Through The Lens (Creative Hearts Book 1) (17 page)

“There’s my favorite woman in charge,” Brian said, and gestured for Mika to walk over.
 

She willed her legs to stay steady as she made her way to them. “Hey, Brian,” Mika said, trying to keep her voice light and not acknowledge the heat coming from Alejandro’s very charged gaze.

“Hi ya, kiddo. So tell me, what’s with all of this? Here I was looking forward to a nice resort shoot complete with room service and this is what I get. I guess even you couldn’t keep a rein on him this time, huh?”
 

“What?” Mika asked, suddenly breathless as those words and the idea of controlling Ale brought images of their passionate times together.
 

“I said you couldn’t keep a rein on him. Do you see all he wants me to do? Rigging in trees and such. It’s positively mad.”

She looked over at Ale— his expression practically simmered. Mika turned back to Brian. “If anyone is up for the challenge, it’s you. I know you’ll do wonderfully, and when you see the spot, you’ll know it is the perfect location.”

Brian smiled wide, but she didn’t miss his slight look of discomfort. “Well then, let me at it. I can’t wait to get my eyes on this magical spot.”
 

Mika coughed and Ale’s brow arched. Crap, any more talking from Brian and she’d have to cut out his tongue. “Well,” she started, her voice squeaking a bit. She silently cursed herself. “You’ll see it soon enough. But I think we’ll start with the beach first. Some simple beach and water shots, just to get our feet wet.”

Brian shrugged. “No problem. You’re the boss.”

At that, Alejandro cleared his throat, giving Brain a dark look.
 

Brain nodded. “Just giving the lady her due, Ale. No need to get your shorts in a twist.”

Mika shook her head at the banter. “I’ll see that everyone is settled and get with you soon, Brian. Wouldn’t want to get into trouble with my boss.” With that, she walked away, feeling Ale’s hot gaze practically piercing through her back.
 

*

By the time everyone was settled into their huts, then gathered on the beach and ready to shoot, Mika was emotionally exhausted. Just a few days out of the game and she felt rusty. It was as if Ale had drugged her, and she was running at half speed or something. Everyone seemed to be going so much quicker— she had to fight to keep up. Of course, it could be that she was distracted by Alejandro—who, when he wasn’t glowering at her, was pointedly avoiding her. This wouldn’t work. She was afraid the crew would soon start to notice the tension between them. She’d already overheard one person wondering if Alejandro was even testier than his normal testy self.
 

Ale was rounding the corner, coming from the models’ tent where Karina, Ula, and Paloma were getting their final touches, when Mika ran to catch up to him. When he purposely didn’t slow down, she stopped him with a hand on his forearm. An instant charge went though both of them, and she pulled her hand back as if burned.
 

He raised a brow. “And still you twist the knife, beauty.”

She looked up at him sharply. “Ale, don’t start.” Mika glanced around, making sure no one was within earshot. “Listen, I’m sorry if you feel like I betrayed you with the
Stylist
job, but I just didn’t know how to tell you. I know we had plans for me to stay on longer, and I get that you are hurt, but you have to understand that I have an opportunity and need to take it. Now please, let’s just do this job to the best of our abilities and end on a professional note. You are purposefully being snippy and avoiding me. Also, not waking me for the boats this morning was unacceptable. We have to trust each other.”

He glared down at her, everything about him hardening all at once. “You
dare
try to lecture me on trust after what you did?”

“What? What did I do?”

He blinked. “You made promises.” Something in the word pricked at Mika’s skin. “Promises to me about the job and about the book I’m working on. How am I supposed to finish it without you?” He blurted out.
 

She sighed. “Ale, come on. You know you don’t need me to finish your book. You’ve already got plenty to work with and your next assistant can pick up on cataloging where I left off.”

She saw the fiery anger flare in his eyes and knew that she shouldn’t have spoken those last thoughtless words. But that was her now around Ale. Open mouth, insert foot. Why not set a foot in her own ass instead?
 

