Most Mondays started the same way these days: with a call to Alex, my new manager. And most Mondays ended the same way: at the bottom of a vodka bottle.

I wasn’t an alcoholic by any means, but a fifth wasn’t that hard to get through by the end of another weekend without any parties to attend, or with only parties surrounded by people whispering about me behind my back. Or to my face.

Fuck, it was a whole month later, and I’d been bitterly, utterly right about the trajectory of my career.

But so had Gideon. Alex hadn’t been able to pull him back from this one. The other guys he’d brought over were all getting work.

But not Gideon.

That meant only one thing: I was shot.

And I was broke. A month wasn’t much time in which to go through my savings, but they were dwindling fast somehow. Between credit card bills from boutique spending sprees -- and I’d be fucked before I’d let them get a penny of interest -- and paying back my own expenses…

Shit, this was an awful, sinking realization.

I’d fucked around and wasted the best opportunity of my life.

It hadn’t taken long before Nora had figured out what was going on, but there was no offer she could make that wasn’t just insulting. Help me get another admin job somewhere? Help her with her sewing business? Anything would be a step down from where I’d been.

And where I was, in some ways. That cologne commercial? It had still gone ahead, possibly as my last big claim to fame.

So my face was plastered on bus stops and rolled across glitzy electronic signs now and then when I looked at them. I hated the sinking, wretched feeling in the pit of my stomach every time I saw myself in one of those damn things.

I’d had a couple jobs, sure, since joining Alex’s agency, which was simply called Alex. Worst name ever.

But nothing could regain the momentum I’d once had.

Alex still called that Friday evening, just to check in. I still didn’t love the guy or anything, but I could kind of see his point about certain things. Gideon hadn’t denied destroying Alex’s career… and Gideon had never told Alex he wanted more. Maybe they both had used each other more than Gideon admitted in public.

“Hey, man.”

“Hello,” I answered Alex. “So…”

“Nothing, man. Sorry. It’s getting pretty tough. But come on, come over to my house. We’ll talk about your next career move.”

He was working day and night as the manager for all the models, plus holding the position of CEO. Hayden was working as the face of the agency and wasn’t around much -- we’d never even met face to face, and the office was a small but clean one on the other side of Central Park from Prestige, thank god.

Less risk of running into Gideon.

That last fuck -- the hottest one I’d ever had in my life, and the one I jerked off to just about every night?

God, I’d kill for that again, but that was just another regret to get drunk over if I let myself.

I wasn’t going to be the broke, angry model who resented the world. At least, I’d try to stave that off.

“Okay. I’ll be over in half an hour,” I told my boss and hung up, then sorted through my closet. I didn’t even feel like wearing any of the shit in there.

It all felt like it belonged to a guy who was a lot more successful than me, and less of a fuck-up. Not the kind of guy who would crash and burn so hard there were memes in modeling circles’ Facebook groups about him.

I leaned against the pole in the bus as I waited for the right stop, my eyes half-closed. It was supposed to be less painful soon, wasn’t it?

What kind of career moves did Alex have in mind? Ad campaigns? I could probably do that. That was the last stage in a guy’s career, but by this point…

It was getting obvious I was being shunted out, one way or another.

Surely to God it wasn’t all by that Caspian or Casper or whatever guy, the classy druggie. No, this was a combination of factors.

But then, in dark hours, a part of me wondered if I should have done the line. At least I’d have a guaranteed gig next year, which would probably rekindle interest in me.

I suddenly understood Joaquín better than ever.

He had come to visit me a couple of times over the last month, but we’d only ever met somewhere else -- away from the house. I still didn’t want anyone seeing my place.

I had to maintain the last vestiges of my image, tattered as it was.

“Thanks,” I muttered to the bus driver on my way out, striding down the street from the bus stop to Hayden and Alex’s place.

God, I hoped Hayden was out again. Alex seemed to be keeping us separated, just as he’d promised. That, at least, was a relief.

When I knocked on the door and Alex pulled it open, I jerked my head in a quick nod.

He held the door for me. “Come on in, darling. How have you been?” He cast a critical eye up and down my outfit, but I really didn’t give a fuck if my new manager told me off for not having the right accessories. He was lucky I was getting out of bed at all.

“Okay,” I grunted and shrugged. “Hoping you have good news soon.”

