Monday morning arrived too soon. He had to be at the studio for work stuff all day, so I went home to deal with some of my own obligations.

I opened an email from Victoria that had my proposed schedule for the following month along with dozens of new client requests I needed to review. Her message made it clear this was only the tip of the iceberg.

Thanks to my newfound fame, I was in high demand and she was having to filter down what to even send me. It was surreal that I was only a week away from going back to my old life and my clients.

Looking through it all, I should’ve been excited, but all I felt was weary down to my very bones. The idea of mustering the emotional energy to give each of these people what they needed in a session was too much to even contemplate.

I’d assumed I’d be able to throw myself back into the job I loved to distract me from ending things with Alex, but I suddenly began to question how much I really loved my job. Stepping away from the stress and pressure of it all had given me new perspective. I gave so much of myself to my clients, and if I didn’t have to do it for the money anymore, did I want to do it at all?

Instead of giving Victoria any feedback on what she’d sent, I asked if she would meet me for dinner to talk. She responded almost immediately with a time and restaurant not far from where I lived, which made sense since it was close to the dungeon.

I hated the thought of leaving such a massive pile of work to deal with later, so I forced myself to at least sort through the new client requests, marking the ones I was passing on to make my pile smaller. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I recognized several of the names of people in the film industry I’d met in recent weeks. Why did it feel like a betrayal to Alex that I was reviewing session requests from his friends and coworkers? It was my job and our charade would be over by the time any of these sessions happened, but it made me oddly uncomfortable, which I resented.

I jumped when my phone rang, but I saw it was Alex and answered. “Hey creeper, was just thinking about you.”

“Oh yeah? Clean thoughts or dirty thoughts?”

“None of your business, Mr. Chase,” I teased.

“Are you coming over tonight?” The husky rumble of his voice made it clear exactly what he wanted me to come over for.

“I’ve got an appointment with the stylist and Asha to find me a dress for the red carpet thing and then I have dinner plans, but maybe after?”

“Dinner plans, huh? With whom?”

“Also none of your business, Mr. Chase.” My tone was less teasing this time. I didn’t feel like explaining why I wanted to meet with Victoria, didn’t know if I ever wanted to have that conversation with him.