But Ale just smirked and raked his dark eyes over her, taking her in from head to toe. Stinging her with each sweep over her body. “You know that’s not the only thing I need you for, darling Mika.”
 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Karina stepping out of the tent holding up her cell to the sky, trying to get a signal. She was all long legs, glossy hair and taut skin. She turned to the two of them. “I swear I’d only be subjected to this type of torture for you Alejandro.”
 

“And I’ll be forever in your debt, dear Karina,” Ale responded with all civility.

Karina beamed at him, then gave Mika a haughty toss of her glossy hair before disappearing back inside the tent.
 

“So now what?” Mika said focusing back on Ale. “Do you plan on punishing me? Embarrassing me in front of these people? Tell me, what was I supposed to do? How could I trust you? I’ve seen you go from woman to woman countless times. I’ve seen you use people and spit them out. And now that there are more desirable pickings here, you can move on. You’re just mad because I’ll no longer be hanging around to watch it all and make your life easier. I won’t be here to put the condoms in the side of your bag for the next girl.”

She watched the muscle in his jaw tick. He flexed his fingers like he wanted to grab her, but then thought better of it. Instead, he just stared, his eyes piercing into hers. She refused to blink, challenging him back with her own stare.
 

Ale finally let out a short exasperated sigh, giving his head a small shake. “Fine, you’ve said what you had to say. You’re leaving me. Now if you’ll please let everyone know, I’m ready to shoot—I don’t want to waste any more time here than I already have.”

Ale’s words cut through Mika to her core. She blinked up at him wanting to retort, but she couldn’t have spoken in that moment if her life depended on it.
 

Waste any more time.
She repeated the words in her mind to be sure she heard him correctly. Is that what he now thought these past few days together were? All their kisses, their desire, their passion? She blinked once more, proud that her eyes stayed blessedly dry. “No problem, Ale. You’re the boss.”

*

The three models were posed in ethereal gowns, as if they were water nymphs coming to the shore.
 

Ula was dark and rich as mahogany, her long mane of hair trailing down her back, her catlike eyes and pouty lips captivating. Next was Paloma, a blond ice queen with eyes so blue they were almost translucent and lush pink lips. And at the center was Karina the Brazilian, with her amber eyes and dark hair and golden skin. The three of them so different but so impossibly beautiful that they looked like mythical sisters from the gods.

“You ladies are breathtaking,” Ale said, and Karina’s eyes practically smoldered under his compliment.
 

Mika squirmed.
 

“Just amazing to have so much beauty in one place.” Ale lowered himself deeper into the water. “Just a little to the left, and arch your back.” His voice tumbled over the water toward them, and the models responded, backs arching, faces going to the sun, eyes to him, nipples pointing skyward.
 

Mika hated herself because she responded, too, her nipples hardening. She wanted to arch her back but at the same time, wanted to stick a finger down her throat and gag all over the three water nymphs in front of her. “I need more light here,” Alejandro said, sounding impatient and jolting her out of her thoughts.

Shit, she should have seen that. “Of course.” She angled the umbrella she was holding toward Karina’s face, and Karina winced as the sun caught her eyes. “Sorry.” She put it in the right position and looked down in time to catch Ale staring at her impatiently.
 

“Professional,” he mouthed.
 

Screw you
, she almost mouthed back. Instead Mika rolled her eyes and looked back at the girls, who were now watching their display with open curiosity.
 

“Hellooo. Water. Cold. If you two don’t mind,” Karina said.
 

“No problem, Karina. We got the shot. How about you go and change now, beauty?” Ale said, now looking at an image on his camera’s viewfinder.
 

Beauty?
Mika’s blood turned to ice in her veins. How could he? And today of all days. She wanted to kick him, hard, but stilled her twitching foot.

She counted in her head, watching as Karina twisted and not-so-gracefully made her way out of the water with a grunt, as if she wasn’t making fifteen hundred dollars an hour for her trouble. She lifted her now-sodden dress to her extremely thin thighs and stalked away, giving Mika a death stare as she went. Beauty. Yeah, right.
 

