King of Envy: Chapter 6

Vuk was already awake and dressed by the time I woke up the next morning. Perhaps he hadn’t gone to sleep at all, but if the lack of rest affected him, I couldn’t tell.

He sat at the living room table, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper while I got ready. Broad shoulders and rough edges, his shirt open at the collar to reveal a sliver of lightly tanned skin. Not a trace of fatigue marred his glacial features.

I didn’t bother saying good morning. He didn’t deserve it after last night.

Petty of me, I know, but I was tired of getting rebuffed. I didn’t believe for a second that he suddenly got the urge to work out at three a.m. He just didn’t want to be near me.

We checked out of the hotel and rode to the airport in silence.

Vuk’s staff was ready for us when we arrived, and it didn’t take long before we were in the air and on our way back to New York.

I swallowed my nausea and avoided looking out the window at the clouds below. I’d taken an anti-anxiety pill before wheels up, but it took a while to kick in. Until then, I was stuck with rampant images of plane crashes and twisted debris.

My apprehension over flying wasn’t debilitating. If it were, I wouldn’t have been able to do my job.

However, it did stress me out to the point that I was secretly a wreck unless I had a companion to distract me. My aunt had nearly died in a plane crash when I was fifteen. After her accident, I’d delved down a rabbit hole of crash research, and the images I’d seen had seared themselves into my brain. Every time I stepped on an aircraft, I was convinced those would be the last moments of my life.

Vuk, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease. He sat across the aisle, his head tipped back and his eyes closed. A welcome glass of champagne sat untouched on the table in front of him.

“Why do you hate me so much?” My question cut through the silence with one neat slice.

I would say it just slipped out, but it’d been simmering beneath the surface for months. There was no better time to ask the hard questions—and to distract myself from my sick imagination—than when we were trapped on a six-hour flight together, I suppose.

Vuk opened his eyes and turned his head. His expression was unreadable. You think I hate you?

“Don’t you?” I gestured between us. “You go out of your way to avoid me. When you can’t avoid me, you barely acknowledge me. You’d rather spend the night in a hotel gym than in the same room as me, for Christ’s sake. And don’t try to feed me any bull about how you don’t like anyone. There’s a marked difference between the way you treat me versus other people.” I took a deep breath. “I know I don’t come from a rich family, so maybe you think I’m not good enough for Jordan. Regardless, we’re engaged, and we are going to get married. You’re the best man. The least you could do is act civil until the wedding is over.”

My frustration spilled out in its full glory.

I was sick of his hot and cold attitude. While I’d read him a similar riot act at yesterday’s tasting, we were alone now. I didn’t have to hold back, and it was time to tackle the root of his issues with me once and for all.

Something dark flickered in Vuk’s pale eyes. He turned away deliberately and wrote something on a notepad.

A moment later, he unfolded himself from his seat, and I instinctively sank deeper into mine. My heart rate kicked up when he moved toward me.

Why had he written his reply instead of signing it? Had I finally pushed him over the edge? Was he going to murder me right here on his private jet?

There was no one else around except for the pilot and flight attendant, both of whom were in his employ. I doubt they’d come running to my aid.

Vuk stopped in front of me. He was so tall I had to crane my neck to look at him.

I held my breath as he unclenched his fist and dropped the crumpled note in my lap. It wasn’t until he disappeared into another cabin that I allowed myself to relax and read what he wrote.

My pulse fluttered at the words scratched in bold black.

I don’t hate you. But I wish I did.

Vuk didn’t explain his note; I didn’t ask.

Someone wishing they hated you was almost worse than actual hate, and I was too exhausted to chase him down for an explanation. Trying to pry a direct answer out of him was like trying to pry blood out of stone.

Hours later, while he locked himself in the bedroom suite, I stared at my bank account.

Objectively, it wasn’t terrible. I made a substantial living compared to the average person, but I knew what should be in the account versus what was actually in there. There was a huge disparity between the two.

Beaumont paid for all my costs and expenses up front—hotels, transportation, test shots back when I was a new model. So on and so forth. However, like most modeling agencies, they expected full repayment for those costs, and I was indebted to them for years until I booked enough high-paying jobs to climb out of that financial hole. Sort of.

My post-debt years with Beaumont had been marked with late or missed payments, excuses, and subtle threats whenever I tried to chase them down. I was still owed money for jobs I completed a year ago.

Unfortunately, the modeling industry was a largely unregulated one. Financial exploitation and other forms of abuse ran rampant, and there wasn’t much the models could do.

I was lucky to have a decent nest egg and family close by. Even so, I was held captive by my contract, which prohibited me from leaving the agency without “mutual consent.” If I did, I had to pay them an eye-watering sum for breaking their terms. It was money I couldn’t spare—not when New York was so expensive and my income from modeling was so unstable. I was doing great now, but future success wasn’t guaranteed.

That was why I needed the money from my arrangement with Jordan—to buy out my contract, cover my legal fees, and maintain a financial safety net.

