Avoiding Intimacy (Avoiding 2.5)

This was much better than thinking about her meeting later. She had been putting it off for far too long already. She didn’t know what to think about everything that had happened. All week, Alexa had been convincing her, convincing both of them, to just talk it out, but Adam hadn’t relented, and it had hardened her fortitude.

At this point, she would rather be alone with a fashion designer in his dressing room while a crowd waited outside. Who was she to care if anyone heard her?

Alright! Alright! She cared. A little. A lot. She needed to figure out what she was doing anyway. At least she could enjoy her time with this handsome Italian designer.

“So, Miss Van der Wal—” he said with a charming smile.

“Please, call me Chyna,”

she corrected.

“Chyna,” he said as if he were tasting her name on his tongue. “That outfit looks better on you than any of my models.”

“Thank you,” she said with a self- satisfied smile.

“Have you ever been photographed before?”

“No,” she said, narrowing her eyes cautiously.

“Would you like to be?”

She scoffed. “Is that your best pick-up line?”

Marco laughed at her catty remark. He didn’t look like a man used to hearing rejection. Not that she had necessarily rejected him. She was still pretty open to the idea. She just hoped he would be a bit more creative. She could make him work for it—of that, she was sure.

“So, is that a yes?”

“I mean, I’m not opposed to it,” she said with a smile. “Would I be wearing this?” She trailed her hand down the side of her sheer purple blouse. The gold tank under it shimmered in the dressing room lighting. She liked the way his eyes followed her hand, taking her in.

He took a step toward her, closing the distance. “In that,” he agreed. “Just that.”

Her eyebrows rose at his blunt answer. She had expected him to be coy, flirting around his true meaning. She had expected cat and mouse even. Looking into his dark brown eyes, she was wondering why she’d had expectations at all…and where they had come from.

This man didn’t need to play games.

He won them without entering.

A chill ran down her spine at his heated gaze, and she felt a familiar stirring in her body. He reminded her of someone…someone she was trying to forget ever existed…someone she wanted to stomp into oblivion. His very presence was dangerous, and all she wanted to do was revel in it. But, she had been there with this type of guy before, and she knew the road that laid ahead.

She tried to push those thoughts away, focusing on the present. A very important fashion designer had just asked to photograph her nude. How often did these kinds of things happen?

“I’m sure your fashion line would skyrocket to the top with that ad,” she said with a wink.

“Hasn’t it already?” he asked with a cocky tilt to his head.

“Are you saying that I wouldn’t improve it?”

“If anything could improve it, you wearing this blouse would do the trick,”

he told her.

Chyna laughed. She ducked her chin and looked up at him through her dark curved lashes. “Thank you. Though, I do have to get going. I was very happy to see your line opening on Madison Avenue, and I’m thankful that you provided me with an invitation.”

“Did I?” he asked, tilting his head slightly to the left as if he was trying to place her.

“Did you not?” She bit down on her bottom lip, not sure how else she would have come across the invitation. It didn’t make sense that Marco would have delivered it to her directly. He didn’t know her at all. Still, how else would it have gotten there?

“I didn’t make the list, but it’s possible. When did you receive the invite?” he asked.

Chyna wasn’t sure how that would have anything to do with it, but she told him anyway.

“Two days ago.”

“No, that can’t be right,” he told her with a conniving smile. “Unless your envelope was lost, I sent them out three weeks prior.”

Chyna stood there in silence, contemplating all over again how the invitation had landed on her doorstep.

Bernard had sworn that it wasn’t someone with the postal service, and if Marco had sent them through the mail, then something was really off. She just didn’t know what was off about it.

“I guess mine got lost then,” she said with an uneasy smile.

This was not the conversation she wanted to be having with him right now.

She would rather be talking about him undressing her again. In fact, she would rather have him undress her right now.

After all, he owned the place, so he could keep the dressing room clear long enough to bend her over this settee.

“How unfortunate. You could have missed it had it not arrived in time.”

“And, how fortunate I am that it did then.”

“I feel quite fortunate as well,” he said, unexpectedly taking her hand in his.

His hand was warm and soft, and she wanted nothing more than to let him hold it all day. She was such a sucker for powerful, seductive men. He was enticing like the gorgeous exterior to a poisonous flower. She could see how easily she could get lost in him, if she didn’t have somewhere else to be.

“I guess I should go pay for this. Not going to find a better outfit than the one the designer has chosen for me,” she said, pulling out of his grasp.

“Please,” he said reassuringly, “it’s on me.”

“I couldn’t—”

“You already did.”

Chyna nodded, knowing that glint in his eye meant there was no reasoning with him. She could afford the outfit, but it wasn’t about that at this point. He was picturing her in nothing but the sheer top with a camera. How could she deny him the pleasure of her taking it home?

“Thank you,” she said, grabbing her purse and the dress she had been wearing earlier out of the dressing room. She walked past him, heading toward the exit, as he nodded at her in acknowledgment.

He called out to her when she reached the curtain to the dressing room. “Chyna?”

She stopped, her hand poised on the drawstring curtain. She turned around and faced him, wondering if this was going to be her movie moment. Would he come forward, kiss her, and beg her not to go?

All she wanted to do was giggle at the thought. He didn’t seem like the Prince Charming type.