers of Paradise Series

But Rhys doesn’t comment. He just nods. “Cute.”

My mouth babbles on. The filter must have become disconnected somewhere around the second slice of pizza, tiredness starting to set in. “She’ll have my head, though, when I tell her I didn’t see the town with a genuine Italian.”

“Paolo,” Rhys says. “Did he have to have such a generic name? I wonder if it’s a nom de plume.”

It takes me a second to sort through hazy memories from English Lit class. “Like a stage name? Why on earth would he have that?”

He shrugs. “To sound more authentically Italian. Imagine if he was actually called Mark.”

“You mean Marco.”

“Why did you turn him down? He was devastated,” Rhys says, cutting up another slice of his pizza.

“He was not.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Sure he was. I think he was offering more than just a simple tour of Rome, too.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“If you can’t see that, then you’re the one who’s ridiculous,” Rhys says. “Surely you must be used to men asking you out all the time.”

Ah, the age-old assumption, the stereotype, the truth-verging-on-untruth. I take another bite of my pizza and think as I’m chewing. I’m finding that with Rhys, I don’t want to give flippant answers, either.

“I am,” I say truthfully. But it’s only part of the truth. It’s often like Paolo had just done it, offhand, confidently, expectantly. By men who know they’re good-looking.

By men who have expectations of how I’ll act and behave.

And their expectations always kill mine.

Rhys nods, like I’ve confirmed something he knew all along. “Can’t be astonishing when that pattern carries over to Europe too.”

I shake my head. This is not what I want to talk about, not what I want to get into. My lack of romantic experience-and the reasons for that… I can’t go there. I can’t even tell my own baby sister that I’m still a virgin.

“As if you’re not ogled everywhere,” I tell him. Turning the tables-a surefire tactic.

Rhys scoffs, but he doesn’t protest. I don’t know if that’s conceited or insightful, or perhaps both, a combo only he could carry off. He reaches for his wine and drinks, holding the glass between his fingers afterwards with the ease of someone who knows vintages. “Tell me something.”This content belongs to Nô/velDra/ma.Org .

“Tell you something? So I’m not just not uninteresting, but now I’m interesting too?”

“Don’t gloat,” he says.

“I’ll try to. Make it interesting.”

“Tough crowd,” he says. “Very well. Tell me why you chose modeling when you could’ve been anything else.”

It’s not a question I’ve ever been asked-not by anyone that isn’t my father. Everyone else, from high school, from my town, who I meet in the industry, sees this career as a lottery ticket.

The answer is a foregone conclusion. It’s self-evident.

I lean back in the chair and grip my own glass of white wine by the stem, trying to adopt at least a portion of his controlled composure. “I could have chosen anything else?”

Rhys snorts. “That’s fairly obvious, yeah.”

“And here I thought I was just a vain model.”

He glances past me toward the piazza beyond, and is it just me or is there a hint of contrition on his usually unforgiving features?

“I just told you you weren’t uninteresting. And anyone who spends five minutes talking to you can see that you could’ve been anything.”

I sigh, looking down at his glass. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“It’s the honest answer. I was scouted a few years back and toyed around with the idea of calling the scout back. And once I did, things started to snowball. It’s not an easy industry, not by any means, and I’ve worked hard at it, but I’ve never had my entire heart in it.”

“Which is why you’re also a student.”

Now it’s my turn to look up. “You know that?”

“I saw the textbooks on the plane.”

“I thought you were asleep,” I murmur.

“Not the entire time.”

I shift in the seat and stretch my legs out beside me, crossing them. It’s odd, being around men that are considerably taller than me. Both Rhys and Paolo had been today. “I’m studying part time,” I say. “Like I said, I know I won’t be a model forever. We have a rather finite shelf-life.”

His lip curls slightly, and it’s not in a smile.

“What?”

“I don’t like that description.”

“It’s common in the industry. It’s the truth.”

“Which I’m normally a fan of, but this expression…” He shakes his head and motions to the waiter for another glass of wine. I shake my head for a no. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that I can’t spend a whole day posing in tight outfits with a hangover. Learned that one the hard way.

“Right,” I say. “The more brutal the honesty, the better.”

He smirks, looking past me to the people milling about again. I wish I had a camera at hand to photograph him doing just that-there’s something intriguing in his expression… “You remember.”

“Of course. A pretty violent metaphor, by the way.”

“I guess we’re both fans of violence,” he says.

“Or exaggeration.”

“Let’s go with that one.”