Avoiding Intimacy (Avoiding #2.5)(11)

She could see him in her mind’s eye, gorgeous and tall. Intoxicating with a smile, he could cast a spell with those dark, dreamy eyes.

Assistants lined up models in order while a famous American singer began her latest number-one hit to open the show.

Marco appeared backstage an instant later, pushing people into place, adjusting hair, and demanding overall perfection.

Chyna’s green eyes bored into his back from a distance. She knew he could feel it, and then he pivoted around, quirking a smile at her. She continued to shoot daggers at him, which just seemed to amuse him further. He turned away from her then, finished off the last model, and disappeared back behind the curtain to watch the show.

“That man is insufferable,” Chyna groaned.

“He is a genius,” Giselle said in a voice that sounded like she agreed.

Chyna couldn’t help continuing. “I want to rip off his head and post it on a stake sometime.”

“But, most of the time, just his clothes, so he can work his genius on you, no?”

Giselle responded.

Chyna gaped at Giselle. She was always so incredibly prudish.

Giselle broke out into laughter. “I’d try not to look that shocked on stage,” she suggested.

Models were already being ushered back offstage to be escorted into the party to be put on display immediately. Time was moving fast, and Chyna wasn’t prepared to step onto that stage. The room emptied more and more until even Brigitte, Giovanna, and Ravenna were kissing her cheeks and wishing her luck before they disappeared.

As soon as the very last model left backstage, Giselle stripped Chyna out of her robe and began unbuttoning the train of her dress and letting it loose behind her.

When she was finished, Giselle admired her handiwork, her top lip turned up as she scrutinized with intense, hard blue eyes. “Are you prepared?”

No! Hell no! She couldn’t do this.

Marco was insane to even pull this shit on her, but she nodded, certain her face showed every evident concern.

“You’ll do fine,” Giselle reassured her. “I’m certain Marco wouldn’t do something he thought would ruin the show.”

“Let’s hope.”

“Chin up. Watch that step,” Giselle reminded her.

Not that she needed the reminder. She almost rubbed her ass at the thought. “I can do this,” Chyna said confidently, walking carefully up the steps.

She waited for her cue, her intro, the music—anything that would let her know when to begin, but nothing came. A hushed silence passed over the crowd, and suddenly, the lights were extinguished. A soft whisper, no louder than a hum, filled the room at the abrupt darkness, but it too died down. Was this her cue? She was’ supposed to have music and lights! Where was her cue?

She was terrified to walk onto a fully lit stage in this dress, so the thought of doing it blindly in the dark was atrocious.

When nothing else happened, she took it upon herself to make the decision. Her six-inch sparkly nude platforms created the only noise in the room as she clicked slowly across the black stage. What was the point? No one could see her, and it was dangerous. Marco better have something up his sleeve.

Chyna had obsessively counted steps all summer. Marco had some small fascination with knowing the length of every stage. He wanted his model to know where she was going and what she was doing. Then, she would have no excuse if she messed up because he had given a warning. She silently prayed that all that instruction was for this moment. She finished walking to where she anticipated center stage to be, and then she turned to face the darkened audience. She wasn’t foolish enough to begin walking down the runway in the pitch black, even if she had been training for it.

So, she waited.

Then, it happened.

That damn man!

Candles flared to life on both sides of the stage at the end of the runway. They slowly traveled up the length of the platform as more and more lit up. Chyna’s eyes rose to the perimeter of the enormous auditorium where more and more candles started glowing along the wall, in vases, and in the hands of models and patrons alike. The darkness faded, and soon she was awash with gorgeous, soft, ambient light.

She would have laughed if she could have. Instead, she stayed in character, producing a brilliant smile. Her dress was coming to life. She had thought it was gorgeous but plain when it had been hanging in that black garment bag. How could she have ever doubted Marco?

This was more than a Marco original, more than a one-of-a-kind. It was the culmination of all of his genius, and it was covering her body. The sheer nude base he had used for the design wrapped up in to a sweetheart shape across her br**sts, stretched over her tight stomach, and ran down to her mid-thigh before it parted and fanned out behind her into a feathery light train. All of the edges were beaded by hand and dipped in some glassy shimmer to match. The glossy beading continued across the bodice in an intricate interpretation of a blossoming lotus flower.

The most stunning part was that it all shined at once—the dress, the shoes, her makeup, her entire body—like a star. In fact, she now realized that what she had thought was glitter being dusted on her body was actually finely shaved crystal. It caught the light in a way that glitter never could. That same crystal seemed to be embedded into the sheer material, so she did not appear to be nearly nude on stage.

She was simply Marco’s creation.

When it seemed like not another candle could be lit in the entire place, a piano’s soothing chords flowed through the hall. Up until that moment, Chyna had felt like she had been living through a dream. It all could have happened in a matter of seconds, minutes, or hours. She couldn’t have told you the amount of time that had passed, but when that first chord struck, her body collided back with reality.