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“Isn’t that your job?” I tease.

He chuckles again. “Yes. It is.”

“Have fun,” I say. “Good luck with your speech.”

“Thank you, trouble.”

The conversation stays with me for hours afterward. Even as I talk to my mother, as I do every day, and she urges me toward a new modeling job, all I hear is West’s voice.You can be the one to set those expectations.

My motherdidpush me into modeling. But I’ve never explicitly said I didn’t want it, either. I’ve placated and smiled and demurred and quietly tried to pull out of engagements. Maybe that was okay then. I was younger. I was doing the best I could.

But I’m older now, and it’s my life.

* * *

The next day, I’m sitting in the kitchen with Melissa when I hear the front door open. It’s large enough that the sound echoes through the immediate rooms downstairs.

People come and go often here. Ernest. The security guards. The head housekeeper, the gardeners, Melissa herself. I don’t react much, focusing on solving the six-down formercurialwe’ve been stuck on.

But footsteps echo on the marble floor to the kitchen.

Ernest appears. His face is half hidden behind a giant bouquet of spring flowers. It’s an explosion of green and pink.

He sets it on the counter and places a small wrapped box next to it. “There’s a delivery for you,” he says.

“Oh my god. For me?” I slide off the chair and then pause. “It’s not from…” I let my words trail off, a tightness in my chest. I don’t like saying the word.Stalkermakes it feel so real, somehow, and so predatory. I’m trying not to think about whoever it is.

“No. It’s not fromhim.” Ernest says the word with barely concealed distaste. “Don’t worry.”

“Thanks.”

His eyes meet mine. “I’m sorry about your situation.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate that.”

He nods and says hello to Melissa before leaving the kitchen.

I stare at the giant bouquet. The dazzling array of lilies and baby’s breath and peonies.Practice getting gifts.That was on my list. It always increases the pressure for me. When guys bring flowers or chocolates.

When I was nineteen, I was walking shows in Milan for the spring/summer collections. A man in his forties, and a friend of the designer, wouldn’t stop giving me gifts. They’d show up at my makeup station between shows.

Giant, ostentatious things that made saying no to him all the more hard, because now I felt like I owed him gratitude too.

I reach for the card attached to the bouquet and turn it over with careful fingers. There, in sprawling masculine handwriting, is a single sentence.I’m picking you up at seven.

Anticipation makes me smile. He sent me flowers. West sent meflowers.

Melissa makes a small whistling sound. “Look at that! That’s gorgeous.”

“It really is, isn’t it?” I reach out for the small wrapped box. “And it came in a vase.”

“He knows how to spoil a girl,” she says and turns back to the dough she’s kneading.

“Oh, we’re not… that is… we’re not dating,” I tell her.

“Of course you’re not,” she says so quickly that I know she’s humoring me. “No need to explain anything to me.”

“Thanks.”