Page 108 of The Way I Hate Him
And that makes me sick to my stomach.
As much as I’d love to say watching him fondle another woman doesn’t bother me at all, I’d be lying. This bothers me.
Tremendously.
Because Odette is getting everything I wish I could have with Hayes without even trying.
“Jacklyn, makeup check before we get to the next position. Hattie, bring Odette her robe,” Kevin calls out.
“I’m good,” she says as she moves to the side of the bed where Jacklyn touches her up. My eyes fall to Hayes, with his head propped up against the headboard, staring up at the ceiling as he takes a few deep breaths.
Why did he think I needed to be here? I’m a certified coatrack and cup holder. Was it really necessary for me to come with him? Is this another way of him showing me just how much I don’t fit into his world? If so, it’s cruel.
“Hattie,” he calls out. “Can you come here?”
Stiffly, I walk up to him as Jacklyn tends to Odette. “Yes?” I ask him.
“Can I have some water?”
Trying not to flare my nostrils over the menial task I was brought here for, I hand him his water, and he thanks me, his eyes connecting with mine. After a gulp, he hands me the bottle and then leans back on the headboard again.
“Anything else?” I ask him.
“No, that’s it.”
I step away, so irritated with him that I clutch the robe tighter as Odette gets back into position. I watch his hands slowly move over her skin as if he’s committing the feel of her to memory.
“Now, I’d love to see you flip her onto her back,” Kevin says, “and hover above her.”
“Sure,” Hayes says over the music.
Smoke billows around them, and Kevin calls out to me, “Hattie, grab one of those hand fans and wave the smoke around them.”
I set the robe and water down and snag one of the large flat fans and start waving it lightly over the smoke, swirling it around Odette and Hayes as Kevin calls out action. Hayes grips Odette tightly and then flips her onto her back. I watch her breasts jiggle from the sharp movement and hear her gasp over the music from her surprise. Why is she gasping? She knew exactly what he was going to do.
“Again,” Kevin says, and they perform it a few more times. Every time, her body becomes more and more sexualized with the arch of her back, the press of her boobs in the air, and the way her fingers slide up his thick biceps. “Great, next position.” Kevin moves the camera to the side now, where they get a better shot of Hayes on top of Odette. “Okay, from here, I want you to wrap your legs around Hayes’s waist, and Hayes, I want you to run your hand up her side and then over her breast where you lightly grip it.” Excuse me? Kevin turns toward Odette and says, “Are you still okay with the instructions from the intimacy coordinator?”
Odette nods, of course, because who wouldn’t want to be in her position right now?
“Hattie, keep wafting the smoke.” Oh shit, right.Your job isn’t to scowl.It’s to blow smoke around them. I lift the large fan and start waving it up and down as Kevin calls action, and I watch there, in horror, as Hayes’s hand slides up Odette’s body to her breast, where he grips it, causing Odette to arch her back and dig her hand into his hair. “Perfect,” Kevin calls out. “Again.”
My stomach roils with nausea.
My eyes are glued to every single thing he’s doing.
My heart rips out of my chest with every kiss he places on her cheek, her jaw, her neck.
My breath escapes me every time his palm connects with her breast, gripping tightly.
My hope shatters as she gasps every time his jean-clad pelvis pulses into her.
It’s all too fucking much, and I feel tears starting to tickle the backs of my eyes.
This . . . this right here is torture.
I’ve become hopelessly attached to this man, something I truly didn’t expect. Odette is wrong about him. He’s arrogant, conceited, and drives me mad most of the time. But, at this moment, I realize how much I’ve craved his touch. His affection.His friendship.Him. But this has shown how far out of his league I am. Physically. Emotionally. I feel so...unsophisticated.I couldn’t even graduate from college.
And I can’t help think of one of the first things he said to me when I first started working for him: he has no interest in me physically.
