Dirty Little Secrets
A Stepbrother Romance
Lauren Landish
Chapter 1
Alix
My feet were aching, and what I wanted more than anything else in the world was to sit down with a light drink and relax. But I was working, so I had a happy and engaged look on my face as I made my way across the concrete poolside. I hate these types of events. You’re supposed to look glamorous, sexy, and seductive while at the same time somehow come off as wholesomely approachable.
I mean, think about it for a second. Do you really think those Sports Illustrated swimsuit models are happy to be wearing a bikini while frolicking around in the snow? Even worse, realize that those shoots normally take place in mid to late winter, and you’d wonder why anyone would find that sexy at all. But, the bottom line rule in modeling is if the customers buy it, you do it. Luckily, while I’d done some uncomfortable shoots, I’d never had to wear swimwear in a snowstorm.
At least my discomfort was related more to my footwear than anything else. I was wearing a bikini, but the event was taking place in summer, so I wasn’t inwardly shivering the whole time. We were even in Malibu, which is one of my favorite places to hang out most of the time. Best of all, I didn’t have to feel out of place, as almost everyone else was wearing swimwear or something of the sort.
The problem was my shoes. I’m five ten, and as you’d expect with a woman my height, I have quite large feet. In casual shoes I wear a women’s size ten, which is close to the size of an average man’s foot. That’s not too bad when you consider that I’m taller than the average man as well, but for some reason fashion designers and runway reps think that they can get away with being lazy and bringing nothing but size eight shoes. Eights are good for some, mostly the pinup girls who don’t do the runway, but for us tall girls . . . painful. Pure pain.
Still, I was a professional, and I made sure to keep my face as happy as possible as I jammed my feet into the undersized shoes. I couldn’t knock the pay—I was getting fifty thousand dollars for two days’ work. It was a unique opportunity. The UFC was having an ‘all big men’ event, with every fight being either light heavyweights or heavyweights. But that presented a lot of problems, the main being that most of the fighters were giants. Seriously, most of the light heavyweight and heavyweight fighters were six-three to six-eight, so to not make them look like NBA-style freaks, the UFC wanted the models for this press event to be tall as well. The only normal UFC girl in attendance was Arianny, who I got to meet for the first time. She was pretty nice, a lot nicer than I thought she would be. She gave us a few pointers on how to interact with the fighters and gave me and the other girls working the party the rundown on the schedule of the evening.
Still, regardless of how nice Arianny was, the UFC’s marketing deal with Reebok meant I was wearing brand-new, out-of-the-box, black leather, size eight tennis shoes. I‘d quickly ditched my socks to gain me a little bit of wiggle room, but still, an hour into the two-hour event, my feet were screaming at me. I‘d lost feeling in my little toes, however, so I was at least holding out hope that by the end of the event I‘d have numbed up the rest of the way.
While there were certain various photo ops, video blurbs, and other things that I had to do, my primary job for the night was to mingle at the pool party, held two nights before the main event, which was taking place in Los Angeles. I didn‘t even need to work the actual Pay Per View, as the UFC wanted more of their name-brand girls to do the actual card holding for the event. I would do the pool party and the weigh-ins the next day and walk out with a nice paycheck in my bank account, supposedly more than a lot of the fighters earned, surprisingly enough.
“Hey, how‘re you holding up?” one of the fighters, a heavyweight who was fighting on the undercard, asked. We‘d chatted at the press conference earlier in the day, where he‘d been accompanied by his wife and two kids. He was a total family man and looked a bit embarrassed to be at this press event slash pool party. It obviously catered to the single male demographic the UFC was aiming for. I could understand his feelings. I’m not one for this sort of action on my own either. I’d rather spend my time by myself or with the few people that were allowed into my life. It’s not that I’m arrogant, I just don’t feel comfortable hanging out with a bunch of strangers.
“I’m doing okay,” I said, still giving my best smile. “I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s weigh-in, though. It’s going to be my first.”
“Well, enjoy it, it’s a lot less stressful than the fight cards full of the little guys,” he replied. He looked around the party, pointing out the one fight that was at a lighter weight, two guys who were fighting at one hundred and eighty-five pounds for the number one contendership. “They look and act like rabid zombies during these events, they’re so drained from cutting weight. Half of us are big boys, we don’t have to cut weight at all. All I need to do is eat clean and I drop below the two seventy weight limit.”