It had already been a fucking month of avoiding Alex, and in New York City, that was a momentous task. To be fair, I’d had plenty of help from certain people -- Paul and Raymond, mainly, but pretty much everyone in the company seemed to know what had happened.

Thankfully, nobody had the balls to talk about it to my face.

As much as I wanted to think it was just life back to normal, there was a Leonel-shaped hole in it. No more sneaking off to visit him at every event, no flying with him to or from foreign climes, no peeking in on him in the in-house photo studio…

But it was about fucking time I get out. Avoiding ritzy parties wasn’t going to win me any new clients, and I couldn’t afford to lose the momentum Prestige had built.

Losing Leonel had been a giant blow to my reputation, but not to my bank balance. His bookings had been going down before he jumped ship. And now, nobody seemed to even remember the guy they’d been fawning over just last month.

It was the weirdest thing… and oddly insulting, on Leonel’s behalf.

What I wasn’t expecting when I walked through the door of the two-floor luxury penthouse suite with the indoor waterfall and pools was to see Leonel himself, posing in his underwear, in the middle of the pool, the waterfall behind him.

My chest seized tight as I stared at him for a second, then tore my eyes away out of a weird sense of… respect? Decency?

Then, I noticed it wasn’t stopping anyone else.

The last thing I saw before I saw red was Alex and Hayden.

Specifically, Hayden running his hand up Leonel’s chest while he stood beside him on the smooth tile of the living room floor, Leonel in the water.

Alex, by his side, was laughing, saying something about “his guys” and how fit they were, but I didn’t give a shit.

The moment I saw that look in Leonel’s eye -- the one where his eyes were flickering around the room, that defiant spark gone, his chin down and shoulders forward…

Something was wrong, and fuck them both if they thought they’d get away with that bullshit.

“Oh, shit. Gideon--” someone started to say, but I pushed past them and stormed toward Alex.

He turned around and raised his brows, just in time for me to grab him by the shoulders and give him a quick, hard shove.

Right into the water.

The room exploded with exclamations, curses, and a couple of guys trying to pull me back, but I shoved them off and slapped Hayden across the face.

“You’ve been fucking him over all this time, haven’t you? This last month? Knocking him so low he doesn’t have a choice but to do this for you! How can you live with yourself?”

The water was only a few inches deep, but Alex’s pretty little jeans and cap-sleeved shirt were soaked now as he hauled himself upright and out of the water and came at me, until a couple guys grabbed him, too. “Same way you can live with yourself for telling lies about me, asshole.”

Hayden was reeling silently, his hand pressed to his cheek, his eyes wide.

That sound had cracked Leonel’s model facade, and he was watching everything from the corner of his eye.

“Yeah, maybe you weren’t a thief then, but you’re more than that now,” I growled right back at Alex. My heart was pounding, and it was all I could do not to fall to punches. “If any of you pretend you didn’t see the look on Leonel’s face that I saw the second I walked in…”

The guests fell into an uncomfortable silence.

“Yeah, I thought so,” I spat out. I held out a hand to Leonel, ignoring the others.

Alex knocked my hand away. “He’s mine now.”

Hayden gave him a sideways glance.

“I’ll get him out of the contract as fast as you got him out of mine,” I sneered. “Was it signed when you were drunk?”

“Technically…” Alex started.

“That’s bullshit!” Hayden hissed.

“I’m asking Leonel.” I turned away from them as Alex waded out of the pool and took off his shoes to empty them back into the pool. I just watched Leonel.

He hesitated, his gaze finally focusing on me instead of the neutral, professional mid-distance stare of a model. Then, he nodded.

I nodded. “I thought so.” Then I extended my hand once more to him. Without saying a word, he glanced down at me.

“Fuck you,” Hayden spat. “You can’t have him!”

Leonel stepped out of the pool and took my arm. “Yes, he can.” His voice was soft but distinct, contrasting his gaze. His eyes bored holes through that little asshole. He turned, then, and looked straight at me. “Yes, you can.”

I hadn’t known I’d been so desperate to hear those words, but now that I did, they felt so utterly right. We were both watching each other still, completely ignoring Alex and Hayden despite whatever they were blabbering about now.

And Leonel was smiling at me -- that soft, open, vulnerable smile, not his fake model smile.

This is him. He’s back.

I hauled him in for a quick, hard hug, sliding my arms around his back. I glared over his shoulder at every damn one of them who dared stand in judgment and whisper about the party host who’d paid all that money. “You’re coming home with me.”

His answer blew me away.

“I’ve been waiting long enough.”

I slid off my jacket and stood behind Leonel to help him put it on, one arm at a time. He zipped it up, and then he took my arm again as we walked silently to the door.

Neither Alex nor Hayden seemed to have a word to say, but there would be hundreds -- thousands of gossip-filled words in the days to come. I was sure of that.

I also didn’t care.