Bailey. You need to take it easy.”
“I’ve been taking it easy for two months. If I took it any easier I would be comatose.”
Her father frowned and Bailey instantly felt like a petulant child. Considering she had been discovered unconscious and feared dead, she felt even worse. She may have been the one kidnapped, but she wasn’t her abductor’s only victim. This ordeal had taken a toll on her entire family.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just ready to get back to work.” She turned to her sister, whom she could usually count on as an ally. “Think about it, Brianna. This would be the perfect opportunity to reveal the new resort-wear collection.” She held her hands out in a plea. “All I ask is that you all at least consider my idea.”
She could feel the tension radiating from everyone in the room, but Bailey refused to back down. She needed this. She needed to regain the power she’d relinquished to the bastard who’d turned her life upside down. Getting back on the runway was a surefire way to do that.
“Are you sure about this, Bailey?” Kyle asked. “You saw what happened today.”
“I’ll admit I wasn’t prepared for some of the reporters’ questions, but a fashion show is my comfort zone. I can handle it.” Noncommittal murmurs sounded throughout the room. “Please, just consider it,” she practically begged.
With reluctance lacing his words, her father said, “A special event may not be such a bad idea, but the bodyguard stays,” he added.
“Dad—”
“It’s nonnegotiable, Bailey.”
“Dad’s right,” Daniel said. “You need to have someone with you.”
Once again that urge to scream overwhelmed her. She knew her family meant well, but Bailey had never felt more smothered in her entire life, and as the baby of the family, she’d experienced her fair share of smothering. Maybe if she talked to her parents alone, without her siblings offering their two cents, she could get them to budge on their rigid stance.
The conversation soon turned to Kyle and Zoe’s wedding, which would be held Thanksgiving weekend. Bailey feigned enthusiasm but her heart wasn’t in it. How could she talk about wedding favors and flowers while the rest of her life was mired in uncertainty?
An hour later, back in the apartment she shared with her sister, Bailey grabbed a bottle of Italian spring water from the refrigerator and walked over to her favorite spot in the apartment—the window seat next to a gorgeous view of Central Park.
“Hey,” Brianna said from behind her. Bailey jumped so high that water spilled from the bottle. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Bailey could lie and say that she had not been startled, but what would be the point? She’d spent the past week doing everything she could to conceal her anxiety from her sister, but Bailey knew Brianna could see right through her.
Mercifully, her sister just put an arm around Bailey and gave her a comforting squeeze. Bailey leaned into the hug, resting her head against Brianna’s shoulder.
“I’m proud of what you did today,” Brianna said. “I know it wasn’t easy.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Bailey blew out a tired breath. “But it was necessary.”
“I guess you’re right,” Brianna said with another reassuring squeeze. “The media isn’t going to stop hounding you until they’re satisfied that they have the full story.”
“Which, if we follow the advice of the detective assigned to my case, they will not get until this creep is caught.”
“True, but at least you proved to them that you’re not going to cave under their pressure. That’s one good thing that came out of it.” Brianna tilted Bailey’s face up to her. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I am,” Bailey said, grateful that she didn’t choke on the lie.
She was a lot of things lately, but okay was not one of them. Flashbacks of being kidnapped assailed her with increasing frequency, stealing the breath from her lungs and causing her to break out into cold sweats. It was not a good look for a fashion model.
She had been trying so hard to reclaim her old life, but how was that even possible when the person who’d wreaked such havoc was still out there? How would she ever feel normal again if she was forced to live under the protection of bodyguards?
Of all the fears her kidnapper had caused, that was the worst of it—fearing that she would never feel normal again.
Chapter 2
“Hey, Chris, did you find that footage from the Preachers for Prosperity scandal?” Micah Jones focused on his computer screen as he talked to his colleague on speakerphone. “I also need clips of Ezra Singleton’s most recent film for tonight’s interview.”
He lifted the papers scattered around his desk with one hand while he used the other to scroll through the online archives of The New York Times as he scanned the results of his most recent search. Micah wanted to double-check the source that would be cited on Connect, the hour-long entertainment news program he hosted and produced on New York’s WLNY cable channel.
Finding the preproduction checklist he’d been searching for, Micah tore his eyes away from the screen long enough to mark off the tasks he’d already completed. Scanning the list, he groaned at the amount that still remained. He could forget taking a lunch today.
Despite the mountain of work he faced, he still couldn’t shake off his biggest distraction.
His eyes traveled to the second computer monitor that sat at a right angle to his main screen, where Bailey Hamilton’s stunning brown eyes stared back at him from yesterday’s press conference at Lincoln Center, striking him in the chest with their staggering beauty.
Micah endured the now-familiar response his body produced whenever he saw her, his gut tensing with want. He leaned back in his chair and tilted his head toward the ceiling, his eyes closed tight against the current of desire that charged through his veins. He didn’t even try to fight it anymore. It took all he had just to survive the onslaught of need mere thoughts of this woman created within him.
It was probably a good thing he hadn’t been among the press conference’s invited media. If his body reacted this way to seeing a picture of Bailey, he wasn’t sure he trusted himself to be around her in the flesh.
At first, Micah had been upset about having to watch the press conference on TV like the rest of the masses. He understood that he wasn’t a member of the press corps that routinely covered New York’s fashion scene, but he had been the last person to interview Bailey Hamilton before the shit had hit the proverbial fan in September.
And there, no doubt, lay his answer.
Life had not been kind to Roger Hamilton Designs, and to Bailey in particular, since the evening she had been found passed out in a basement in Lincoln Center, allegedly clutching a bag of cocaine. Her family was probably trying to distance her from anything associated with that time period. Unfortunately, that included him.
Micah could only imagine how much it had hurt her not to participate
