The Painter & the Pretty Girl

c h a p t e r s e v e n: georgia

He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber --Psalm 121:3

PARIS FASHION WEEK SHOULD'VE been fun.

Getting ready to walk the runway, as I had every year since being catapulted to fame in a Burberry ad at the tender age of seventeen, should have been a good time. It should have been as glamorous as everyone made it out to be.

Well, having to shoot for a handbag ad in the middle of a freezing winter wonderland in February hadn't been fun earlier this year, and Paris Fashion Week was not fun this week either.

Normally, I would extend my visit a few days and see the sights, wander around the Louvre and people-watch at cafes or feed pigeons by the Seine. Not this year.

Not when Sebastian Di Marco would be in attendance.

One of the most prominent photographers in the modelling industry, akin to Peter Lindbergh's level of fame and prowess with a camera, Di Marco was highly praised by almost everyone he worked with.

Just not me.

I had managed to somehow avoid him years before, since I'd been nineteen and had learned the true depths to which this industry could drag you, but not this year.

I'd known he would be here all year, and still–

Still, I hadn't prepared myself for how difficult it would be to see him. I hadn't considered how it would feel to have to see him, or how it would make me feel to have to be in his mere presence. No, I wouldn't stay in Paris any longer than I had to this year.

He would make sure of that, even if he didn't know I was here.

I was twenty-three years old, and my lustre would soon be lost and my place given to younger, prettier girls. I'd made my money, had my time in the spotlight, and in all honesty, I didn't know why I was in Paris. I should have been moving on, doing bigger, better, more purposeful things with my life than strutting down a catwalk or being a voiceless mannequin for someone else's clothes, ideas, expression.

I touched the bracelet George had given me before removing it and tucking it into my purse. The French carved onto it was done in a fine hand, and it must have taken hours to engrave. I recalled the words on it now from memory, having rubbed the silver so many times when bored or lonely or merely wistful. It was a line from Carmen: L'amour est un oiseau rebelle; love is a wild bird, carved over and over again into the slender surface.

"Georgia!" Leana Lim, the Singaporean heiress who thought modelling was fun because she had her father's shipping company to fall back on, called me. "Hurry up, we're getting hair and makeup done."

I yawned. We'd been up since five for this runway and had changed in and out of so many outfits while being subjected to so many pencils and brushes and powders on our faces that I was now numb at eleven in the morning.

"Okay," I said, trying to hide my tiredness. The concealer would probably do a better job.

As I sat on the vanity stool next to Leana while someone took my hair out of its hairspray-ed ponytail and began teasing it into another style, Leana started chatting. "So, who's the guy?"

Most of her conversations began with this question, so I should've been used to it by now. "I know so many guys. You'll have to be specific."

"He gave you the bracelet and showed up on a motorcycle?" she said.

"Right. George." I didn't particularly feel like talking to her about George, but I might as well. "Nothing serious."

"So, you wouldn' mind if I..."