I’ve never been so degraded in my entire life.

I have nothing against models, but I’m not a model. I didn’t sign up for wearing skimpy bikinis in front of a camera while some insane French guy screams nonsense at me. I did my best and felt like a moron the whole time. I felt like everyone was mocking me.

Except for Justin. He was staring with me with naked, open lust.

I sigh, back in my office, safe and sound. The ordeal was a few hours ago and I’m wrapping up for the day, but I can’t get the way Justin was staring at me out of my head.

I’ve been hit on before. I’ve had guys give me looks in bars, I’m sure most women have. But I’ve never seen someone look at me with such incredible intense desire like he was staring at me. It was like he would’ve done anything to have me, right then and there, right in front of the cameras.

It made me hate him even more… and made me curious.

I bite my lip. He is handsome, really handsome. I can’t deny that. He’s more handsome than that surfer guy I was modeling with. If I didn’t hate him so much, I could imagine letting his hands stray down between my legs, tease my clit, his lips against my throat, his words in my ear, making me quiver, making me moan.

I blink and come back to reality. I shake my head, trying to will these thoughts again. I’m wet, which is freaking scary. I shouldn’t get this turned on just thinking about that arrogant asshole.

I click into my email and there’s a new message from Justin. I want to ignore it, but I know I shouldn’t. I click it and open it, and there’s just a link along with one sentence. I knew you’d look amazing.

I click the link and a gallery opens up filled with the modeling pictures from earlier. I scroll through them, biting my lip, staring at my own face.

I don’t even recognize myself.

It was so degrading, so horrible being up there in front of those cameras. It was like a freaking nightmare.

But holy crap, I look really freaking good.

I can’t stop looking at these pictures. I look hot, like, really hot. I’ve never looked this good in my entire life. Almost every picture is a thousand times better than the best picture I have of myself. If I weren’t wearing a bikini, I’d freaking print these out and give them away to strangers, just because I look so good in them.

It’s insane. I guess that weird French guy knew what he was doing after all.

I sigh and lean back in my chair. I send a quick message back to him. I expect to get paid in cash. I’m smiling when I click send.

I browse through the pictures a little bit longer. I don’t know how Justin convinced me to do this, but I’m actually happy he did. I mean, it was such a bad experience, but these pictures… they’re really fantastic.

Finally, I pull myself away. There’s one last email from Justin. Meet me at King Leo’s tonight and you’ll get your money.

I read it over again, not sure what to make of it. I feel like he’s asking me out, but that can’t be right. He probably just wants to work on the Spine account again.

As I get up to leave, my cell rings. Normally I’d just ignore it, but it’s my dad’s number. I decide to answer, plopping back down in my chair.

“Hey, Dad,” I say.

“Hi, honey. How are you?”

“I’m good. How’s it going?”

“Oh, you know me and mom, just hanging out.” I grin a little bit. My dad’s been working on his slang lately.

“Sounds fun.”

“How’s work? You told me Diane got let go, but you never mentioned who replaced her.”

I hesitate a second. “Actually, you know him.”

“Really?” He sounds interested, but I’m afraid to tell him.

“It’s Justin Hayes. You know, uh, that Hayes.”

Silence on his end. This is about what I expected.

“Justin, huh,” he says softly. “So I guess that’s Mark’s son. He’s your age, right?”

“Right.”

“Why would they hire someone outside the company and not promote you?”

I clench my jaw. “Politics,” I say.

He snorts. “Of course. I’m sure his father had something to do with it, that backstabbing—”

“Dad,” I say, cutting him off. “Do you remember much about Justin?”

He hesitates a second. “No, honestly,” he says. “I remember you two were really close, until everything happened. I honestly… I tried to keep him out of it.”

“I know you did.”

“Tried to keep you out of it, too.”

“I know, Dad.”

“Anyway, I don’t remember much about him.” Dad sighs. I know he hates talking about this, unless it’s about how much he hates Mark Hayes. “If he’s anything like his father, you should probably stay far, far away.”

“He’s my boss. I can’t exactly ignore him.”

“No, probably not. But you can be careful.”

I nod to myself. “I am, don’t worry.”

“Sure you are, honey.” I hear a muffled noise in the background. “That’s the ball and chain. Gotta go.”

“Okay. Talk to you later.”

“Bye, honey. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

We hang up and I’m left sitting there, staring at Justin’s message. It’s still up on my computer screen.

I’m tempted to go. I want to talk to the guy that was staring at me like that, with that naked and nearly aggressive lust. I want to know what he’s thinking, what he was seeing.

Heck, I want to feel all those things.

I used to have such a big crush on Justin, back when we were younger. Even after everything happened, I still had a thing for him. At least until we got out of high school and I started to realize what his family did to mine, and what he did to me.

Those feelings must still exist, though. I still remember spending hours with him down by the creek near our house, acting like idiots, laughing and joking, getting dirty and wet and just being kids. One time he caught a frog bigger than my fist, and he chased me around with it for ten minutes before we collapsed on the ground together, a tangled mess of confused preteen bodies.

We never kissed. Never even got closer. We were too young.

Now though, I wonder what it would’ve been like, if everything hadn’t happened.

If he hadn’t thrown me away like trash, like I was nothing. Like we hadn’t been friends for years, best friends, closer than close.

I can feel the old anger rising now. I remember calling him, asking him to come hang out. I remember the way his voice was detached, distant, like he was a robot.

Sorry, Remi, I don’t really want to hang out with you anymore.

Those words still hurt, all these years later. I know we were kids and a lot of bad stuff happened between our parents, but I thought our friendship was important. I thought it would matter to him more than whatever the adults were fighting over.

I guess it didn’t.

I slam my laptop lid, grab my stuff, and stand up. All the old feelings are back now, and the handsome man that was staring with me with clear and intense lust on his face is totally gone, replaced by the boy I’ve hated for all these years.

I’m not going back to that. I can’t let myself.

I storm out of the office and go home to my nightly glass of wine, pledging to myself that I won’t ever waste another second on that worthless bastard.