“So do we call this place Vivian’s Secret?”
Vivian’s secret?
He has no idea, setting the box down to gaze around my studio.
This former bedroom is perfect for boudoir shots. The gold four-poster canopy bed gleams as sunlight pours in through the three tall windows, framed by romantic, sheer white curtains. With its elegant ivory linen headboard and sumptuous ivory sheets, I can change the look of the bed with the rainbow of silk and faux fur pillows and blankets I store in the giant prop closet.
For a different vibe, a sultry, black-velvet Victorian settee reclines in the corner. The uplights beneath it create a dramatic effect.
But I’m partial to the gold, full-length baroque mirror propped against the white wall. I love capturing a client gazing at her beauty.
My studio lights are neatly tucked into one corner, with my treasured camera and its row of lenses, sitting on an antique French dressing table. Sometimes, I use the table and its mirror as a sexy setting.
Jace examines the space like he’s seeing it for the first time, even though he’s up here every day, leaving me tea. Leaving me with a smile.
“You ever shoot yourself?” he asks, grinning. “I mean, not like with a gun, but—” He always does this, cutely fucking up his modifiers. I love it.I love him.“But I mean, do you ever take your own boudoir self-portraits?”
“Once.” I fight a laugh, bending down to tug at the tape on the box. “I did it years ago when I was in college, but it didn’t go too well.”
“Why?” he asks, helping me. “Wrong lens? Bad lighting?”
His bear paws easily rip the cardboard open. Like he could easily rip my jeans open as well, sending a sweet shock right between my lonely thighs. It makes me blurt out.
“No, bad husband.”
Shit.Inwardly, I wince. I try not to bring him up. I try not to think about David.
Even though he signed the divorce papers—a judge left him no choice—it’s like I’m still married to a monster. One that lurks in a dark closet, where I’m trapped inside with him.
No one knows my secret but me and my monster. Oh, and his complicit friends. I realize his friends are so vile, I could deny any rumors they spread, but David has the damning evidence.
I’m doomed.
A sudden tension fills my studio. I glance up and find Jace seething. His sexy nostrils flare. “Bad husband?” His gorgeous eyes glare. “Whatdid he do to you?”
I shrug. “He just said my shots didn’t look good. That my tits are too small, and I’m not sexy.”
Jace rears back, huffing. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?” His heavy brows knit in disbelief. “Goddamn, Vivian. Do you know how beautiful you are?”
I do when you look at me that way.
When you make me feel this way.
Heat blooms in my lonely body. My cheeks blushing, nipples peaking, sex tingling. My heart jolts, making my teeth grab my bottom lip because Jace and I never say what’s right here, ripping our breath away.
“Viv,” he answers my flattered silence. “You’re beautifulandsexy as fuck. You’ve got that whole hot-girl-next-door look going. Just saying.” But he covers his exposure. “Hell, everyone is sexy when theyfeelsexy. And only people who hate themselves say shit about someone’s appearance.”
“I know thatnow. I was just young and believed him and wanted to please him.”
But lately? I’d be pleased to stab David’s eyeballs with my toothbrush. Instead, I clean the toilet with his and set it back where he left it.
“Why did you want to pleasehimso much and not yourself?” He shakes his head. “Fuck, why do women do that? They try to make everyone else happy, and it only makes them fucking miserable.”
That’s the million-dollar question, and it took me years to find my answer. “Because my parents were divorced, so I got this naive notion that if I could work for the perfect marriage and be the pleasing wife, it wouldn’t happen to me. But now I know perfection doesn’t protect you; it only makes you more prone to disaster. Because no one and no love is perfect.”
Except this one.
This friendship.
