Constance
Tell me it’s so bad to want to be loved.
So terrible to believe that a man like Dorian Fisher could want to be with someone like me.
He had come to me, remember? After my bad breakup, I’d sworn off dating for three whole years.
I’d focused on myself, on healing. My career was flying.
Carly Wolf trusted me. She was taking me on styling trips more and more frequently.
I was going places, literally. I had been bruised and battered by my last relationship; Dorian’s attention was my payback. A reward for all my suffering.
Omar had summoned me for another styling session.
It was for a charity gala, very highbrow.
Very Dorian Fisher in Cannes. He was dressed and ready, hair perfectly in place, tan glowing.
Fred from Tom Ford was much nicer to me during the fitting.
Dorian still hadn’t introduced me as his stylist, but he’d listened to me once again. That was enough.
Now, all eyes were on him as he made his way across the lobby, showing a hint of a smile to eager photographers screaming his name.
I missed him already, could still feel his touch from when we were intertwined on the floor of his suite. It had only happened once. I mean it had happened many times over that afternoon, but not since.
Meanwhile, Julie Lillie’s messages had gone from passive-aggressive to downright threatening.
I’d postponed my meeting with Tyler twice already because I couldn’t focus long enough to get my act together for his next event.
Marielle was sending me picture after picture of the pile of packages jamming her stockroom, none of which I replied to.
I would fix that. There was still time. But for now, there was Dorian.
Before heading off, he looked back at me.
“Omar will talk to you.”
His tone was businesslike, but I knew this was code for I’ll see you soon. My skin tingled all over, that Dorian was saying this in public.
I nodded. “I’ll get back to work.”
I don’t know why I said that, maybe to pretend that I wouldn’t spend every single minute until then thinking about him.
He glanced down at himself. “I’m all dressed.”
I didn’t have time to respond because I spotted Tyler across the lobby. He waved hello, all smiles. Dorian followed my gaze to him.
An usher tried to direct Dorian toward the door, but he didn’t move. He looked at me so intently that my mouth went dry.
“Hey!”
That was Tyler, coming in for a hug already. He smelled like the sun and natural soap.
“You’re a hard person to get ahold of,” he said with an awkward laugh. “I guess you’ve been busy.”
He turned to Dorian. “Hey, man. Nice to meet you. I’m a big fan.”
Dorian accepted the hand Tyler offered him, but there was none of his trademark charisma as he shook it.
“Always nice to hear,” Dorian said coolly.
Tyler looked from me to him. “So you also…” He gestured toward Dorian’s outfit. “I had no idea. You’re so secretive.”
I couldn’t utter a word, so Tyler kept talking.
“She’s good, isn’t she?” he said to Dorian.
He sounded so young, so blissfully innocent.
Especially compared to Dorian’s sudden ice-cold demeanor.
“So I’ve heard,” he said, looking only at me.
Then he leaned forward and whispered so quietly that only I could hear him.
“You, you, you.”
He said it in that breathless tone that had come out of my mouth.
Our conversation on the floor of his suite came back to me vividly. I’d thought it was foreplay. Dorian needed me. I wanted him. Only him. But now I saw in his eyes that I’d read him wrong. It wasn’t a game.
Behind Dorian, the usher who’d tried to lead him away before was now sweating bullets. Even Dorian sensed it. He gave Tyler a very brief smile, then glanced at me pointedly before walking away without another word. I saw him pull out his phone, then lost track of him through the crowd.
I was still trying to organize my thoughts, avoiding Tyler’s gaze, when I felt a presence behind me. Omar.
“When you’re done here, I’m to take you back upstairs,” he said.
Suddenly it was too hot in here. I saw everything so clearly that I would never have guessed it was only happening in my head: Dorian and I, in love.
Serious. The world watching. Knowing. So many doors burst open, my career on a rocket ship.
Carly Wolf fading into the background, dragged down by regrets over letting me go. How she’d misjudged me.
Dorian knew things I didn’t. He’d been in this business long enough.
A young stylist like me didn’t have the resources of my previous boss.
I couldn’t handle too many clients at the same time, and definitely not clients like him.
Maybe he wanted me all to himself, or maybe he was just looking out for me.
Letting me enjoy the benefits of his experience.
Either way I wanted this, too. Like I said, I chose him.
“I’ll be just a minute,” I said to Omar.
He nodded and took a few steps back.
“You’re really busy,” Tyler said.
It sounded light, but there was hurt underneath.
I had to do it.
“I’m sorry, Tyler, but things have changed…”
I wished I could get away with that. He should get it, no? It was business.
He only looked puzzled.
“I feel like an asshole for saying this, but I’m going to anyway. Didn’t you say I was your first big client? That you’d dedicate yourself to me like no other stylist would? Geez, that did make me sound like an asshole.”
We were really going to do this. In public. And not just any public. In the middle of the Martinez.
“You’re not an asshole. And I’m so grateful to you for giving me the opportunity.”
I felt the tension in every part of my body, wondering what Omar might hear, what he might repeat back to Dorian.
“But,” Tyler said.
