He frowned, nodded, and said, “Yeah, and that’s a little disturbing too.”
“You know exactly who and what I am,” she said with a smile.
He nodded. “I know that,” he said. “You’ve never been anything but what you’ve appeared to be.”
“So stop being so glum about it.”
“I’m not.” He straightened his tall slim frame, dressed in a beautiful three-piece gray suit.
He always looked elegant, never a hair out of place. She was a little more on the rough-and-tumble side and had to work out to look like he did, but his look was effortless. He was that role model ahead of her on her path, who made her just want to be him, only in female form.
He gave her a gentle hug and said, “Stop for a moment and just enjoy living instead of always conniving for your next step.”
She smiled, kissed him gently on the cheek, and said, “You go meet Benjamin for breakfast and enjoy.”
He nodded, and, as he headed to the front door, he turned and looked at her. “Don’t let other people know how you feel, right?”
“Of course not,” she said. “I’m not that stupid.”
He nodded, and, though he was obviously a little worried, he headed out the front door.
She could hear his footsteps as his long, lean legs ate up the yards. Something about Derek almost set her teeth on edge. They’d known each other since they’d been little kids, and he’d been warning her about her scheming ever since.
She’d often asked him, “Why are you even friends with me?” His response had shocked her the first time, and now she feared it was just a joke because he kept saying it was his job to keep her on the straight and narrow.
She often told him how he was failing terribly on the job. He would nod and say he was, indeed. But he was working on it. She didn’t understand half of what he said, and Benjamin appeared to be just the same. But Benjamin couldn’t stand her, and she couldn’t stand him, which just added to their animosity. The fact was, her longtime friend had somebody in his life who was the polar opposite of her. Again it made her wonder why she and Derek were even friends.
Benjamin was another one of those well-dressed, smooth, clean, always perfect-looking guys, but the difference between the two men was obvious. She couldn’t stand the one. Now Derek had often told her that she had a serious case of jealousy and that he would be her friend no matter what. But she’d already seen a change in his attitude, a change in his affection, and a change in the amount of time he spent with her and his willingness to talk with her.
She knew Derek was tired of listening to them fight, but it didn’t matter to her because anything she could do to keep that asshole away from Derek would be good for her. Yet she already knew that she couldn’t do it directly; otherwise Derek would turn on her. Hence her wanting to send him off to have breakfast with his lover.
Why the two of them didn’t live together, she had no idea. But that only helped her out, as she was the one who had crashed at Derek’s place last night. She needed an alibi, and she needed what he could give her—that little bit of stability. Which was often.
She needed her wits about her for what was happening next. She somehow had to maneuver herself into a position to take over the modeling world.
She had no intention of being a body model for long, but, for now, it provided an excellent opportunity for everybody to check out her personal assets and to make sure they were in prime condition for whatever was needed next.
One of the clothing designers she’d really admired had told Naomi that she was too heavily endowed. She’d been horrified, but he had refused to let her wear any of his creations on the runway. Heartbroken, she had seriously considered getting her breasts reduced, but Derek had stopped her, saying she’d been given that beautiful body, and it just wasn’t the right market for her to show her wares.
She had agreed, then promptly did her best to disrespect the designer. She carefully started rumors that caused the designer to break up with his current lover in a most unbecoming public display causing the designer to be removed from the current fashion show, and she realized just how much power she had. Since then he had bounced back, but she didn’t care. She had made her point. And, just in case he hadn’t understood that she had done it, she’d sent him a little note saying, Thanks for nothing, from Well-Endowed.
She didn’t know if he would recognize that as being her because he saw so many models all the time. But it had given her that sense of satisfaction nonetheless. Still, she didn’t want to go too far. Not only did she not want Derek to know what she was up to, but she also didn’t want anybody else to know either because that would impact her ability to model. And that would never happen, if she could help it.
She reached for her bottled water and her morning meds.
“Pretty soon,” she said to the empty room, as she popped two of the pills that she needed. “Pretty damn soon.”
*
“How is the case going?” Andy asked, standing beside Richard. “Any new leads?”
“No,” he snapped. “You?”
Andy shook his head. “No, I’ve just come back from setting up witness interviews for everybody who was there at the end of the evening. Unfortunately, well over two hundred attended. So that’s a lot of phone calls. I can’t get hold of about sixty of them, and we don’t have names for a bunch of them.”
“There was a guest list,” he said, looking at Andy in surprise.
“And apparently a lot of the guests brought
