Chapter 31
chapter thirty-one
MARISOL
“That one was close!” Leo says with wide eyes as he picks up the liquorice candy that landed in his lap and pops it in his mouth.
“Could you hurry up and get one in so we can be done with this game?” I say. I’ve been sitting here throwing small pieces of liquorice candy into Leo’s mouth for what feels like hours, but has probably been only five minutes, and he can’t catch one to save his life.
“You don’t like feeding me?” he asks, his lips pouty.
“Shut up,” I laugh and throw one straight at his forehead. “If I wanted a companion that could perform tricks, I would’ve got a dog.”
“Aah,” Leo reaches across the couch and pulls me into his lap as I squeal, “but there are so many tricks of mine that you’re yet to see.”
His voice is low in my ear, and goosebumps prickle as he sweeps my hair over my shoulder and presses his lips to my neck. My head instantly falls back, landing on his chest. He chuckles against my skin before his tongue meets the sensitive spot just below my ear. “Leo.” It comes out breathy.
“Mmm?” He kisses my neck like he’s got all the time in the world, and I let him.
Leo and I have no idea what we are doing here, and neither of us is sure how this is going to work when this publicity act is up.
We aren’t faking it anymore; we haven’t been for a while, but I can’t help but feel like this act that brought us together is like a ticking time bomb.
Because when the jig is up, things will change. I just don’t know how.
But for now, I’m being selfish. I’m letting myself be with him like this for as long as the universe allows it.
Leo’s hand slides across my abdomen, and he leaves a trail of heat in his wake. Like there are little bubbles of lava on his fingertips that burst when they touch my skin.
He kisses a trail up my neck, his lips closing around the shell of my ear, and I smile with my eyes closed.
He kisses my jaw next, my cheek, but my impatience wins out, and I turn my head, his lips finally meeting mine.
His lips fall so perfectly between my own, like they were always meant to be a pair.
I slide my hand up his neck as I open up to him, and his tongue meets mine, the flavor of liquorice explodes in my mouth.
I moan as I try to lick the flavor from his tongue, and our kiss deepens, every second making me more and more desperate for him.
But just when I think things might pick up, Leo slows down.
He pulls away, his hands combing through my hair as he looks down at me like I’m something precious, and I find it hard to be mad that he didn’t throw me over his shoulder and take me to bed when he’s looking at me like that.
“I haven’t tasted liquorice in years,” I say.
Leo’s brows pull. “What? It used to be your favorite.”
“I know.” A small laugh that sounds more like a sigh falls off my tongue, because I’d kind of forgotten that. Leo stays quiet as he looks down at me, not taking his hand from where he strokes my hair back from my temple.
“God, I used to have so much candy, didn’t I?” He doesn’t answer, just gives me a small smile. It’s almost sad.
I don’t want him to look at me like that, like he feels bad for me. It’s how lots of people look at me. They think I don’t notice, but I do. They look at me like I paid the price for fame. Like: “Wow, she’s so successful, but look where that got her.”
I think back to the way Leo opened up to me about his nightmares. He was scared to, I could see it. But he told me anyway. Maybe I could do the same. I don’t want Leo to feel bad for me, but maybe he could understand me.
“I haven’t had any candy in years,” I say. He just nods like I’m listening. I’m here. “It wasn’t really a conscious decision to begin with, things just kind of…snowballed without me realizing it.” It’s weird to tell the story. I’ve barely told it to myself.
“I never wanted to be a model, I told you that,” I say, sitting up and leaning against the back of the couch.
Leo’s hands fall to my thighs as he nods.
“But I got approached. I started getting PR boxes from companies I would promote on my social media. And when I started getting clothing and posting videos, a loungewear brand saw them, and they reached out to me. They wanted me to model in their new campaign. When I said yes, and we started talking about the contract, I realized how out of my depth I was. I needed an agent. Enter Jack.”
“Mmm.” Leo’s jaw flexes at his name, and I have to swallow a smile because his protectiveness is adorable.
“My career kind of spiraled from there. Jack was able to open so many doors for me. Regardless of how he treated me in the end, I’m grateful for the way he catapulted my career.
” Leo gives me a sidelong glance. I know lots of people in my life wish I never met Jack, but like Leo said, every single decision we’ve made along the way has led us to the people we are today. Looking back can’t change anything.
“The eating…” I let out a rough breath. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s something I struggle to escape, something that is always with me.
“I mean, I don’t need to explain simple beauty standards to you.
I’m sure you can figure it out. But what started as me wanting to simply be in the best shape I could, transformed into something else.
I couldn’t stop myself from analyzing every single photo of myself.
I went home and tried to fix every single thing that I saw as wrong in a campaign.
It became an obsession, one that I got lost in.
” My mouth becomes dry as I talk, every word hard to get out.
“And then somewhere along the way, it became habit. It became normal, my everyday. I still thought about it, constantly—the way I looked and what food I ate, but it was a regular thing for me to read the ingredients label of almost everything I picked up at the store.”
