“James, turn your face a little to the left,” the photographer said.

Even though the position was extremely uncomfortable, I shifted my neck in the direction he’d asked and tried to keep the rest of my body still.

“Good,” he said. “Now, make your smile bigger.” He paused while I adjusted. “Just like that.” A few more clicks of the camera and then, “Look down just a smidge.” He shifted to the right and then straight in front of me. “Yesss. Don’t move.”

I wasn’t moving.

I wasn’t breathing.

I was just sweating under these super-bright set lights and sticking to the white table they had my arms propped against, hoping the towel wrapped around me wouldn’t fall. Even though the set stylist had told me she clamped the pins extra tight, I could feel them loosening.

“Bigger, bigger,” the photographer complained. “Show me passion; show me emotion.”

Whenever I did a shoot for Dior, I always worked with this photographer, so I knew what he expected from me. This time, it was to show their new line of eye shadow. The picture chosen from today’s shoot would run in an international campaign with billboards, product displays at all department stores that carried the brand, and online ads, and there would be a digital screen displayed in Times Square.

And my face was melting off.

I couldn’t imagine how much retouching these shots would need.

“Turn, turn—no, the other way. Yes, turn that way. Turn, turn, turn. Now, stop.” He continued to look through his lens, but I didn’t hear the clicking of the camera. “Uh, makeup?” he called. “Where’s makeup? James is looking shiny.”

“I’m here,” the makeup artist said, running over to blot my cheeks and powder the spots that needed blending.

When she finished, the photographer looked through his camera again and said, “Let’s take twenty.” He pointed at the makeup artist. “Clean her up. Start over if you have to. The powder caked to clammy skin isn’t a pretty look, sweetheart.” He looked at the group of set assistants. “One of you, get James a fan.”

I reached around to my back and grabbed the towel, so it wouldn’t fly open when I stood.

The makeup artist went behind me and said, “Here, let me help.” She readjusted each pin to make it tighter and then handed me a robe.

“Thank you,” I said, tying it around my waist.

“Let’s head back to the dressing room, so I can touch up the rest of your makeup.”

I followed her into one of the back rooms, the same place I’d left my clothes and purse, and I grabbed my phone before taking a seat on the high stool. While she slathered more concealer over my forehead, I scrolled through my texts.

There was one from Eve, asking how the shoot was. I typed back that it was going okay and I would see her later when we met for dinner. Then, I opened the message from Brett, which was a reply to the question that I had asked him earlier—Are you going to tell me what you do?

The thought made me smile, as it didn’t surprise me one bit.

He had so much power in his body, I was sure he brought even more to the courtroom.

I could picture him in a custom-tailored suit, like the one he’d worn to Chateau Marmont, walking up to the stand to completely demolish a witness’s testimony.

I went to the Home screen and pressed the icon for the camera, holding the phone up and to the side to take a selfie.

I attached it to my text and typed.

In the month we’d been talking, he hadn’t sent me a picture of himself, but we’d video-chatted a bunch of times. One of the things I loved about that was getting to see his eyes. It had been too dark in the bar that night to notice their color, and I’d been too preoccupied at his condo to really take a good look. But, now, I knew everything about them. His irises were a piercing sea green that darkened to emerald near the pupil, and there were tiny specks of gold that weaved through the middle and stretched to the outer edge.

I was obsessed with them.

He knew that.

But he also knew I loved his voice, and I always wanted more of it.

The text screen changed to an incoming call, and Brett’s name appeared.

“Hello?”

“Is this what you wanted?”

My face started to blush. It was his tone, the deepness of his words. The way they ended in just a tiny growl, reminding me of the louder ones he’d made that night at his place.

“Yes,” I answered.

“What are you shooting?”

“Dior makeup.”

“What’s underneath the towel?”

The makeup artist turned on a portable fan and pointed it at me, and then she returned to powdering my cheeks.

“A little more than what was underneath my dress.”

“Fuck,” he hissed. “I need you to show it to me.”

“Tonight,” I promised. “Hey, you told me your assistant would be working on your travel schedule today, so what week are you coming?”

“Do you want me to surprise you?”

The anxiousness in my chest made it hard to sit still. “What does that mean? You’ll show up at my door? At my next shoot? That you’re outside right now?”

He laughed, and that was another sound that drove me mad. So deep and honest and manly.

“It means, something you won’t expect.”

“Now, I’m kinda nervous.”

“I’m not coming to scare you, James. I’m coming to give your body more pleasure than you’ve ever felt.”

I turned down the volume on my phone to make sure the makeup artist couldn’t hear what he was saying. “You mean, it can get better than that night?”

“Yes.”

That was hard to believe.