I exited out of my bank account and typed out a text to Hank.

Fifteen minutes passed before he replied.

I knew that would be his answer, so I didn’t bother following up. I just wanted a paper trail.

I set my phone aside and finished my water. Despite my upcoming payday from Jordan, my stomach was in knots. So much could go wrong between now and February.

What would happen if I couldn’t get out of my contract? Would I be stuck with Beaumont forever until⁠—

A sudden jolt sent my phone crashing to the ground. Plates clattered in the kitchen galley, and a flash of lightning streaked through the gray skies outside. The jet shook so hard I felt my bones rattle.

Just like in my morbid imaginations earlier.

Oh God.

Bile surged as every thought about Hank, Beaumont, and my finances flew out of my head. The only thing I could focus on was the nauseating rise and dip of the aircraft.

How high were we in the air? Thirty, forty thousand feet? How long would it take before we plummeted to earth and exploded into a fireball?

Vuk strode into the main cabin, his expression tense. He managed to walk steady despite the shaking—was it normal for turbulence to last this long?—and he took the seat beside mine without a word. Behind him, the flight attendant strapped herself to her designated seat.

The seat belt. Right. I should do that.

I barely heard the pilot’s warning about staying seated as I fumbled with my seat belt. The clasp kept slipping out of my sweaty palms.

Why won’t the damn thing close?

I felt a small brush of air as Vuk reached over and snapped the seat belt in place for me.

“Thank you.” The words scraped past a dry throat.

Before I could say anything else, the plane suffered another massive jolt. This time, I couldn’t hold back a scream, and I instinctively grabbed Vuk’s hand.

He tensed, but he didn’t pull away.

Breathe.

I forced myself to count to ten, over and over, until the shaking subsided. Only then did I relax, though adrenaline continued to pump through my blood.

It was also then that I realized I was still squeezing Vuk’s hand. He glanced at where I touched him, his jaw tightening.

“Sorry.” My face flushed. “I don’t deal well with turbulence.”

I moved to pull away, but his fingers curled, trapping my hand in his. His skin was rough and warm, his hold steady.

The breath vanished from my lungs for a second time. I opened my mouth—to say what, I wasn’t sure—but at that moment, the jet rattled again.

The chicken and spinach I’d had for lunch tossed in my stomach. I couldn’t take much more of this. If my adrenaline kept dipping and spiking, I was going to throw up all over the custom-engraved tray table.

Thankfully, the aircraft steadied soon. Gray turned to blue outside the window, and the pilot came over the PA system to assure us we’d made it past the expected turbulence. It should be smooth flying ahead.

Once the PA system clicked off, Vuk dropped my hand like a hot potato.

I wiped my palm against my thigh, hoping it would stave off the tingles. It didn’t.

“How did you know?” I assumed he’d held on to me when I tried to pull away because he knew we would hit another patch of rough air.

When you fly enough, you sense these things.

That seemed like a stretch, but honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he possessed supernatural powers. There was something unnervingly forbidding about him.

To my surprise, Vuk stayed beside me despite the pilot’s all-clear. His gaze slid from my sweaty face to my tight-knuckled grasp on my knee.

Like I said, I didn’t deal well with turbulence.

We were landing in an hour or so, and it would take that long for me just to recover.

You’re afraid of flying, but you chose modeling. It wasn’t a question.

“Chose” was a strong word, but I let it slide.

“I’m not afraid. I’m uneasy.” Okay, sometimes I was afraid, but most of the time, I was uneasy. “It usually helps when I have someone to talk to. They keep my mind off the fact that we’re trapped in a little tin box in the sky because some genius decided it would be a good mode of transportation.”

A hint of amusement glided through Vuk’s eyes. What do you talk about?

“Anything. Everything. Movies, memes, current affairs.” Then, because I couldn’t resist, “How some people blow so hot and cold you don’t know where you stand with them.”

Vuk ignored that last part and fixated on the last topic I would’ve expected from him. Memes.

“Yes. Like the Kermit the Frog memes? Or the guy blinking nervously?” I spent a lot of time waiting and doom scrolling at casting calls, so I was well-versed in internet jokes.

Whenever I found a good one, I sent it to my sister, but she was usually so busy with her kids or her nursing job that she didn’t respond until days later.

I sent a funny video to Jordan once and spent half an hour trying to explain the joke to him. I never sent him one again.

Vuk slanted a sideways glance at me. I know what memes are. A pause. What do you and Jordan talk about when you fly together? Specifically.

The short answer: we didn’t. I tried to calm myself by reading my favorite fashion and perfume blogs while he worked. I couldn’t tell Vuk that, though.

“Family.” It was the first thing that popped up in my mind. “Our families,” I clarified. “And, um, how they’re going to be one family soon.”

I internally cringed. I sounded like an idiot.

If Vuk agreed, he didn’t show it. Tell me about your family.

I paused, surprised to realize how long it’d been since I talked about my family with anyone outside of it.

