I bite my lip and nod as hurt burrows a hole in my stomach. “So that’s it then? You don’t believe me.”
“Look at these photos,” he says, setting his phone on the table. “Look at these photos and tell me what you would believe if it was you.”
My chin quivers, and I nod again. Not because he’s right. He’s not. But because I can’t prove it. And it’s very clear that healready believes what he believes. I’m not going to be able to change his mind.
“I think you should leave,” he says, and I look back up at him.
“What?”
“I think you should leave,” he echos. “I need time to think. To process all of this. I also have a lot of damage control to do as well.”
“Where am I supposed to go?” I ask.
But before he can answer, not that I am sure he was going to, his phone rings. He turns away and takes the call; his manager’s shouts audible even though it’s not on speakerphone.
So I leave.
* * *
“He thinks you’re lying to him?” Demi asks as we sit on her couch, facing each other. Bentley is asleep in her room, so we keep our voices down, or try to anyway.
“I mean, I don’t know what else he’s supposed to believe,” I sniff into my glass that I can’t bring myself to drink because I feel like my stomach is full of battery acid.
“You,” Demi snaps. “He’s supposed to believe you.”
“Yeah, well, he doesn’t,” I say.
“I don’t get it. Someone took those photos. It had to be someone who knew what they were doing. Or at least someone with a really good camera,” she says.
“It also had to be someone in the house,” I add.
“Yeah…that bed photo was…” she lets out a low whistle and I nod, taking a sip of my beer.
“Yeah. I know,” I say. “What I don’t understand is who could have taken the photos. And why? They were taken by someone at Sigma. That much we know.”
“Wait,” she says. “Don’t your co-workers at Sigma run edits on everything before it’s published?”
“Alice and Troy. Yes. I called them as soon as I left Zane’s. They both say they never saw the photos before they went viral.”
“It’s just creepy,” she says. “Because if he is right, if they were taken from inside the house, that means someone has been sneaking around. Watching you.” Demi shudders, and I all but come undone. Because as much as I’m freaked out for my own sake, it’s not even me that my brain goes to first.
“Bentley is in the house,” I tell her. “Someone has been close enough to Bentley that they could have hurt him. They could have taken him and I just…I…”
My words break apart as I start to cry, and Demi pulls me into her. “I know. Shh. It’s okay, I know. But Bentley is safe. He’s here, and he’s safe. And nothing is going to happen to him. You would never let anything happen to him,” she says, and I pull away from her, tears still running down my face and from my nose.
“But that’s the thing. Zane told me to leave. If I’m not there, how can I protect Bentley?” I sob, and Demi starts to cry too.
Chapter 36
Zane
“How cansomeone take photos of people having sex if they are the people having sex?” Cal asks.
“You can set up a camera!” I shout. Why do I have to explain this to a model and a photographer?
“Yeah, but like that? How do you take a photo like that with a timer? I mean, look at it,” he says, pulling it back up on his phone and moving to stand closer to me. “Your arm is flexing with just the right amount of girth to block her nipples, yet still show the perfect amount of breast. And the blanket just happens to look blurry right where her–”
“Stop looking at the fucking photo,” I snap. “And stop saying breast and girth and every other word that just came out of your mouth.”
