Chapter 7
Shay-Lee
Unknown number: Good Morning, Gorgeous.
Unknown number: What’s your plan for today?
Unknown number: I think I’m going to the beach. Wanna join me?
Unknown number: My balls still hurt, btw.
Unknown number: Look at that. It’s already noon, and you’ve yet to answer me. Wanna grab lunch?
Unknown number: I’m craving avocado toast like crazy.
Unknown number: I’m also craving your ass.
*Unknown number sent a picture*
Unknown number: Looks delicious, right?
Unknown number: Too bad you weren’t there to taste it.
Unknown number: We can go there together sometime this week.
Unknown number: How about we go to yoga again?
Unknown number: I think the instructor was into me.
Unknown number: I might get in free.
Looking at my phone, I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly stuck in the back of my head. This was just a typical day with Camilo. I never realized how desperate that man could actually be, enough to send me over fifty texts a day. My phone was buzzing nonstop, which made it incredibly hard to focus on my work. The stupid device just buzzed again, and irritated, I snapped the sketching pencil I held in two. Taking a deep breath, I shut off my phone and shoved it into my desk drawer.
Camilo was one persistent bitch, I’d give him that, but at least he’d stopped stalking me for the last three days. Instead, he flooded my phone with meaningless texts. Like yesterday, when he sent me a detailed description of everything he’d eaten, starting from the ingredients in his morning smoothie to the vegan wings he cooked for dinner, made from mushrooms. Why the fuck would I care about boiling your mushrooms first before frying them? I didn’t, and yet, Camilo sent me a voice message about how he boils them and what oil he uses to fry them.
“White noise, Shay-Lee. White noise,” I said to myself before grabbing a new pencil and flipping to a new page in my sketchbook.
Last year, thanks to Miles’s dad, Elliot, I got an internship at Renieri, one of the biggest fashion houses in the world. Thanks to doing something right for a change, my internship turned into a full-time job. My biggest passions in life were football and fashion. After my injury, football was no longer an option, considering how I couldn’t walk for almost a year. Even now, standing for too long was hard for me.
For a long time, I had no intention of doing anything with my life. I preferred to stay at home and do nothing because what was the point? For the first two years after the trial had ended, whenever I stepped out of my house, I was followed by reporters and paparazzi who were dying to get my story. Since I had no intention of talking to them or anyone else, I’d just stayed home—hidden away from the world.
But things had changed, and my life was on a different path now. While Jordan helped me by simply being there, the one who truly pulled me out of the gutters was Soren. Other than Camilo, no one had ever understood me like he did. He was everything I wished to have while growing up. The true father figure I lacked. And while the time I spent with Soren made me mourn the love I never received from my own father, it also taught me so many things. Hours of conversation with him led me to make two big decisions that changed my life drastically. The first was meeting Blaire, my therapist. She was an old acquaintance of Soren’s, a fact that made it a lot easier for me to trust her. We met twice a week, sometimes more, and speaking to her was life-changing. The second decision was going to work. Coming here almost every day gave me some structure and a deep sense of self-fulfillment. Something I’d never felt while living under my father’s thumb. And although I’d made enormous progress, there was still so much work for me to go through. So much darkness I’d need to shed before I’d be able to step into the light. And if there was one thing I was sure of, it was that Camilo only brought back more darkness with him. Darkness from the past I so desperately wished to leave behind but knew I couldn’t. I couldn’t because my past followed me like a shadow.
Back to my sketchbook, I was working on a dress design for Renieri’s fashion week. Once a year, Renieri held a full week of fashion shows and events in which models and designers came from all around the world. This year, it would be held in the first week of summer, and Vito, the owner and head designer of Renieri, gave me one of the shows. It wasn’t on the main stage and would be a relatively short exhibit, but it would be all mine.
I bit my lip as a shiver ran down my spine with excitement. I was nervous, but I couldn’t wait for the time to fly. So far, I’d only come up with the concept. Spinning my swivel chair, I turned to face the wall where I had my inspiration board. All my sketches were of figures dressed in white—all but one, who was wearing black and was positioned right in the center. In the heart of my show . The idea came from a dream I’d had back while I was in the hospital. In my dream, a man in black stood in the middle of a white room. It was almost like the angel of death himself had come to pay me a visit. But just as he bent down to take me, I woke up, and he was gone. It was such a bizarre dream because what it left me with wasn’t dread but sadness. It took me a few days to understand what this sadness was— longing . Longing for that one missing piece of my heart.
It was a rather big concept for a fashion show, and I still had to figure out how to emphasize it through the clothes, but I’d get there. Vito seemed to love the idea when I pitched it to him last month, which also gave me a boost of confidence.
Someone knocked on the glass wall of my small office, and I turned to see one of the girls who worked in the fabric department. “Hey, Shay-Lee, did you order food delivery by any chance?” she asked.
“Not that I remember?” I said while scratching my chin with the pencil.
“Oh.” She chuckled. “Well, I just wanted to let you know that some of the girls are keeping your delivery guy hostage.”
