“I’m sure having her closer would be nice.”

“It would. She’s just a damned stubborn woman with an independent streak. You PC feminists with your wild ideas.” I flashed her a grin.

“Did the hospital figure out who was responsible for taking the picture?”

“They did,” I sighed. “And the person was fired, which had to happen, but I don’t feel great about that either. But who does something like that?”

“No idea.”

“I’m sure I seem like a hypocrite for being this upset about an invasion of my privacy given the way we feed the media info and do stuff like this.” I subtly gestured between us. She didn’t have room to judge me since she was a willing participant in this charade too, but it was important to me to explain.

“It’s not hypocritical. That’s part of your industry. Like everything, it comes down to consent, right? You consent to share certain parts of your life, but feel violated when people take more than you’ve offered. It’s a boundary. It’s like me setting boundaries at work and having people say, well you’re a sex worker, what’s the problem? Just because I’m okay with something some of the time or with a certain client, doesn’t mean it’s an open book to do whatever you want.”

“That’s it exactly, but it’s so hard to convince people that while I’m a brand, I’m also a real person. It’s really tough to feel bad for someone who profits from the fame. People start to feel like I owe them my privacy. It gets tough to trust anyone.”

“Dammit, Mr. Chase, you’re going to make me like you. Quick, say something to piss me off.”

Before I could stop myself, I said, “You could’ve called.”

She rocked back in surprise, tilting her head as she stared at me. “The phone works both ways. I wanted to respect your need for space.”

I suddenly felt raw and exposed. “Forget it.”

The server brought our food to the table and when I noticed a pile of peas on her plate, I nodded to them with my fork. “Can I get those for you?”

She looked surprised, but slid her plate closer to me so I could remove them.

The awkward tension between us was back. We sat in silence for seconds that felt like hours, then Elena made an effort to break the tension.

She said in a low voice, “Wanna know what my superpower is?”

“Sure,” I said dismissively.

“I can guess people’s fetishes, their sexual preferences.”

I studied her, trying to decide whether she was messing with me.

“I’m serious. Not all people, but sometimes I know in a flash exactly what someone is into just from talking to them. Sometimes, it’s only a sense of whether they’re dominant or submissive…or maybe what their sexual archetype is. If they’re mostly vanilla I still sometimes have an idea of the power dynamic they like or whether they’re a giver or a receiver. But every so often I can nail their deepest fantasy before they’ve ever even spoken it aloud.”