Gio looks at me with confusion. “What do you mean?”
“If you weren’t in the organization and you could have any career you wanted, what would you want to spend your life doing?”
His lips curve into a puzzled frown as he considers my question. “Probably running a restaurant.” He smiles, and it shocks me he didn’t say he would want to be doing exactly what he’s doing. “When I was growing up, my parents owned—still own—a few restaurants. I used to love hanging out in the kitchen with the chef and learning about all the foods. When my dad would hold meetings at the restaurants, I would constantly get yelled at for wanting to help in the kitchen instead of attending the meetings and learning about the business.”
Gio’s lips turn upward into a soft smile, most likely remembering a fond memory, and it tugs at my heart that I’ve never seen him smile so carefree as he is right now while discussing the restaurant. When he discusses the business and organization, he’s always cold, completely void of all emotions. He never smiles, especially not like the one he’s sporting right now. When you love something, when it’s your passion, it makes you happy. His reaction tells me the organization isn’t his passion, but instead an obligation, and that makes me feel sad for him. I couldn’t imagine spending my life doing something I don’t love and feel passionately about.
Gio reaches over and turns the water off then grabs us both a towel. I wrap mine around my body and he does the same. “So, you can cook?” I ask, wanting to know more about this passion of his.
“I can, but I’d want to take it a step further. I’d want to go to culinary school and learn how to do it all the right way.”
“Well, now you’re going to have to cook for me sometime.” I give him a playful shove with my hip as I walk passed him to get dressed.
“If it’ll end the same way it did with the cake and strawberries, I’ll gladly cook for you any time.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
ARIA
After our brief detour from reality, we’re back home and Gio is back to work. If you would have asked me a year ago if I could ever consider a mansion where women prostitute themselves out to men to be my home, I would have laughed in your face, but now I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I’ve grown to love the women here. The problem is, while Cecilia is gone, Claudia is now here training Natalie to take over and she isn’t exactly fond of me.
The last few days I’ve been roaming the expansive property taking pictures. Then an idea came to me. I could take pictures to go in the women’s profiles. Gio could include a couple photos of the women, so the members could see a good image of who they’re picking. Right now, there’s a simple head shot of each girl in their portfolio, which isn’t flattering at all. At first, Gio said no, but when I started following him around, bored out of my mind, taking pictures of him, he said whatever I wanted to do is fine.
So, I had each girl let me know when they’re dressed up and would like her picture taken. I did mini photo shoots for each of them and now that I’m in the darkroom developing their photos, I’m in love. I’ve always been more of a landscape photographer, but seeing how these photos turned out, I think I’ve found what I want to do: professional shoots. From boudoir to family shoots, I want to capture the special moments people want to remember.
As I’m hanging up the last of Holly’s photos from her shoot to dry, there’s a knock at the door. Gio put a lock on the door so when I’m developing, people can’t just barge in and ruin the photos. I rinse and dry my hands and step outside to find Claudia standing against the wall with her arms crossed. She’s dressed similar to the way all the women dress around here, in an expensive formfitting dress and tall heels. Her makeup is done to perfection and if I didn’t know she has a thirty-two-year-old son, I would think she was no older than forty years old.
“Claudia,” I say, giving her my best smile. She’s made it a point to ignore me the last week so I can’t imagine why she wants to speak to me now, but I know it’s probably best to be pleasant if she’s ever going to give me a chance.
“Aria, I was hoping we could speak.” She hits me with a smile just as big as the one I gave her and something tells me hers is fake as well.
“Absolutely.” I follow her out to the back patio near the pool. She asks Darla, one of the servers, to bring us some sweet tea then gestures for me to have a seat.