The second she left my office, I turned around and slammed the pencil on the desk. Now he’s coming to my work? I got up so fast that my chair rolled back and hit the wall. Furious, I dashed out of my office. True enough, Camilo was surrounded by a group of people in the lounge room. He went all in this time, coming here dressed like a delivery guy, with a hat and all. Oh, for Christ’s sake.
The second he noticed me and our eyes locked, he grinned from ear to ear. “There you are,” he said, pushing back from the table he was leaning against. The girls by his side pouted that he had to leave, and Camilo smiled at them—actually smiled—before walking my way. Since when is he this friendly?
“Have you lost your freaking mind?” I hissed once he was close enough.
Still smiling, he shrugged. “What do you mean?” He took off his hat and put it on my head. “I came to bring you food and wanted to make it interesting. In fact, I clearly remember your love for delivery guys. There was that one time you made me wear a costume while I fuck—”
“Zip it.” I squeezed his cheeks before he could finish his words.
“Who’s that, Shay-Lee? Another boyfriend?” one of the girls asked with a dirty smile.
“This is my brother,” I said before I grabbed Camilo by the collar of his shirt.
“Your brother?” he laughed. “Well, that’s just nasty—”
“Follow me!” I snapped, pulling him behind me until we were back in my office, and I closed the door behind us. Since it was a glass office, I also closed the shutters so we’d have privacy. Camilo placed the paper bag on my desk before he walked farther into the room and looked at my vision board. As he did, I realized I still had his stupid hat on and quickly tossed it on the floor.
“What’s that?” he questioned, pointing at the sketches and photos hung on the wall.
“None of your business.”
With his hands tucked in his pockets, he turned to look at me. “Well, you can’t keep saying that for everything, Shay-Lee. At some point, you need to start sharing, or else, how will I know what goes on in your life?”
His words set me on fire, but not wanting to give him the satisfaction, I crossed my arms over my chest and huffed. “Well, that’s the point, moron. I don’t want you in my life.”
He snorted. “Yeah, sure.”
“I mean it, Diesel. This whole stalking thing is starting to freak me out.”
“Then have dinner with me.”
“Did you get knocked on the head in those years you were gone? Is that what’s turned you completely delusional?” I narrowed my eyes at his stupidly handsome face. “Because I just said I want nothing to do with you, asshole, let alone dine with you.”
Shaking his head, he took a few steps forward, closing the space between us until he was in my face. Wanting to have a fair distance, I walked backward only to be stopped by the desk, so now, he had me shoved against it.
“All I’ve been trying to do the last two weeks is get attention. If you’ll go out with me for one dinner, I promise to stop.”
I raised my brow at him. “One dinner?”
He nodded. “Yes. One proper dinner.”
“What does ‘proper’ mean?”
Putting his hands on the table, he leaned in until I could feel his breath brushing over my skin. “It means you and me, in a restaurant, for at least one hour. Talking.”
Having him this close, with his addicting scent surrounding me, fogged my judgment. While the majority of me wanted to kick his balls again, there was this tiny section in my brain, or dick, that made me wish he’d pin me on my back and fuck me raw over this desk. But then I reminded myself that this was all one big game that so far, he was dominating.
Not anymore.
Darting my eyes to his mouth, I bit my lip and pretended to stifle a moan before looking up to meet his lustful eyes. Yes , I loved his eyes, but that wasn’t the point.
“One dinner and you’ll stop?” I asked in the most vulnerable voice I could come up with. It clearly worked because Camilo’s stare softened, and he nodded.
“Yeah.” He smiled, bringing his hand to my jaw and softly caressing my cheek. “Just one dinner, Shay-Lee.”
Leaning into his touch to make him fall for my act, I closed my eyes. “I’m not sure it’s a smart idea.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m with Jordan.”
His touch turned a little bit less tender before he slid his fingers to my neck. “I won’t tell him if you won’t.”
Bastard .
His eyes locked on his fingers that softly traced my neck. I doubted he even knew what he was doing, as it probably came as naturally to him as breathing. My heart rate picked up, and I had to take in a few breaths before I could speak.
“Can I pick the restaurant?”
A soft smile pulled on his full lips. “Wherever you want, kitten.”
Ignoring how that nickname made my whole body fuzzy and my knees weak, I forced a shy smile.
“Then I’ll think about it, okay?”
“Of course.” He stroked my cheek with the back of his finger. “I still can’t get over how sexy you are,” he said in a low drawl that went straight to my cock.
This is too much. If I wanted him to pay, I would have to block the way my body reacted to him.
Clearing my throat, I looked aside. Camilo got the message because he stepped back, picked his hat up from the floor, and walked toward the door.
“So let me know where we’ll eat.”
“Will do,” I promised him while trying to sound convincing.
He looked so damn smitten with himself right before he left my office that I couldn’t help but smirk. Smile while you still can, fucker. With him gone, I went to check the contents of the bag he brought with him. To be honest, it was late, and I was starving. “What the hell?” I hissed after I opened the bag to see it was filled with dozens of cans. Taking one out of the bag, I read the label, my brows furrowing as I did. “Why the fuck would he buy me Deluxe Cat food?” I grimaced, then noticed there was also a note. Putting the can aside, I picked up the note, my face heating up with fury as I read it:
Only the best for my kitten.
XO XO,
Camilo.