Total pages in book: 23
Estimated words: 21893 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 109(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21893 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 109(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
Mike is right; I never would have submitted those pictures on my own. And as hard as I’m trying right now, I just can’t hate him for what he did. Am I angry still? A little. But that anger is dissipating with every second that ticks by, and soon I find myself looking at Mike as if we’ve accomplished my acceptance to Ford together, and all I really want to do is celebrate with him.
“I just…I can’t believe it,” I whimper, all choked up.
“What I did? Or that you got accepted?” Mike asks.
I laugh as the tears begin to spill from my eyes. “Both!”
Mike moves in on me and wraps his muscled arms around my waist. He’s so warm and I instantly feel all my anger diffusing out of me.
Well, not all of it…
“Do you forgive me?” he asks quietly.
Slowly, very slowly, I put my arms around him. “I’ll think about it,” I whisper.
Epilogue
Mike
Four Years Later…
Paris Fashion Week. One of the craziest times of the year for photographers and models and designers alike. To be honest, I’d avoided it for my entire career, but that was because I didn’t need the hassle and I had all the work I needed back in New York. I didn’t need to travel overseas to meet new models who were happy to just e-mail me their portfolios, and most of the time I was shooting anyway.
But now things are different. Now I have a wife who’s an internationally renowned model, so for the last three years, I’ve been following her to Paris for Fashion Week.
And as it turns out, it’s less of a hassle than I thought it would be. But maybe that’s because I have a gorgeous wife who I get to spend time with rather than having to do the entire thing myself. Of course, Ivy is working a lot this year (and so am I), so we’re both quite busy, but I think the both of us are happy to be out of New York for a little while.
Ivy had been working so much, doing so many shoots, that the grind of the city was getting to her. And I had been taking a lot of jobs too that we were both happy for a change of scenery.
After that day where Ivy just about chewed my head off for submitting her photos to Ford, she told me she needed the rest of the night to think about what she wanted to do in order to make her final decision. I told her of course that was fine. We spent the night at my apartment, and when we woke up in the morning, she told me she would give it a try.
“One year,” she said firmly. “One year, and if I don’t like it, I’m quitting.”
“Of course.” I smiled.
I think she was afraid—afraid that she wouldn’t do well—afraid that she would fail. But I knew she would excel. And boy did she ever.
Within six months, everyone in the industry was talking about her. Ford couldn’t book her fast enough. She moved in with me so she could get to her shoots without having to take the train into the city every morning from Connecticut, and by the end of the year, she was the new “it” girl, blowing up all over the Internet.
“You sure you’re not jealous?” she asked me one night when a video of her went viral online. I replied by pulling her into bed and tugging her panties off.
“Does any other guy get to do this?” I grinned. She shook her head as I leaned in for a kiss. “That’s what I thought.”
She resigned with Ford, and the next year was our first year at Paris Fashion Week together. It was wild, and even I felt a bit overwhelmed by just how much was going on and how many places Ivy needed to be, so I deliberately didn’t book any work for myself, just so I could be there for her and make sure everything was on the up-and-up.
It was. We had a busy but great time and spent two days seeing the sights and doing the whole tourist thing before heading back to New York. The next year was about the same, only I booked some shoots for myself too, now that Ivy was more comfortable. Now this year we’re basically both doing our own thing and meeting up at the hotel after we’re done. I was shooting a couple of French girls down by the river, and the whole thing was a big mess and ran long, so I’m coming back late, and when I step into the room, I find Ivy lying on the bed wearing a hotel robe with a towel wrapped around her hair, having clearly just stepped out of the shower.
“Yum.” I smile, closing the door behind me. I love her like this. I see girls in makeup and wardrobe all the time. I see her in crazy fashion-industry outfits daily, so I love it when I get to see her completely bare without anything else meant to enhance her.