Leo takes my hand from where I pick at my nails and holds it in his. I finally look up to his face, and I see empathy in understanding, not sympathy.
“I’m still in it,” I say. “I’m still lost in that feeling, that habit.
That guilt if I eat something I normally wouldn’t.
I don’t punish myself anymore, not like I used to.
But it still eats at my mind.” Like the night when I had some of his fries after the charity auction.
I tried so hard not to worry about it, not to think about it at all. But I did.
“Sometimes I wonder if I’ve lost myself to it all.
It’s like…my whole identity is that.” The night of the masquerade ball at Hotel Dolce, he told me that I’m still me, in my heart.
And I’ve been trying so hard since then to believe that.
Being around Leo helps. He makes me feel like a reckless kid again.
A girl who doesn’t care about a number on the scale or the way she looks in a photograph.
Just a girl who loves to laugh and smile, with a boy who loves to watch her do it.
“Did you feel guilty about tasting the liquorice?” he asks, the first thing he’s said this whole time.
It’s so ridiculous, it brings a little smile to my face. “No.”
Leo leans down to kiss me, his hand cupping my face, feeling like the support beam that’s holding my entire being steady. I sink into his touch, and when he tugs on my waist, I settle into his lap, straddling him as our tongues collide. But it isn’t rough, it isn’t greedy. It’s delicate, attentive.
“You’re not lost,” he says, brushing his nose against mine.
“I want to get better,” I whisper, leaning my forehead on his as I close my eyes. “I just don’t know how.”
He presses a small kiss to my lips. “Baby steps, covergirl.”
“I’m scared to take them.” Because that guilt won’t disappear just because I want it to. I’ve tried that. With every step comes my mind’s repercussions.
“I know, but I’m here.” I can’t help but mentally add for now to the end of that sentence. Because while Leo has always been a part of my life, I don’t know what will change when this is over.
I don’t think I want it to be over.
The selfish part of me hopes it carries on for as long as possible, but the logical part of me knows that with every night Leo spends in Sorrento, the worse his nightmares get.
Once this is all over, I don’t know how I can ask him to stay.
He’s worked so hard to move on, and all I am doing is dragging him back.
But I’ve given up so much to be where I am today. I can’t let it all be for nothing.
I open my mouth to ask him. To find a way together, because I don’t think I can go back to having Leo in my life as a friend. It won’t ever be enough. But my phone buzzes on the couch behind me, the Charlie’s Angels theme song filling the quiet living room.
“Hi, Eva.” I answer the phone as I crawl from Leo’s lap.
“Hi, cara. I came to your place, but you weren’t home. Are you around?”
I shuffle in my seat, folding my legs beneath me. “No, I’m actually in Ruby Cove with Leo for a couple of days, visiting my brother and our friends.”
“Oh, good,” she says. “Put me on speaker. I’m assuming he’s with you after that whole ‘I’m not taking my eyes off of her’ moment. ”
I grin and shake my head as I hold the phone out in front of me, hitting the speaker button. “You’re here with both of us.”
“Ciao, Leo.”
“Hey,” he replies.
“I thought I would give you both a bit of an update.” Leo’s eyes meet mine as he frowns.
“Leila is planning a launch party for Sirena Swim the last weekend of the month, right in time for summer, and she wants all of the models to be there.” My mind can’t help but fly to the fact that Jack will inevitably be there, too.
Even after what we told Leila at the shoot, I know how Jack works.
I know the way he can talk his way in or out of anything.
“And I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to your socials lately, or if you’ve been keeping up with the chatter online, but you’re back, baby.”
I haven’t. I haven’t been looking or paying attention.
I kind of forgot that I was supposed to be.
At the start of all this, I was so excited about being booked and that my name was in people’s mouths for something positive again.
But lately, I’ve been too caught up in the man in front of me to care what people are saying about me.
“The plan worked, Marisol. I’ve got you booked for the next two months. You and Leo can call this thing off whenever you want. You don’t need a relationship anymore. You have your brand back.”
Dread sinks to the bottom of my stomach as Leo’s gaze falls from mine.
This is it. This is what I wanted, a temporary fix.
But Leo was always going to be so much more than that.
I just didn’t know that at the time. Now I’m left with a repaired brand, but somehow, it feels like everything else is broken.
“It’s up to you if you want to go to the launch party, Leo,” Eva adds. “But don’t feel obliged. There are still photos of you guys floating around, so it should slowly fade out.”
“Okay,” he mutters, and I’m left with a churning stomach.
“Well, I’ll see you at the party, Marisol. Leila invited the models’ agents to come along this time, too.” So Jack wouldn’t be the only one. “But we should meet before then. I’ll text you.”
“Okay.”
“Ciao, talk to you then.”
“Bye,” I say as Eva hangs up. I gulp down a swallow as I look up at Leo, who’s simply staring at where I dropped my phone on the cushion. “Leo?”
He looks up, defeat written in the set of his brows. “Time’s up.”