Red Hot Rebel - Olivia Hayle Page 0,29

at her flat shoes. “I got to choose my own today, and I want to see Paris at night.”

I nod toward an adjoining street, leading us down to the Seine. “It’s best at night. The tourists are all gone.”

“You really don’t like tourists, do you?”

“No, I really don’t,” I say. Her voice has a floaty, airy quality, and her cheeks are rosy. The wine must be affecting her, too. “Tell me what you meant, earlier.”

“About what?” She balances along a low ledge, hair falling forward to hide her face. The street we’re following is deserted, a stark contrast to the cacophony of cars that traffic it during the day. That’s one of the things that’s a pro in Paris’s book as opposed to New York’s—despite being a major world capital, Paris most definitely sleeps.

The French never miss their beauty sleep.

“You said that men want the idea of you.”

She jumps down from the ledge with a soft bend of her knees. “I say a lot of things.”

“Are you deflecting?”

“Maybe. Is it working?”

“Not particularly.”

She pushes back a strand of hair, notching it behind her ear. “You really want to hear a model complain about how tough it is to be a model? It’s usually a tough sell.”

She’s joking, but I wonder…

“Everyone has problems. You’re part of everyone, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” She glances at me out the side of her eye, like she’s judging how sincere I am. Is she worried I’ll make fun of it? A faint pang of guilt hits me at the first words she’d heard me speak.

“Fine. People hear the word model and it dazzles them. It’s like a neon sign goes off in their heads. I can see it in some men’s eyes, especially. It’s like I become a label or an item on a checklist. Something to tick off.”

“I apologize for my cousin,” I say.

She laughs, trailing a hand along the stone fence that guards off pedestrians from the murky waters of the Seine below. “He’s not your responsibility.”

“Still, my apologies.”

“Thank you. I wasn’t sure you’d understand, you know, considering you’re immune to models and all…”

I groan. “I’m always going to be reminded of my comments, aren’t I?”

“Yes. At least until I stop being annoyed by them.”

“And when will that be?”

“Don’t hold your breath,” she says. “Or do, actually. Perhaps you’ll set a world record. Something new to add to your shelf of trophies.”

“You think I’m a collector of trophies?”

She gives me a winning smile. “Yes. You wouldn’t call them anything that mundane, though.”

Our gazes lock. Challenge dances in her eyes, lit by the moonlight. Her words are teasing but true, striking through a calculated exterior. She digs her teeth into her lower lip. “Will you tell me why you needed a buffer with your cousin?”

I run a hand through my hair. “Is it too much to ask that you drop that?”

“Not likely. I’m good at deflecting deflections too, you know.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“Besides, I’ve just told you my deepest darkest secret.”

I raise an eyebrow. “That men sometimes think you’re nothing but a pretty face? That can’t be your darkest secret.”

Ivy’s smile is cheeky. “You’re right. It’s that I can’t raise just one eyebrow like that, like you can. How do you do it and can you teach me?”

“Deflecting.”

“No, you’re deflecting.” She gives me a shove and I step out onto the empty road, hands in my pockets. “I asked you first about my job as a buffer.”

“No comment,” I say.

“This isn’t an interview,” she says. “I’m not a journalist. You don’t get to say that.”

I groan. “You’re worse than any journalist I’ve ever encountered.”

“And have you encountered many?”

“My fair share,” I say darkly, thinking about the multiple family portraits my father liked the press to do when I was younger. All of us kids interviewed and made to recite pre-prepared answers.

“Fine, I’ll lay off,” she says. “He seemed nice though. You guys had a lot of stories from your childhood.”

“It had its highlights.”

She bumps me again. “Come on, spending your summers in the south of France? Do you know how you sound?”

“As privileged as a model complaining about being pretty?” I raise an eyebrow. “How about we both concede that we’re privileged, and we won’t use that against one another.”

“A privilege truce,” she repeats. “I can agree to that.”

And then she extends her hand to me, a wide smile on her face. She gives them away so freely, those smiles, the ones that make me feel like I’ve somehow become one of her favorite people in the whole