Kiss Me in the Dark Anthology - Monica James Page 0,111

even though my eyes were hot with anger. “Thank you for your time, I won’t waste any more of it.”

With my head held high and my fists furled tightly at my sides, I left the room. It was only when I passed the dozens of beautiful faces in the outer room, when I was safely out on the anonymous streets of Milano that I leaned my head against the brick building and fought the urge to cry.

Sweat beaded on my forehead even though I stood concealed in the shade of the alley next to the building, but I was grateful for the familiar heat and constant cacophony of Milanese traffic at midday. I pressed the back of my head to the cool stone of the building I had just emerged so unsuccessfully from and fought the crushing sense of failure that threatened to rob me of breath. We needed the money that job could have brought. I was the primary breadwinner for my family of five, and though I had been modelling since I was fourteen, the blow of rejection still hit particularly hard.

I gritted my teeth at the thought of Landon ruining the go-see for me. He was an Englishman and an editor at Italian Vogue. His special interest in me when I was just a girl was the very reason I was a model now. Once, when I was young and impressionable, he had been more of a paternal figure than my own biological father. He wasn’t that old, in his mid-forties now, but compared to a fourteen-year-old me, he seemed ancient and safe in his old age. In a sense, he was. He never tried to sexually manipulate me, but that is where the line was drawn in the sand.

It didn’t stop him from dictating what I ate, how much I slept, what I wore to go-sees and then even at home with my own family, and how I comported myself around others. I was always to defer to him.

It was a relationship doomed to fail from the start.

You see, I’d never been very deferential.

Our relationship ended seven months ago, the same day I’d been admitted to the hospital for complications from anorexia.

I pushed off from the wall and tugged at the hem of my slightly sheer blouse and smoothed a hand over my hair, ready to head to the metro and back to my tiny shared apartment on the outskirts of town. The only reason I noticed the person passing by was because his earphones had become unplugged from his iPod and the tin-like sound of his music made me look over as he walked up the alley toward me. He was a handsome boy, not much younger than myself, but it was the expression on those features that worried me. His eyes darted quickly between the cars crawling along the street and when a sleek black Town Car pulled up in front of the building, blocking the entrance to the alley, he shuffled almost excitedly from foot to foot.

Cautiously, I moved closer to him, wondering what he was so obviously waiting for. My eyes were on him, but I could see someone emerge from the car and move towards the building I had just left. The boy bounced on his toes—once, twice—and I recognized the giddy fear in his stance as he launched forward.

Before I could consciously debate the decision to do so, I was following him. I swallowed a second of terror when I saw the unmistakable gleam of a gun in his hand as he took three looping strides forward, his fingers white knuckled over the butt. He held it uneasily though, and I drew confidence and conclusion from his shaky grip.

Just as he was about to reach the unsuspecting man from the car, I caught up to him and took a firm grip on his shoulder. I waited for the hesitation in his stride, when one leg was locked straight, and the other remained hovering in the air, remembering one of the defensive moves Sebastian had drilled me and my sisters on for hours as young girls. I held my breath for that instant and brought down my foot hard against the outside junction of his leg, where the kneecap connects the leg muscles. There was a sickening crunch followed by a gurgled scream as he fell to the ground. I looked up from where he lay, deeply disorientated, my heart pounding brutally against my chest, into grey eyes as varied and