His whole face had clammed up. I pretended not to notice. Some people recognized him as they walked past. There was a flurry of “Hey Tyler! Love your work, Tyler!”
Tyler waved and smiled. When he focused back on me, his demeanor was stern.
I needed to end this. There was no point in dragging out the misery.
“I can’t pass up working with Dorian Fisher.”
“I get that.”
“And I need to focus my attention on him.”
Tyler raised an eyebrow. “So what, other stylists only have one client?”
“It’s not that simple.”
His laugh was acidic. “You’re going to drop all of your clients for him?”
“Of course not.”
But as I said it, I wasn’t so sure. I couldn’t keep working with a two-bit TikTok starlet now.
I needed to be smart about this. Everything I’d ever wanted was within reach.
In progress, even. There I was, in Cannes, a golden ticket in my hand.
All I had to do was take one step after the other.
And yes, it might mean leaving some things—and some people—behind.
But wasn’t that always the case when you strived to make the most of your potential?
My ex-boyfriend was getting married later this year, according to his social media.
I bet he didn’t regret leaving me in his parents’ basement, in a city where I had nothing and knew no one.
And what about Carly Wolf, who’d thrown me out like trash the second she feared my bad behavior might damage her flawless reputation?
People cut ties; that’s what they do. They move on to move up.
“I’m sorry, Tyler. That’s how it has to be.”
I could barely look him in the eyes, but what I saw left me crushed: the disappointment was all over his face like a skin rash.
“After Cannes?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Now.”
“I thought we were…friends,” he settled on.
In some ways, I would have preferred if he’d let it all out, told me what a selfish bitch I was. But Tyler Charles was a good guy. A kind soul.
“It’s not you. It’s me,” I said flatly.
“Don’t do that.”
His demeanor changed, the anger releasing like a slow-acting drug.
“I tried to block out what people were saying about you,” he added. “I’d met you. I knew you. I thought I knew you.”
I stood there, taking it. Tyler had never hinted at this before, and I’d somehow managed to convince myself that this story hadn’t reached him. That he was above all of this.
“Seth warned me against working with you. I couldn’t risk any bad press at this point in my career.”
“Bad press?” I said, my voice rising. “I can’t keep working for you. You let your agent call all the shots. All you two care about is playing it safe. God forbid you might actually do something interesting.”
Tyler took a deep breath, then exhaled loudly. “Something interesting like this?”
He pulled out his phone and opened an email before handing it to me.
I skimmed it. It was about the sex maniac who’d been fired for harassing Dorian Fisher.
The email mentioned the videos I’d made for him without context.
My name wasn’t spelled out, but it wasn’t hard to figure it out.
Carly Wolf had only fired one of her assistants this year.
At the bottom of the email, there were two simple questions.
Was Tyler really working with me? If so, did he want to comment on this story?
I couldn’t breathe.
Tyler shook his head. “I asked Seth if we could kill the story. Not for me, for you. He’s been working his contacts.
He’s doing what he can so it doesn’t get published, but I’m not sure he has that much influence.
” He swallowed, then looked around us before leaning closer. “Is he making you do this?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant—this, the videos, or this, firing Tyler as my client. But I had to protect Dorian. I couldn’t get him involved in this, not now that I was back in his life, that his security guard was waiting, a few feet away, to whisk me back up to his suite.
“No!” I straightened up. “It’s my decision, 100 percent. And it has nothing to do with Dorian Fisher. You don’t even listen to me anyway. And if you believe this stupid story, then I guess I’m right. We’re not a good fit.”
“Fine,” he said with a shake of his head. “If that’s what you want, then I’ll leave.”
In the end, I was the one who walked away.
Not away though. Forward.
Onward and upward.
And trying to fight the tears that were threatening to spill. What if that story came out? At the time it happened—that stupid day in Dorian’s hotel suite in LA—I was worried sick about who, beyond Carly, might find out.
Because Carly was there, too. She’d seen everything.
I’d tried to tell her that Dorian wanted me to do this—yes, he wanted me to wait for him naked in his suite—but she wouldn’t listen.
And I had no proof. He’d never texted me.
Technically, he hadn’t asked for this. Not in a way that I could explain.
I never knew what these two discussed after they walked out of that room.
Carly had met me, an hour later, saying she took sexual harassment very seriously.
She meant my harassment of one of her biggest clients, Dorian Fisher.
In our post-#MeToo era, men like him lived in fear of women tricking them into the kinds of behaviors that could get them canceled, of women falsely accusing them of the worst acts.
At her request, I agreed to leave my job quietly and to have no further contact with Dorian Fisher or anyone working with her. I confirmed that Dorian had never touched me inappropriately. Never touched me at all, actually.
This will stay between us, Carly had said. Her team was small, but I’d become close with my colleagues. They must have wondered what had happened. What had she told them?
But it didn’t matter because Dorian had protected me then. The photos and videos had never surfaced on the internet, something I checked multiple times after I was fired.
I kept my promise and never reached out to Dorian again.
But now, he wanted to be together again.
For real this time.
Like we were always meant to be.