Red Hot Rebel - Olivia Hayle Page 0,17

the street and looks around. For a moment, she doesn’t do anything, just breathes in the air.

I raise my camera and take a picture. It’s impossible not to capture that moment of first contact, of blissful intoxication on her face. It’s not fake, either.

For the coming hour, I don’t direct her at all. I let her walk down whatever streets she fancies, and what she does seems to come so naturally. It’s barely posing at all, the way she interacts with the city. I’ve taken well over four hundred photos before the hour is up.

For being a model, well… she’s damn good at her job.

Not to mention it’s getting harder and harder to dismiss her as just a model. Some people do stop when they see her, or when they see me photographing her with a professional camera, but she handles it in stride. Like she’s used to it, because she likely is.

No doubt she’s been gawked at since she was a teenager.

It’s mid-evening by the time we stop on Ponte Sant’Angelo. The beautiful statue-lined bridge is not on the list, but there’s no way I’m in Rome and not photographing it. Ivy leans against the railing and looks out over the Tiber, her hair glittering in the late-day sun.

“This place is magical. I wonder what that building is. Or used to be.”

I look up at where she’s pointing. “Castel Sant’Angelo. It was once the mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian, but it’s been used as a bunch of things since. Pieces have been added and rebuilt and torn down, like everything in Rome.”

“It really is the eternal city,” she breathes.

“Yes. I think this bridge is around two thousand years old.”

“You’re not serious.” She looks down at her feet, firmly planted in a pair of sky-high heels on the stone bridge, as if it’s about to collapse under her.

“It’s sturdy, don’t worry. The Romans knew what they were doing.”

“You’ve been here before.”

“I have, yes.”

She narrows her eyes at me, like I’ve said something wrong, but she doesn’t comment. Her gaze sweeps to the side instead, to the setting sun. “We’re going to be late,” she says.

“No we’re not.” I nod toward the adjoining district. Little cafés line the street. “I asked Paolo to meet us there.”

She strides past me, but I keep up easily. She might be skilled in walking in heels, but my legs are longer.

“I can’t believe I’m about to shoot this.”

Ivy cocks her head. “Shoot what?”

“You and him. Did you look at the sample pictures they sent over?”

“I did.” She doesn’t sound the slightest bit agitated. “And so what?”

“It’s like I’m shooting a bad perfume commercial.” I roll my neck, trying to work out an age-old crick. “A scene from Lady and the Tramp.”

She chuckles, pausing on the sidewalk. “I always liked that movie.”

“Of course you did.”

She fishes out a smaller bag from her larger one, a clutch this time, and hangs it over her shoulder. Fixes her hair. Rummages around after something.

“What are you doing?”

“The instructions were clear,” she says. “I’m supposed to transition to an evening look.” She pulls out a small mirror and a black lipstick tube. Her full lips part as she applies red lipstick, looking at her reflection through half-lidded eyes.

Christ.

I raise my camera and take a picture of her applying her lipstick, her hair a tumble around her shoulders and Rome the backdrop.

She glances past the mirror to me, a challenge in her eyes.

I take a picture of that too.

“I’m not posing right now.”

“I’m aware of that.”

Ivy closes her mirror with a snap, once again the woman who’d stood up for herself in New York. “Come on,” she tells me through newly painted lips. “I have an Italian model to meet.”

Right.

Paolo is every stereotype come to life. I hate him immediately, not in the least because he’s leaning suit-clad against the corner of a house, a cigarette in hand and the other clasping his phone.

He looks up and sees Ivy, and I see the exact moment the calculation crosses his mind. She’s gorgeous. I wonder…?

She extends a hand, but he pulls her in for a kiss on the cheek instead. “Paolo,” he says, his English softly accented. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Ivy rocks back on her heels and gives him a wide, blinding, thousand-dollar smile. “Want to go for a stroll?”

“I’d love to.” He takes her arm and tucks it under his, effortlessly, like this was the agreed-upon direction. The two of them begin to stroll up the trattoria-lined street like they’re a