He sighed, then nodded. “Drink?”

“I’d love one.”

We settled in the reading room -- of course they had a goddamn posh reading room. One of them was definitely from some kind of rich family.

Not the kind of family that gave me well-meaning lectures on how I was going to destroy my life by fucking men and preening for men, driving me to leave the very first day I could, that was for damn sure.

I tamped that down too, and put on my impassive mask. Too much risk I’d have a meltdown otherwise, and I couldn’t do that in public.

Eventually, conversation turned to Gideon.

“I have to say… I’m impressed with how well you’re holding up,” Alex admitted. “Um, I thought after Gideon…”

“What about him?” I asked flatly.

He winced. “Well, it was… sort of a mutually unhealthy relationship. It’s a bit painful to leave a situation like that.”

I nodded slightly. “I imagine.”

“If you start feeling like you have to talk…”

I laughed under my breath. Christ, if only anyone had told me that and meant it just a month ago, this whole shit show could have been avoided. Then, I shook my head. “Nah.”

Alex slid closer to me on the couch, then reached out and put a hand on my knee. “You’ve seemed pretty out of sorts, even to someone who doesn’t know you well.”

I paused for a minute, swirling the whisky in the glass for a long minute and absently noting the rum and raisin notes in it.

The fucking life had ruined me for cheap booze, too.

What would I say? That I missed Gideon, that I wanted to fuck his brains out but also learn what and who he was outside of work? That I’d totally blown my chance to have it all?

And then, Alex’s hand was running up the inside of my thigh toward my groin.

I froze, but I grabbed his hand just before it got to my cock and pushed it away.

He seemed as startled as me. “You don’t…?”

“No,” I breathed out. “No, I don’t.”

“Oh, shit. Okay.” He backed off, folding his arms again and shaking his head. “I totally misread that.” But the way he apologized wasn’t wholehearted. He’d never actually said sorry.

I hadn’t been touched like that -- like I was desirable, an object to be prized -- in weeks now.

I didn’t know why I hadn’t just gone and found some other guy to fill that need after the… breakup, or whatever… but I hadn’t.

A sick part of me wanted Alex to keep going, just so I could feel like I had something valuable in me again.

But then, I saw Gideon’s face in my mind.

“I can’t. I want to go.”

“Where?”

That was a cruel reminder. I had no work to get to, no friends to see. Joaquín was busy in Sao Paulo or Singapore or something. Luca and Hunter were out on a tour. My other friends? Acquaintances that were gone now, like they’d never known me.

But there was someone whose door would always be open to me. My gut instinct told me that.

“To see Gideon.”

Alex’s expression turned ugly in a heartbeat. “You really wanna never work again? I thought I’d done a good enough job of that.”

The color drained from my cheeks. “What?”

“But I’ve got the next cologne season now. That’s the main thing taken care of. Hayden’s collaborating with them in their show. It’s all settled.”

I felt sick.

Had I been so sorry for myself all month that I’d missed the wheels and cogs in motion all around me? Was I really that naive?

Fuck, I wasn’t just stupid, but I kept being stupid.

I was a pawn in their games, in their shitty lifestyle, unless I did something.

And there was one thing I could think of, and I thought the man would be enough of a good man to accept it.

I was rising to my feet when Alex rose, too. “Wait. There’s one thing I haven’t told you about. When’s rent due? You got it covered?”

For a moment, he sounded compassionate, but I caught myself before I bought in. The cold ease with which he’d just told me he’d used the fuck out of me stopped me from believing it now.

“What business is it of yours? You’d be happier if I didn’t,” I snapped.

“I have one event for you,” he told me. “I was gonna do it, but it’s… a bit beneath me now.”

I ground my teeth. I wished I could be certain Gideon would have my back, but I really couldn’t blame him if he turned his back on me for turning my back on him in turn.

“What is it?” I managed at last.

That was the killing blow to my ego: not being able to walk out on the asshole on the spot, because I needed the money too much.

“A cocktail party. They want a couple hot models. Underwear only. You’d be the centerpiece. Maybe even get some tips if you wear a hot G-string.”

Just this one job. Just to pay rent. Then I go to Gideon.

As I leaned on the bus shelter after storming out of Alex’s building, it took everything I had not to throw up beside it.