CHAPTER SIX
Blair
The shoot was at a small studio in a forest across town.
It was perfect for maintaining privacy and avoiding too much attention.
The place was bustling with activity when I arrived, with the assistants and photographers making their way back and forth across the set as they rushed to get everything ready.
I used to find it all exciting. The camera flashes, the attention, the “glamour.” Now I couldn’t wait to be done with it, and not only because I was impatient to return home and check Zach’s room.
There was another reason I didn’t want to be here today, and it was because of the person sponsoring this particular brand.
I wouldn’t have signed the contract had I known he would be around, but I found out about him only when he showed up at my first shoot, and by then, it was too late to back out.
I shivered just thinking back to how he’d looked at me while I was posing in various bikinis and one-pieces. It made me feel naked, and the intensity of his gaze gave me the heebie-jeebies.
Now I released a breath when I pulled into the parking lot of the studio and didn’t see his Range Rover among the other cars. Just to be sure, I asked the photo shoot assistant about him the moment I stepped inside, and she confirmed he wasn’t here.
The makeup artist did wonders with my face, and I proceeded to work free of the burden of knowing he was watching me.
It helped the time pass more quickly, and before I knew it, I was on my way back and about to try to get more pieces of a complex puzzle that was Zach.
Though I got one piece when I passed the employees’ parking lot by the gate on my way out earlier and spotted a top-of-the-line BMW bike that hadn’t been there before.
It was definitely Zach’s, and it left me reeling.
He couldn’t have afforded that bike working regular jobs, so how had he managed to get it?
Was it partly thanks to the money Dad had given him?
It only made me more impatient to find some answers.
Once I got back home, I dressed in more comfortable clothes and looked for Zach outside to make sure he was busy and wouldn’t get back to his room before I left it.
I found him planting seeds in a row on the other side of the pool, and I vaguely remembered it was the place where Mom wanted batches of red and white roses.
It looked like it would take him a while to finish, but I hurried to his room anyway, just in case I was wrong.
My heart sped up more the closer I got there, and I took a deep breath as I stopped in front of his door. I was intruding, but that wasn’t the sole reason for my jitters. I could finally find out something about who he really was now.
I reached for the handle, but the door didn’t give. It was locked. I should’ve anticipated that.
I made a beeline for Dad’s study. He kept the master key there.
Dad always worked in his study around this time when he was home, so I thought up an explanation for why I needed the key on my way there and knocked.
“Come in.”
“Hey.” I stepped inside. Dad was at his desk, poring over some documents. There was a glass of whiskey in front of him, along with an ashtray with a lit cigarette resting on it. He wore his usual business attire, sans his blazer, which lay discarded over the back of the armchair in the corner.
Dad was almost fifty years old, but he looked nearly a decade younger. Though I couldn’t tell how because he lived a fast-paced life with a lot of stress and pressure that earned him permanent frown lines on his forehead. Despite that, he was attractive and fit.
“Yes?” He sounded impatient, as though I was wasting his time. He’d always been that way, having almost no patience for me and being too focused on his work.
Dad had little interest in me other than how useful I could be to this family.
It wasn’t a secret that he wanted his eldest heir to be a boy, so when he got me instead, he made sure I knew mistakes weren’t an option, as if just by being a girl meant I was prone to messing things up.
As I grew up, the view of him focused on his documents instead of me while we talked became a constant.
It had stopped bothering me a long time ago, and now I just hoped he would be too distracted not to see through my lie.
“I need the master key. I lost my key to the garage.”
He tsked, a frown forming between his brows as he finally looked up at me. “I told you to be more careful with your keys.” He grabbed a key from the top drawer of his desk and slid it across the desk toward me.
“I know. Thanks. I’m going to have a replacement made.
” I turned to leave, but then I looked back at him.
Part of me wanted to tell him everything, that Zach wasn’t who he was presenting himself to be and was blackmailing me, but Zach’s warning kept those words at bay.
I couldn’t risk it. Not until I found something I could use against him.
