Brothers of Paradise Series

It might be the best picture ever taken of me.

It barely looks like me, this ethereal, otherworldly creature of nature.

I’d thought I’d be mortified seeing these pictures, but looking at it now, it’s art. Without Rhys I would never have dared be a part of its creation.

A notification pings on his laptop, the text coming up on the top right corner. My eyes skim over it on instinct.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

Ben Rieler: Just looked at the preliminary photos. I don’t want to lose the bet, but they look great.

The bet? A second text follows right after the first, this one, too, appearing in the notification bar.

Ben Rieler: Still waiting on my thanks for finding the model from the Hamptons party for you, by the way. You sure didn’t seem upset about it in Sydney, but then, you love blondes!

The world tips slightly, falls off-keel, the words slicing through me like a sharp knife through butter. The first question spawns a thousand others, my mind fracturing like a kaleidoscope. I sit frozen in front of the computer as the notifications slide off screen and leave me alone with the portrait of me, naked and happy in Bali.

The model from the Hamptons party.

Had Rhys been the one to ask for me?

I dismiss the idea as soon as I think it. His shock at seeing me in the office room in Rieler Travels had been too real to be anything but. Which means…

The Hamptons party.

I hadn’t been paying attention to the other men, the ones sitting around Rhys, caught in his spell… but Ben must have been one of them. Hadn’t they discussed something about Sydney? He chose me. He chose me from my agency, not because of my skill, or my portfolio, or because I was the right fit for Rieler. He chose me as some elaborate prank played on his old friend, then, because of our argument and our tumble in the pool. An amusement of rich men, this sport.

I put my finger to the keyboard and start flicking through the images, away from the beautiful one he’d wanted me to see. And it’s all images of me, all naked, all edited with the lighting. My own face taunts me in all my happy, relaxed ignorance.

Each image makes my cheeks flush darker, the shame deepening. Ben had chosen me as a prank, and Rhys had known, and hadn’t told me. You love blondes.

Until I come across an image that isn’t me at all. It’s another woman, posing suggestively on a bed, sheets wrapped around herself. She’s looking at the camera like it’s all she’s ever wanted.

Like she’s seeing the man behind the lens.

Exactly like I’d done.

The sick feeling rising up doesn’t stop me from scrolling quicker and quicker through images of a few other models. Other places. No clothing. Nothing is lurid, I’ll admit, and perhaps I could appreciate the beauty of these nude portraits if I wasn’t being choked by my own furious humiliation.

I’ve never felt cheaper than I do right then.

He never could resist a model.

I highlight all of the pictures of me sans clothing, every stupid one, and hit the delete button on his computer. Then I empty the trash for good measure. All my old fears combine with this new evidence, the images of other models swimming in front of me. His honest response to the last time he’d slept with someone. The way he’d described his casual entanglements.

It’s like a house of cards toppling, the image I’d built in my mind of who I could be around him, the carefree, effortless woman who took what she wanted. Who slept with a man without expecting to catch feelings. Who just wanted to explore.

Because I’m still the girl who would have hated Rhys in school. Who plans and plots and writes to-do-lists. Who wants a man who loves her, who wants a relationship, who wants to be more than just a sexual partner.

And the worst part of it all is that he’s never promised me anything, never been anything but honest about the whole thing, and I still feel like he’s lied.

Like he’s made me feel more special than I am.

But I’m the one who’s inferred that-it’s myself I’ve been lying to.

I’m still sitting by the table with a pounding heart and a constricted throat when Rhys comes home. He’s carrying a paper bag and coffee, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. A damp curl of his dark hair hangs over his forehead.

He stills when he sees me. “Ivy?”

“Ben was at the Hamptons party, where you and I… where we met. Was that why he chose me for Rieler’s travel campaign?”

Rhys sets down the food on the coffee table with an exaggerated stillness that sets off hairline fractures along my heart. “He did, yes.”

“I didn’t recognize him in the meeting. I didn’t… I thought…” I push away from the table and tie the bathrobe tighter around my waist. “So what was I, to the two of you? A joke? A prank? Something to prove a point to the other?”

His eyes look miserable. That, if anything, makes my chest ache. “It started out that way, Ivy, at least from his part. I’m sorry you were dragged into it.”

“How could you not tell me about it?” I step back in response to his step forward, his throat bobbing as he swallows. “In his text, he mentions a bet. What bet?”

He runs a hand through his hair.

“Tell me, Rhys.”

“I complained about his traveling campaigns one time too many. The cheesiness of it. How staged they were. He made me a bet, then. To see if I could shoot a campaign that was better than one he paid a professional marketing firm to do. He’ll compare the two of them when they’re finished and choose one.”

I laugh. It sounds shrill. “Right. So this entire trip has been some weird, masculine contest? Who has the money to do something like that?”

“It started out that way. It started out silly, and wasteful, a bet between us to see whose word was true. You were never meant to be caught in the middle of it.”

“But I was,” I reply. “Which means you knew, the whole time, why we were traveling without a single designated stylist or assistant?”

“Yes.” His admission is simple, plain. It’s there in his face, too, completely devoid of a smirk or his raised eyebrow.

“How could you not tell me, Rhys? How?”

“There’s no excuse for it,” he replies, voice hoarse. “I know there isn’t.”

“So much for brutal honesty.”

“I can’t be brutal with you, Ivy. It’s the one thing I can’t be.”

“But you can lie to me.” I gesture to his laptop, now closed again on the dining-room table. Tears of anger threaten to overflow. “I saw a ton of other pictures there, by the way. And as Ben so charmingly put it, you can’t resist a model and you love blondes. What was I? A prize? A trophy? A way to settle the bet more effectively?”

“It was none of those things, Ivy. What happened between us had nothing to do with him, or with the campaign, or with any other women.”

I wrap my arms around my chest. “Are you sure? Because if that was the truth, you would have told me about it.”

There are a lot of feelings in this world that are unpleasant, but I’m not sure there’s one worse than the feeling of foolishness. Of knowing you had suspicions and those suspicions were correct, that you let your heart do the thinking and not your mind. I turn away from his dark gaze, unable to hold it. The agency hadn’t believed in me. They hadn’t chosen me for my work.

I’d been chosen because I’d accidentally argued with a rich guest at a Hamptons party. I’m immune to beautiful women, he’d said then. Judging by the pictures on his computer, it seemed rather to be the opposite way around.