I tried to get to her, but she circled the island, managing to keep herself away from me. And then she saw it.
Shit…
“Oh. My. God!”
“I can explain—”
“That’s where you were! You went to Shane’s to fucking shoot with him!?”
I didn’t even know what to say. There was so much more to it than that.
She looked hurt, and I knew that Shane didn’t want me to tell her what had happened, so I wasn’t really sure what to do.
“Well, sort of…” I muttered.
“What do you think you are now? A model?” Janice scoffed with such a dismissive tone that I felt my anger flare inside of me. Of course I didn’t think of myself as a model, but unless Shane had been lying to me—which he wasn’t—he thought I could be a model, and who was I to argue with him?
“Janice—”
“So, what’d you do? Have a secret photoshoot tonight without telling me? What’d you think I’d be jealous or something?”
I was floundering. I had no idea what to say. Janice was my friend but she was lashing out at me in a way I didn’t understand. Sure, maybe I’d technically lied to her about what I was doing, but it wasn’t like I’d betrayed her trust in any real way. I was just doing what Shane had asked me to do and not sharing it with her. Besides, I had the right to do a photoshoot if I wanted!
“He told you not to tell me, didn’t he?” I did my best to keep my expression neutral, but I must have given it away by mistake. Janice sneered. “Of course he did. And you know why he did that? Because Shane tried to fuck me and I turned him down!”
My whole world came crashing down.
“W—what?” I stammered, my voice barely a whisper.
“You fucked him, didn’t you?” Janice laughed, shaking her head. “He brought you in, told you he was going to shoot you, make you a model, that you were the most beautiful girl in the world and then he fucked you. Right?”
Tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or scream as adrenaline flooded through my body, causing my limbs to shudder.
“That’s his game, Jane. And, if you want a bit more information, he’s about to lose his working relationship with High Style because of it over allegations of sexual assault and misconduct.”
No…
I felt like someone had sunk a dagger into my chest. My heart felt ready to explode. As hard as I tried I couldn’t get a deep breath into my lungs, and on top of that, Janice was looking at me in a way that made me want to completely disappear.
Pity. She pitied me.
“Babe, it’s okay. He does this to everybody. Thankfully I was smart enough to avoid falling into his trap. That way he’d keep shooting me, ya know?”
She came around the island and handed my phone to me. Like a mom teaching her daughter a lesson, she patted me on the back and gave me a forced smile.
“Don’t worry. Once the truth comes out you’ll be the last girl he ever does this too.”
Tears poured from my eyes as she went to her room, leaving me standing there alone in the kitchen with my entire world collapsing. I’d given myself over to him, felt what I thought was a spark, a connection between two souls…
And now my heart was breaking.
Chapter Twelve
Jane
The apartment was stifling. I felt trapped. My face was soaked with tears as I raced to the door and threw myself out into the cool night air. I was on the verge of bawling and stumbled down the front steps and raced into the side alley and collapsed onto a stack of wooden pallets and covered my face with my hands.
I felt like running away from the city, from Janice, from Shane, and finding a new life somewhere else completely. I’d been so sure that I’d found something special—my “one,” only to have the carpet of my life ripped out from under me