Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“We’ll be good here,” he said. “Won’t we, sprout?”
Ada giggled and chirped. Well, it’s better than leaving her at Dawning City, I thought ruefully, even though Ada had been doing remarkably well at daycare as of late. Still, I hated leaving her there every day, often not even knowing if I’d be out of work by five.
“I’m sure you will,” I said as I hauled myself off the couch. The whole point of this job was supposed to be that I’d have a good work-life balance, but I was starting to understand that working for a start-up meant putting in a lot of hours for not much thanks. Things would have been different – and I wouldn’t have minded nearly as much – if I didn’t have Ada.
But I did have Ada, and I wished that I had more time to spend with the light of my life. I was already worried about missing milestones: she’d learned how to write her name, albeit very shakily, from a Dawning City employee, and I’d had to squash a vicious wave of jealousy that someone other than me was teaching my daughter to write.
Maybe it was misplaced, but I felt that a lot of my anger was directed at Nico. He was the one who had said he was only available outside of the work week for this kind of thing – in fact, he was the only man that HAUTESCENE was profiling to request a Saturday shoot – and I had to wonder if he wasn’t doing it just to fuck with me.
That was ridiculous, though. It wasn’t like he knew about Ada.
And he won’t ever find out, I told myself. Thank god.
“You be good munchkin, okay?” I said to Ada as I ruffled her hair.
She gave me a big, cheesy smile and I grinned back. No matter how stressed or anxious I was feeling, I could always count on my little girl to cheer me up.
“Text if you need anything,” I told my dad before slipping on my heels and leaving. Outside, the weather was beautiful – sunny and mild, not too hot. It would have been the perfect day to take Ada to Central Park and sit in Sheep Meadow, but alas.
Duty called.
The HAUTESCENE office felt stuffy and I cringed as I walked inside. Nell caught my face and gave me a sympathetic smile.
“They turn off the air over the weekends,” she explained. “I wish we could open the windows, but don’t want any birds crashing the shoot.”
I laughed harder than I normally would have at the comment. The prospect of having to spend all day with Nico, even surrounded by other people, was making me jumpy and tense. He showed up perfectly on time and the costume and makeup people wasted no time on putting him a vintage suit from the eighties, with wide shoulders and a narrow waist on the trousers.
“Very Russian,” Nico said, glancing at himself in the mirror and smirking. He caught my eyes in the reflection and I struggled to tear my gaze away, but it was next to impossible. On anyone else, the suit would have looked comical and outlandish, but on him, it just made him even sexier.
There was a girl with him – at first, I felt a pang of jealous at the thought he’d brought a date, and then I realized she had to be his assistant. She was dishwater blonde and meek, the kind of person who kept their eyes glued to the floor, and I wondered how long she’d been dealing with Nico Ulrich and his famous temper.
I also wondered how many assistants he’d gone through since I’d left in a huff almost four years prior.
“Harper, can I get your opinion on this?” Nell asked. She took my elbow and tugged me over to the display where Nico was posing, sitting in a leather chair and smirking at the camera.
“Sure,” I said.
Nico locked eyes with me and I felt a jolt of hot lust sizzle through my body. My cheeks flushed bright red and Nell gave me a strange look.
“You think this is good?” Nell asked. “We’re going to do all of the men in vintage for the teaser issue, but I want it to look like something out of an old magazine, not like contemporary guys posing in deadstock.”
I nodded. As much as I hated to admit it, Nico was kind of man who would look stunning in almost anything. He was reclining in the chair and glancing down at an old copy of The New York Times, pretending to read an article about the stock market.
“I think it works,” I said.
Nell clapped her hands. “Time for next outfit,” she said, before hustling Nico back to makeup for a brown suit and tie from the sixties.
By the time we were done at the office, I was exhausted. It was hard to believe that just being in the same room with Nico was so draining, but I felt like I’d been running a marathon. I couldn’t handle the way I wanted to slap him and the way I wanted to kiss him all at once.