All That Really Matters, Nicole Deese [best detective novels of all time .TXT] 📗

He slipped a finger under the wooden door latch, but I gripped his arm, pulling him back as my nails dug in a bit deeper than necessary. He couldn’t actually be serious right now.

“Do not open that door. You got me into this, Ethan. And now you need to get me out of it. I won’t put that on. I can’t.”

He turned, this time looking far more irritated than he did when I’d first hauled him in here.

“You will do it. You already signed the contract.” His eyes flicked south to my chest before he lowered his voice and touched his fingers under my chin. “Your body is nothing to be ashamed of, but if it’s a little lift you want, I’m sure their editors will take care of it for you. It’s standard practice now for swimwear shoots everywhere.”

I wanted to scream, yell, push him into the eco-friendly coals sweltering behind us both. “Swimwear is not in my brand. I told you that from the very beginning. And even if it was, that thing isn’t even swimwear! It’s more like something from the Emperor’s New Clothes—invisible wear.”

I braced for the pushback that was coming, because Ethan’s hardening, reddening face told me I’d just crossed an uncrossable line. I’d seen this expression before while he vented about former clients, but it had never been directed at me. “Your brand is whatever product pays out the most. Do you remember the Molly who filmed her videos in a snack pantry?” His voice held an edge I’d only heard him use on his problematic clients . . . not the favored ones. “Because I do. When I signed that girl, she was grateful for every fifty-dollar check that cleared her account.”

“Yes, I do remember, but that girl only made videos of the products she believed in—sponsored or not. I have the followers I have because I’ve worked hard to earn their trust.”

He stepped close, his voice so quiet, so chilled I could barely hear it over the roaring heater. “You have the followers you have because I’ve bent over backward making deals and partnerships for you while you kept your pretty face on camera. Cobalt made your brand what it is today, not you.” Though he’d never said it quite like that before, I realized with sudden clarity that the assumption had been there for quite some time, hanging over my head whenever I felt the least bit antsy or uncomfortable representing something that didn’t feel fully me. I wasn’t free to be Molly McKenzie. I had to be Makeup Matters with Molly . . . which, I was finding out, was not always the same woman.

Hand on the door, he twisted around, sweat beading off his scalp and running down the sides of his face. “Do you even know the real reason we’re here today? Why of all celebrities I partnered you with the Sophia Richards? Because she just happens to be married to the man overseeing the auditions for Project New You—Al Richards. I wanted to surprise you, but this diva tantrum has been the real surprise today.” Disdain fueled his gaze. “Pull yourself together, Molly, and act like an adult. I’ll see you outside at the pool.”

A whoosh of cool air found me as he pushed out the door, and I could hear him making up an excuse as to what we were doing in there together. The feeling I’d had before, the one that knotted my insides and warned me of something I didn’t quite understand until this moment, wrapped around me now like a suffocating blanket.

I hit the wall timer on the sauna coals, turning them off, and wished I could think and breathe fresh air at the same time. Because I wasn’t ready to go out there yet. I wasn’t ready to face that dreaded article of clothing that held my future between its sheer fabric.

I pressed my palm to the wall and focused on breathing, on talking myself down, or was it talking myself up? Was he right? Was I the one making too big a deal of all this? I was twenty-seven years old. And I certainly wasn’t a virgin anymore. But did that mean I should willingly expose my body to the world? Without considering my own personal values? My own personal . . . convictions. I realized my life hadn’t always stuck to the straight and narrow path, but that didn’t mean I was willing to jump onto a superhighway traveling in the opposite direction.

The faces of six impressionable young women surfaced again in my mind. Six young women who needed strong female guidance in their lives. Six young women Silas had worked tirelessly to steer away from the jaws of all things fake and toward something real. Something honorable and life-giving. Something true and purposeful.

This shoot was not that.

I’d made a lot of compromises to get to this point in my career . . . but this wouldn’t be one of them, not when I’d sat with, talked with, even prayed with several of my recent followers in the flesh. Not when they looked up to me as if I was someone who could help them. Someone who could maybe even . . . lead them one day.

It was one thing to sell myself out, but not for the price it might cost these girls. I wouldn’t hurt The Bridge. Not even if it meant losing a large paycheck and a potential Hollywood connection. Or a boyfriend who’d just treated me like an ex-client.

I exited the sauna and shook my head in disgust as a single phrase assaulted me like the crisp air against my sweat-slicked skin: diva tantrum.

Truella gasped. “Molly . . . what . . . ?”

Aghast, she took in my sweaty face, neck, arms, and then finally my legs. “What happened to you?”

Without needing to see my reflection in a mirror, I knew her horrified expression couldn’t only be due to my overheated body. No, what she and the crew and even Ethan were all staring at were the tiny pinpricks of speckled