Mika reached her hand out to take the camera from Ale, not meeting his eyes. She didn’t trust herself not to let everything show on her face. All the hurt. All the pain.

Ale’s voice was laced with stone but his touch was soft as he handed her the camera, his hand grazing hers. “You need to be more alert for the next setup. You’re the one who talked about being professional.”

Her eyes shot up. “I
am
professional. I’ve done my job perfectly all these years, and I don’t need you telling me about it now. Why don’t you go and take that crap to one of your
beauties
? Go throw your ego and your attitude over that way, because I’m not biting.” She turned, sloshing water over his chest as she walked away with as much dignity as she could.

“Mika, what the hell is going on?” Robin hissed as Mika stomped by her.

She stopped and looked at Robin’s workstation, her hands nervously running over pots of creams and powders as she pretended to check things out. “Hey, is everything okay?” Mika said with false brightness. “I know this is tough, having to work with generators and all, but are you missing anything?”

Robin clamped a hand over Mika’s busy fingers and leaned toward her. “I’m not talking about that, and you know it. I’m talking about you and the big man.” Her eyes narrowed. “You can’t fool me for long. I know something changed between the two of you. Now, what gives?”

Mika blinked and grabbed Robin’s arm, causing Robin’s wide eyes to open even more. “Shhh. Not a word.” She looked around. “Please,” she pleaded. “I’m fine. We’ll talk later. When I can. I promise.”

Robin gave her a pointed up-and-down look. Then she glared over at Alejandro, who had now joined the rest of the crew and was toweling off. “Okay, I’ll give you a minute, but I want to hear it all. I know how he can be. I don’t care who he is—I’m not going to take him messing with you.”

Mika smiled. It was nice to have someone here in her corner. “Don’t worry, sweetie, nobody is messing with me. But it’s good to know you have my back.”

Robin gave her a wink. “Always.”

Mika walked away, feeling a little better but still weary. If Robin noticed something was up, then who else did? But before she could wrap her mind around the problem, she was surrounded. Sucked into the wind tunnel of Lulu, who had at her side Ava Simone, the booking agent from Chosen Model Management.
 

“Mika dear, my girls are not happy,” Ava said. She was a small woman in her late fifties with birdlike features and dark glossy black hair in a classic Louise Brooks bob. Her trademark dark lipstick, no matter the season or environment, completed her retro look.

Mika plastered on a serene expression as she looked from one frowning woman to the other. “What could your girls not be happy about? We’ve just started this shoot.”

Ava pursed her lips tighter and gestured around her. “Well, I wouldn’t call this a professional set. It’s a mess.”
 

Lulu nodded her head in agreement, and Mika whirled on her. “Lulu, you were fine with this location when it was described it to you. You said it would be perfect, and you know what an innovator he is. Hell, the man is a genius. No one has ever shot here, and don’t you want your magazine to be the first?” She could see Lulu’s wheels turning. Lulu never wanted to be one-upped, and she never wanted to be scooped by another magazine. She turned back to Ava and looked her in the eye. “As I said, your models are professionals.” She leaned close to her ear and spoke in a conspiratorial tone, “And you don’t want them to be considered divas.” Mika raised her voice back to a normal level. “Besides, I know they’ve had to rough it before, and the results were astonishing. The last shot with Jon Carlo in Brazil was amazing, and that was your doing.” She gave Ava a wink.
 

She knew she had both women. She’d appealed to what they wanted and gave it to them on a platter. There was no way Lulu would let Ava’s models hamper this shoot now. She could have the girls walking a tight rope 100 feet up in the air, and it would go off without a hitch.
 

Mika thanked them for their time and smoothly walked away in search of some pain reliever for her now-throbbing head. But for her trouble she rounded the corner and ran smack into Ale. Great, he heard the whole thing. He opened his mouth to say something, but she held up a hand and kept walking. Not now. One more barb and she knew she’d go over the edge.