Since Abel had been my first, I’d learned everything from him, and we’d had great sex. He’d pushed me to try things that I hadn’t thought I’d like but ended up loving.

Like anal.

I was sure Brett was well experienced with that. Still, I wasn’t sure I could handle a dick as large as his without a ridiculous amount of prepping.

The thought made me squirm a little.

When I had been with the Malibu hotel guy, I’d tried to relax and enjoy the feel of his foreign hands. But, after being with Abel for so long, most of it had just felt wrong. I couldn’t get Abel out of my head, and half of the time, I had pretended it was him and not Malibu.

And then there was the night I’d had with Brett, and that was completely different than anything I’d had before.

It was hotter.

More intense.

It’d consumed me to where I no longer had control over my body.

And, now, he was saying he could give me more than what he already had.

“Wow,” was all I could say.

One of the photographer’s assistants poked her head into the room and said, “We need you back on the set in two.”

The makeup artist pulled her brush off my eyelid and put it back in the holder she wore at her waist. “I’ll see you out there,” she said.

I watched her leave and got up from the stool, moving over to my purse.

“You have to go,” Brett said.

“I do,” I said. “Can I call you when I get out?”

“I’ll call you.”

He said good-bye and hung up, and I slipped the phone back in my bag and returned to the set.

Since the break, someone had removed the table, and now, there was a white rug on the floor and a green screen behind it.

“You’ll be standing for this part,” the photographer said.

I handed the robe to the makeup artist, and she checked the pins behind me to make sure the towel was secure. When I felt it tighten, I dropped my arms to my sides.

“Now, look over here”—the photographer snapped his left hand above his head—“and give me that million-dollar smile.”

It was more like three million, which was a half-million-dollar raise from the last Dior shoot.

“More left, more left. Yes, like that. Now, look at me from over your shoulder,” he ordered.

I took a step back to position my body, and as I pointed my chin across my shoulder, I heard a beep. That was followed by a chime and a siren, even a bark—all sounds coming from the phones in this room. It became even louder as more cells received whatever messages were coming through.

Everyone looked around, and I could tell they were questioning whether they should take out their phones.

The photographer was the first person to dip into his pocket, and then they all followed.

The room turned silent.

I stood in a towel, the only one in here who wasn’t holding a phone, hoping someone would glance up so that they could tell me what was going on.

Finally, I caught eyes with the makeup artist, and I mouthed, What’s happening?

She seemed nervous, hesitant, and extremely uncomfortable as her stare moved to the photographer’s assistant, who wore the same expression on his face. Then, slowly, the makeup artist walked over to me, holding the phone out so that I could see the screen.

A celebrity alert had come through, the message in a bright red box with white lettering.

It had my name on it.

It had other words that I couldn’t comprehend.

Words that couldn’t even be possible.

“We’re shutting down the set!” one of Dior’s representatives yelled across the room. I could tell she didn’t want to turn in my direction but finally did and said, “We’ll reach out to your team if we decide to reschedule.” She quickly glared at the photographer. “You’re off the clock,” she said to him. Then, she pointed at the lighting crew. “Turn off the lights, and get the set cleared before we’re billed for another hour.”

Not a single person in here would look at me.

I heard the sound of their feet moving across the concrete floor and the snap that the lights made when they were shut off.

Is this really happening?

I needed answers.

I needed the alert retracted and an apology that was a mile long.

I needed to sue whoever had aired this because they certainly didn’t have their facts straight, and they’d confused what they saw or heard or had in their possession.

I wouldn’t do what they were accusing me of.

Not ever.

I couldn’t stand here for another second.

I squeezed the front of the towel, so it wouldn’t fall and rushed into the hallway and into the dressing room where I threw on my clothes and shoes. Holding my bag over my shoulder, I bolted out the door and found my car in the parking lot, shoving myself inside and scrambling to find my phone.

There were so many texts, so many social media tags, so many alerts now coming through from every site, even the news channels, that my phone was slow to load. When I finally got to the Home screen, I went to my call log and hit the number for Tim, the manager who had been with me since the start of my career.

“James,” he said as he answered. “I just got in my car, and I’m driving to you right now. You’re still at the photo shoot?”

The photographer walked out the same door I’d come through, and he scanned the lot until our eyes met. During the shoot, he had looked at me like I was a piece of art. Now, he wore a dirty, smoldering smirk.

I glanced away, a wave of nausea passing through me. “Tim, what the fuck is going on?”

“I don’t know. I found out the same time you did.”

“This can’t be right. It’s impossible. I didn’t do it. Do you hear me? I didn’t do it. Make them take it back. Make them retract that alert from every person’s phone before my entire life is ruined.”

Several seconds of silence passed before he said, “I’ll do everything I can.”