“They live in D.C.,” I said. “I have two older siblings, Liya and Aaron. Liya is an ER nurse at Thayer Hospital, and Aaron works at the restaurant my parents own. They’re grooming him to take over after they retire in a few years.”

What kind of cuisine?

“Ethiopian. They’re from Addis Ababa, and they opened the restaurant when I was a teenager because they missed the taste of home. There’s a huge Ethiopian community in D.C. so there were already quite a few restaurants, but none of them can make sambusas the way my father makes them.”

I smiled wistfully at the memory of our weekly Friday night dinners, when the whole house was redolent with the aroma of chicken and spices. Liya, Aaron, and I would bicker over our chores while my father cooked and my mother set the table.

We would often have guests over too. Our house was a revolving door of aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends, many of whom brought their friends for a taste of my father’s famous cooking.

I loved New York, but in D.C., I had a community. After six years in Manhattan, I was still struggling to find my footing.

I called and texted my parents often, but it wasn’t the same.

“We have a big extended family,” I added. “They live up and down the East Coast, but every holiday season, we have a big reunion at my grandparents’ place in Maryland.”

I’d missed several reunions over the years because of work. They were so used to it by now they didn’t bother pressuring me to “take time off,” which made me feel even worse.

The flight attendant came by to offer us more food and drinks. Vuk and I both declined before he focused on me again.

Who’s your favorite sibling?

I side-eyed him. “Are you trying to get me in trouble?”

He shrugged, a shadow of a smirk playing around his mouth.

I didn’t know what to make of his sudden interest in my personal life. I hadn’t forgotten his earlier note: I don’t hate you. But I wish I did.

But he wasn’t acting like he wanted to hate me. He was acting like he genuinely wanted to know more about me.

We were apparently blowing hot again. As much as I hated his mood swings, it’d been so long since I’d had a real conversation about anything other than work and the wedding. It was…nice.

“I love them both, but Liya is closer to my age,” I conceded. “She’s three years older than me while Aaron is seven years older. We just have more in common. You’ll meet her soon; she’s my maid of honor.”

Vuk’s mouth flattened into a straight line again. Why Jordan?

I blinked, so thrown off by the sudden switch in topic it took me a minute to respond. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Why did you choose to marry him?

Choose. That word again.

I supposed I had chosen to marry him, but like my modeling career, it was out of necessity more than anything else.

My entire adult life had been shaped by circumstances out of my control.

A rock lodged in my throat. I crossed my legs and smoothed a hand over my skirt, stalling for time.

I wasn’t a fidgeter, but Vuk’s questions—his very presence—set me on edge. I felt like I was teetering on the precipice of ruin. One wrong move, and everything would come crashing down.

“Why wouldn’t I marry him?”

Deflection 101: answer a question with a question and hope they moved on.

Vuk’s gaze bore into mine, so cold it burned.

That’s not an answer, Ayana.

I’d never heard his voice, but the phantom sound of my name sent an electric shiver down my spine.

“He’s nice.” I suppressed a wince at my milquetoast description. “We’ve known each other for a long time, and we enjoy each other’s company. He’s exactly the type of person I should marry.”

I wasn’t selling our love story at all, but in my defense, no one had ever asked me why I was marrying Jordan. The model and the fashion CEO. To most people, the answer was obvious.

Unfortunately, Vuk wasn’t most people.

If we use your logic, I would’ve married Jordan before you. I’ve known him a long time, and I enjoy his company.

I would’ve teased him about almost making a joke had it not been for the strange sparks dancing beneath my skin. “That’s a lie. You don’t enjoy anyone’s company.”

Wrong.

“Name one person whose company you enjoy. Besides Jordan.”

Does he not count as “anyone?”

“Not for the purposes of this conversation. I’m trying to prove a point.”

Which is?

“You don’t like people.”

People in general, no. His gaze dipped for a moment before meeting mine again. But there are exceptions.

A haze thickened in the air. It smoldered with every inhale.

Vuk wasn’t talking about me. He couldn’t be, not based on the way he’d treated me in the past.

But he’d joined me on this trip.

He’d held me when there was turbulence.

And when he looked at me, I felt like a living, breathing person. Not a mannequin. Not a cash cow. Not a role model for girls I’d never asked to be a role model for.

Just a regular human with interests and a life outside the one my agency constructed for me.

I don’t hate you. But I wish I did.

The haze crisped at the edges and burned away my previous notions of Vuk’s feelings toward me. Did he⁠—

The seat belt sign dinged. The pilot’s voice crackled over the intercom. “We’ve begun our descent into New York City. If you need to use the restroom or other facilities, please do so now. We’ll be landing shortly.”

The haze cleared. Oxygen rushed back into my lungs, and when I glanced at my phone, I was shocked to see an hour had passed since the turbulence started.

My conversation with Vuk had done more than distract me from my near-death panic; it’d made me forget it entirely.

When I looked up again to thank him, he was already gone.