Red Hot Rebel - Olivia Hayle Page 0,20
father. But it’s not. It’s exhausting having to remember what you look like at every single angle at every single second.
Rhys leads the way down the quaint, cobbled street, the air the perfect amount of hot, not humid. “How about the place we saw earlier?” he asks.
“The one that smelled amazing?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the one.” I smile at him, and to my surprise, I get a crooked smile back.
“Surprised you don’t want to go to a Michelin star restaurant,” he says.
“I could say the same about you.”
He puts a hand to his chest. “Me? I’m but a simple man of the people, not a supermodel.”
I roll my eyes at the exaggeration, on both counts. Whatever Rhys is, it’s not simple, and certainly not a man of the people. “Everyone loves pizza, and if they don’t, they’re not human.”
“No disagreement here,” he says, stopping at one of the tables that line the street. “Here?”
“Yes, please.” I sink down onto one of the wobbly wooden chairs with a sigh. My whole body aches from the day of walking and shooting, but it’s nothing. I’m in Italy. I’m sitting on a busy street, watching as people from all countries walk hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm.
Rhys motions for a waiter with a wan hand. With his dark hair and tanned skin, he looks more Italian than the model I’d shot with. How would the pictures have looked if he’d been the one who had nuzzled my neck instead of Paolo?
How would it have felt?
We order a pizza each. I go for the parmesan and prosciutto, and a glass of white wine. Rhys raises an eyebrow immediately after I’ve ordered.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“Just tell me.”
“Well, most models I’ve met wouldn’t order a pizza just like that.”
I reach for one of the breadsticks and take a decisive bite. “I know.”
“But you do? That’s impressive.”
“It’s not impressive. It’s indulgent. But,” I tell him, waving my breadstick around, “if someone tries to tell me that I’m in Italy for the first time but I’m not allowed to eat pizza or pasta, I might stab them with this.”
Something darkly amused sparks in Rhys’s eyes.
“I would never be that person,” he vows. “I’d be the person handing you more breadsticks as ammunition.”
“Good answer.” I reach out and grab the olive oil for good measure, pouring a small dollop onto my bread plate. “In truth, of course I shouldn’t eat this. I should be watching my every bite. My agency likes to remind me that I only have five more years, and that’s a generous estimate.”
“They like to do what?”
“Oh, it’s not very surprising or anything. Models are young. If I’m lucky, one day I won’t be.” I shrug. It’s an obvious thing, and it’s one I’m happy my dad made me well-aware of when I went into the profession. It’s never been my everything—and I’ve seen what’s happened to the models to whom it is everything, who see doom in every new wrinkle and imperfection.
Rhys drinks his wine and a dark lock of his hair falls over his brow. Watching his sprawl on the small chair, long legs stretched out, it’s hard to imagine that I’m somehow the model here.
But I don’t tell him that.
“How did you like shooting Paolo?” I ask him instead. “Considering you don’t like shooting people, shooting two must have been your own personal inferno. Dante’s, perhaps, since we’re in Italy.”
“You read Dante?”
“No one has actually read Dante. People read about Dante.”
A small, sideways smile. “I don’t dislike shooting people. I just don’t like shooting uninteresting people.”
I make a dramatic show of putting a half-eaten breadstick against my heart. It’s not difficult, with the low-plunging neckline of this silky dress.
He snorts. “I don’t mean that you’re uninteresting.”
“Of course you don’t. You just think I’m vain and air-headed.”
He runs a hand through his hair, a furrow on his brow. Like he’s bothered by the words he’d spoken by the pool in the Hamptons. “Well, most models just kinda are, in that they’re being photographed because they’re attractive. I’d want to photograph people to share their story.”
“Like for National Geographic?”
“Something like that, yes.” He raises his wineglass, looking over the rim at me with dark eyes. “And just for the record, I don’t find you air-headed or uninteresting.”
“What a compliment,” I say. “Please, try to control yourself.”
His lips twitch. “It’s very high praise coming from me.”
“So I’m gathering.” I flip my hair and gesture with my hand. “Come on, what else. You don’t find me intolerable? I’m not awful? Hit me with it.”
Rhys