Confronted (Beauty And The Billionaire Geek Book 1) Read Free Page B

of a walk of shame.
    I pulled my bare feet underneath me and nursed my coffee. Stacy sang an annoying, old country song in the kitchen, and I turned to watch her walk down the hall. A few moments later, the sound of water on porcelain came from the bathroom.
    Leaning against the arm of the couch, I pouted to myself. I usually didn’t pout - not my style - but today, I would allow myself a good long pout. I’d never wanted to bear the humiliation of ever seeing William Black again. Too much had transpired between us for a meeting to be anything but deeply painful.
    I slid the coffee cup onto the table and curled up on the couch, hugging my knees. I hadn’t been this depressed since the fallout of my last relationship, six months ago.
    My ex-fiancé, Andy, had been one of Marcus’s clients when we met. I’d been hired to pose with a handful of other models for a series of images and a short commercial to promote the nightclub he managed for his uncle in downtown Seattle.
    At that point, my career had been on high octane. I’d stashed away over a hundred thousand dollars in cash from the big campaigns I’d worked over the years. That was all gone now.
    I heard the bathroom door creak open, so I peeled myself off the couch and slipped into the steamy, warm room. After my shower, I felt a thousand times better. At least, I felt clean. That was a start. I wrapped myself in my robe and went to my room with a towel piled on my head.
    In the drawers of my dresser, I found a pair of faded blue jeans, a black camisole. I slipped my feet into a pair of sandals and tied my still wet strawberry-blond hair into a tight bun on top of my head.
    Across the hall in the bathroom, I applied moisturizer, a light dusting of bronzer, and peach lip-gloss. I didn’t look quite like hell frozen over after the shower, and I didn’t feel quite so vulnerable.
    So what if he had my photo? My photos were all over the Internet anyway.
    After I finished drying my long tresses, I went back to my bedroom and picked up my cell phone to check my messages. I had the slightest tinge of a feeling that he would have called, but I admonished myself for having such a ridiculous idea. I did, however, have a call from my agent, saying I had a booking request for a fine art shoot at a studio in Pioneer Square.
    I called him back and asked for the specifics. My agent informed me the photographer offered five grand for four hours. It would progress to full nude with light fetish and bondage scenarios. Costumes would be supplied.
    It all sounded pretty normal for me, but there was a stipulation that I come to the shoot alone. I never went to a shoot with a new photographer without a friend, especially not nude, fetish shoots. Going would break my cardinal rule of not being a dumb ass. I told my agent to pass and hung up the phone.
    An hour later, my agent called again with another offer from the photographer who insisted that I had the look he wanted. No one else would do, and salary for the shoot would be tripled if I accepted. Fifteen thousand dollars for four hours was an exceptionally large sum for one shoot for a model of my caliber. I told my agent I’d think about it and would get back to him.
    I had exactly thirty-five dollars in the bank and a credit rating in the low double digits. As a model, it wasn’t as if I received a regular paycheck. I either took the jobs that were offered, or starved.
    I went to Stacy’s room and found her doing sit-ups on a yoga ball in a seventies style jumpsuit. I rolled my eyes at her and stood in her doorway.
    “What?” she asked at my expression.
    “That outfit is just so… cliché. Are you doing a Jane Fonda workout?”
    “Who?”
    “God. You don’t know who that is?”
    “Not really.”
    I only knew about the Jane Fonda workout because I’d grown up with my mother and sisters in my grandparents’ hand-built hippie house on the redwood coast of California. The house had been full of my grandparents’ things,