Page 48 of Selling Innocence
I thought I’d be ready for this. I’d stood in front of huge groups before, when my father had paraded me around like a game piece.
I’d shaken hands with people powerful enough to determine the course of the country, with people who could have snuffed out anyone without a second thought, and it had never scared me. I’d grown up used to that sort of thing.
Many of those people felt safer than the rest of the world because I understood them.
So when Vance had told me about this little interview, I’d thought it was nothing new.
How wrong I was.
Hayden stood to the side, off screen, watching over us. No doubt Tor was somewhere, Char too, but neither were the type to actually show themselves. I’d bet they were in the shadows, hidden away. It made me feel almost safe, as foolish as that was.
I should know better than to let my guard down around these men.
“So, tell me how you met,” Pam, the interviewer, asked. She had blonde hair that had obviously cost a bundle to get and maintain, and she used the perfect non-geographical accent. Clearly, the woman was a pro.
We’d already agreed to let Vance do most of the talking, since he’d do a better job than I did.
Vance sat to my left on the small couch—the size no doubt intended to make us sit close, to give the viewers better optics. He answered with such ease, not showing an ounce of discomfort at the idea of being on television in front of potentially millions of people. “I met her at her college, actually. I was doing a meet and greet there, and she spilled coffee on herself. What can I say? I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress.”
“You mean you just like it when you can get a girl naked right away?” Pam said with a chuckle.
“Well, there’s that, too, I guess. However, she turned me down that day. I’m surprised I recovered, honestly.”
Pam looked my way. “You turned him down? Did you not know who he was?” The look of pure shock on her face nearly made me laugh.
“I wasn’t really looking for romance,” I admitted. Char had told me to stick with the truth—best I could—because I sold that better than an outright lie.
“So, if you turned him down, when did you two get together?”
Vance jumped back in, rescuing me. “It was the next evening. I saw her at an event, and I knew I had to have her. Everyone was looking at her, but she didn’t seem to care what anyone thought. I guess I liked that about her.”
“The women you’re usually out with are models or actresses, and from what I’ve heard, they’re the ones who do the chasing. What was different this time? I mean, it is the first time you’ve come out publicly like this to announce anything.”
Vance’s smile could have charmed the surliest of people, and I wondered for a moment if he’d learned that. Had someone taught him just how to do it? Was he like Char, in that way? “I’m used to being chased, I’ll admit, and there’s something nice about that, about being wanted. I think everyone craves that, deep down, even if they don’t like to admit it. The thing is, that gets boring. Things that come too easily don’t keep people’s attention for long. Kenz, here, she was different. It was like, the moment I saw her, everything else faded out around her. I saw her and I knew that no matter what it took, what it cost, I had to have her.” His words could have melted the most frozen of hearts, and it took me reminding myself that he didn’t mean them for me not to fall.
Pam appeared smitten, however, so at least he had her on the hook.
She turned her gaze to me, but there was no doubt she didn’t look at me the way she did him. “And you? What made you finally give in? What made you realize you wanted him, too?”
No way to avoid this question, is there? Vance squeezed my hand tighter, as if to remind me to mind my manners and remember the plan.
“I thought he was a playboy,” I said. “I thought he was just kidding around with me, that he didn’t mean anything, and I’m not the sort of girl who’s interested in becoming another trophy for some man whore.” The insult slipped from me before I thought better of it, and a tighter squeeze said Vance didn’t appreciate it. “The thing is there’s more to him than that. He’s driven when there’s something important to him. It’s almost impossible to say no when he’s willing to do anything to get what he wants.”
“That sounds less like love and more like Stockholm syndrome,” Pam said with a laugh.
I shook my head, trying to fix that before I risked our plan. “I don’t mean it like that. I meant that…I saw a different side of him. He seems like he doesn’t care about anything, like nothing matters to him. That’s all I knew about him. However, after spending some time with him, I glimpsed another side of him, one he doesn’t show many people. He has this serious side of him, a part that wants what he wants, that works hard to get whatever it is. It’s the side he uses when he creates his art, and it’s the one I saw when he talked to me. I don’t like the public side, the carefree playboy, but when I saw that other side of him…”
A smile tugged at my lips, one I didn’t even plan as I remembered when he looked at my drawing, when he’d given me advice in that room after I’d changed. “I like that side of him.”
Silence made me look up again to find Pam staring at me.
No, not just Pam but everyone. Even Vance looked over at me, his expression unreadable and nothing like the face he showed most people.
I hadn’t said anything that weird, had I?
“That is amazingly sweet,” Pam said, her voice dreamy. “I don’t think I expected something like that.”
Vance recovered quickly, replacing that wide smile. “You see what I fell for her? It’s not easy, trying to date a normal girl, but you can see why I need to. I mean, she’s a once-in-a-lifetime girl.”