No Strings Attached

Chapter One

She hadn’t realised their budget could stretch so far!

Once she’d unpacked her toiletries, and checked out the mini bar, she was completely at a loss as to what to do with the rest of her evening. Since she had a meeting first thing in the morning, the sensible thing would probably be to flick through her designs, make sure everything was exactly as she wanted it, before taking a bath and heading to bed.

She must be getting old, she thought, as she loaded bubbles into the wide tub, fixing herself a small glass of Chardonnay from the mini bar, and drawing the piping hot water into her bath.

Pulling off the pale loose chiffon shirt she’d been wearing with her skinny jeans, she stripped down to get into the tub, quickly applying a facial mask as she slipped under the delicious foam with a chilled glass of white wine.

Running the water through her fingers, she considered nervously the other reason she’d come over to the city.

Despite having moved back over to her old Doctor, she had trouble discussing these things with him, much preferring the anonymity that she’d hung onto with her therapist over here.

She’d really need that if she was going to pull herself through this after everything that had happened.

Nate was not the only man that haunted her – her father’s cold words were corroding her to such an extent that she struggled to look at her own body in the same way anymore. Yet another man had taken her for a whore – treating her as an empty shell – a tool for their pleasure and nothing more.

And she was suddenly being consumed by the thought that maybe he’d been right – maybe it was her own fault, somehow.

She couldn’t touch her naked skin without a shiver, let alone another man – not that she’d actually tried – but she didn’t want them to win. She refused to be a victim.

And if Dr. Greenwood could help her to overcome this, then she’d do anything.

It was half of the reason she’d given up on modelling in the first place – that feeling of having no ownership over your own body had taunted her before the incident with the photographer, but now it screamed from every shadow in her soul.

She felt off kilter, completely restless inside her own skin, as though the numbness that had overtaken her mind was now moving into her body, as though she absolutely didn’t belong inside her own flesh.

 She’d never felt that while she was with Nate.

It’s an odd feeling to come into – with someone you’ve known your whole life – to find that one single brush of their flesh against your own stabilises your entire being; that is reminds you that this is your body, and suddenly gives you back the rights to it.

She’d been staying with the Caseys on a semi-regular basis for a few months the first time it happened. She rarely spoke to any of the boys –Nate, Caleb or Jayden, even Tori’s dad she was uncomfortable around – but she spent a lot of time in the kitchen with Tori and her mum, baking cakes or just idly gossiping, allowing herself a brief outlet from her troubled thoughts.