Dad raised his brows as he looked up at me. “Anything else?”
“No.” I walked out, smiling because he didn’t question me about the key.
I didn’t know what I expected to see in Zach’s room.
When I entered, the first thing that struck me was how empty it was.
There were no decorations or anything personal other than a laptop and a phone charger placed on the desk.
Our previous gardener had a dozen photos of his family on the shelf above the desk, but that shelf was now glaringly empty.
There was nothing that would tell me who Zach was.
Either he didn’t pack much because he wasn’t staying long, or he didn’t own much. Or maybe he didn’t care about decorations, for that matter. I was hoping for the former, but nevertheless, I was here to make that happen.
The door to his bathroom stood open, and I peered inside, seeing the same picture—there was nothing other than basic toiletries such as soap, shampoo, and toothpaste.
A faint smell of his shampoo hung in the air, probably from his last shower, and it did something to my insides.
I faced back into his room, fighting against the pull.
I dropped to my hands and knees to check under his bed, but there was also nothing. I checked his dresser next, and I tried not to think about how hot it was that he was a boxers guy as I sifted through them and the rest of his underwear for anything he might’ve hidden there.
His closet didn’t seem to contain anything of interest either.
There were only a few changes of clothes in it, along with his duffel bag that occupied the top shelf.
I took it down and opened it, finding it empty.
Its side pockets were empty too. I went through his clothes next, noting they were all of high quality, and then I checked the labels.
My brows went up. These were all luxury brands. First the bike, and now this. What was going on? Where were all these high-end things coming from?
He’d quit school as he was going through surgeries, and I’d always assumed he’d been homeschooled, which would allow him to graduate on time.
If that was the case, he could’ve worked full-time this past year, but I doubted he would’ve been able to earn much money in such a short time.
Also, his recovery bills must’ve left him in a lot of debt.
Yet here he was, with his expensive clothes, expensive bike, and fake identity.
I went through the pockets of his jeans and slacks, searching for his wallet, but once again, I came up empty.
With a huff, I dropped into his desk chair, having left his laptop for last. I didn’t think it would get me anywhere because it was most surely password protected, but I tried my luck anyway.
The screen proved me right a few seconds later when it prompted me to type in the password. I tried Zach’s birthdate, but of course, it got me nowhere. Maybe he had a note with the code somewhere nearby.
I opened his desk drawers, but they were all empty. Not even a pack of gum or anything. I bent down to look beneath his desk in case he’d taped the code to the surface, then, for good measure, I raised his laptop to look for any notes underneath it. Nope.
I sighed, giving up. There was nothing here. He hadn’t lied when he said he’d covered all his bases.
I made sure everything was where it was before I entered his room and went to the living room, feeling deflated. There had to be something I could find out about him, some way to turn the tide. But what?
I lowered myself onto the window seat and pulled out my phone.
After leaning against the throw pillows to get comfy, I recorded a couple of videos for TikTok, making sure the pool and terrace were in full view.
I talked about my favorite designer stores in the area, the best spa I’d visited abroad, and my favorite makeup look, all the while making my voice sound like I was genuinely excited about these topics.
My followers loved that and looked at me as a trendsetter, which was what Mom had me go for from the start.
She wouldn’t have settled for anything less.
Zach’s words about my followers seeing me humiliated rang out in my mind, and my stomach twisted. They only invoked a feeling of being fake, but I pushed that away. I didn’t need Zach messing with my mind more than he already had.
I returned to my room after I finished filming and was about to send the videos to my PA to edit them and upload them, when my door opened and Zach stepped inside, closing the door shut with an ominous click.
“What—”
“You snooped through my room.” He crossed the space between us in four strides, his expression promising nothing good.
I stepped back, my heart jostling in my chest. “I didn’t.”
He raised a thread in his hand, still advancing on me. “This says you’re lying.”
My brows slanted. “What’s that?”
“That’s the thread I left attached between the door and the wall, which I found broken on the floor.”