Platinum (All That Glitters #3) (31 page)

By the time she had done only half of those things, Trihn felt exhausted. No wonder Teena had scheduled her to be here for three days to get through this stuff and why she hadn’t come along to deal with the tedious details.

Trihn walked up to a vendor to get a bottle of water. She paid for it with cash, which she always liked to have on hand in the city, and then started skimming the magazines. This had been a habit while she was modeling. She’d liked to see if any of her friends had made it onto the covers, and when she’d had free time before dance, she would pick one up and flip through to see if she could find a familiar face.

Trihn jolted. “Whoa!”
Speaking of a familiar face.

She snatched the tabloid magazine out of the stand and stared at the cover. In big letters, it read,
Chloe’s Secret Love
, and it had a giant picture of Chloe and Damon on the cover. Trihn opened the tabloid and flipped to the page listed. There, in detail, was a series of pictures of Damon and Chloe together. In one, they both had their heads down as they moved through a crowd. A similar picture had Damon with his arm slung over Chloe as they walked into an arena. A few other pictures had them standing side by side at various venues.

Trihn started reading the article with shaking hands.

CHLOE AVANA’S ROMANCE WITH DJ DAMON STONE WAS STRICTLY OFF-LIMITS.

Add another guy to the increasingly long list of people Chloe Avana has been photographed with during the last couple of months. Even before their single “We Never Met” rocked the charts, the two had been spicing it up behind the scenes.

Relatively unknown Damon Stone supposedly rose to fame after playing a remixed version of Avana’s hit single “Heartbreaker” at a Las Vegas nightclub. But an anonymous source close to the couple says that they’d known each other long before that moment, and no doubt, things had been hot offstage long before the couple came out as the sizzling new duo.

Trihn stopped reading after that. Her heart rate leveled out, and she very carefully replaced the magazine in the stand.

What rubbish!

These tabloids always made something out of nothing. Whoever this anonymous source close to the couple was clearly didn’t actually know Chloe or Damon.

Trihn had been the one to introduce them in the first place. He’d never come close to meeting Chloe, and in fact, he’d been a
total
unknown, not relatively unknown, before that moment.

The one incriminating picture with his arm around Chloe was probably because she had been freaking the fuck out about the crowds. The press didn’t know about her fear of crowds and the panic attacks she suffered from. But Trihn and Damon both knew that happened, and he had likely just been protecting Chloe and trying to calm her down. All the other photographs looked as if they had been taken on tour or during promotions. It was probably a fact of life that if he was going to be around Chloe, then Damon was going to be photographed.

Trihn reached for her phone and sent a text to Damon.

I love you.

He responded almost instantly.

I love you too.

How is Orlando?

Don’t know. I haven’t seen anything other than the airport, hotel, and arena.

No Disney World then? Harry Potter world? Platform 9 ¾? Butterbeer?

Nope. Chloe said we’d have to get a backstage pass to the park to even go. No standing in lines. No wandering around and taking in the scenery.

That sounds awesome. Well, the lines part.

I’d rather go with you.

Maybe once you’re off the tour we could go.

I’d like that. How’s NYC?

The same.

Have you seen your family?

Lydia picked me up at the airport unannounced.

Sounds like her.

Yeah. She was fine I guess. Didn’t wave her ring in my face or mention the wedding at all actually.

Well, I hope it stays like that. I have to get in for a sound check. I’ll try to call you after the show. I love you.

I love you too.

Trihn pocketed her phone, feeling better about the stupid tabloid that she’d read. She hadn’t doubted Damon. She’d always figured that 99.9% of everything in those things was fake, but it was surreal to see her boyfriend in there and the ridiculous things it’d said about him and Chloe.
What’s next? Chloe was going to be pregnant, but she wouldn’t know who the father was? They’d both end up on cocaine and in rehab and have a secret wedding? Because…everyone had secret weddings.

Trihn felt like she’d made so much progress since she and Damon had started dating. In the grand scheme of things, it hadn’t been that much time, but she’d been feeling stronger and stronger in their relationship. A few months ago, she wouldn’t have been able to take the sight of that tabloid, even knowing it was false. Now, she just shrugged it off, texted her boyfriend, and daydreamed about going to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios with him.

TRIHN STOOD OUTSIDE
of her parents’ townhouse in Brooklyn, contemplating whether or not she wanted to walk inside. She had promised her dad that she would stop by for dinner one night while she was in town. And since she had finally completed everything she needed for the fashion show, as listed on her itinerary, and she would be flying back to Las Vegas tomorrow, she figured tonight was the night.

She was actually excited to see her dad. And while she wanted to see her mom, she wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable wedding conversation.

So far, Trihn had avoided talking about it. She wouldn’t mind avoiding it altogether—or at least waiting to have Damon’s support.

But she pushed her shoulders back and entered the house anyway. “Mom! Dad!” she called, nudging the door closed behind her.

“Trihn!” her mother said. She rushed from the kitchen into the foyer and tightly hugged her daughter. “It’s so good to see you. I have missed you so much.” She held Trihn at arm’s length and examined her. “Did you get taller? Skinnier? Are you eating?”

Trihn laughed. “Yes, Mom, I’m eating. And God forbid, I get any taller.”

“It feels as if I haven’t seen you in ages. I don’t think I could go another six months. You have to come back before Christmas.”

“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll be back when Damon is in town for his show and for the fashion show.”

“Maybe you should just stay here until the fashion show.”

Trihn blanched. “I can’t. I have a lot of work left to do for it.”

“Of course you do.” Her mother, Linh, walked them into the living room. “You’re a Hamilton. We’re all strong and independent. Now, tell me more about everything. Your boyfriend, Damon, is a musician, right? And the fashion show—well, I know all about that since
Glitz
is a sponsor this year. Let me get you a drink.”

Trihn was about to tell her not to worry about it, but it seemed like she was excited to do things for her daughter. Instead, Trihn just took a seat in the living room and drank in the familiarity of it all. She’d missed this, being home. It felt right here, like this.

Linh returned a minute later with a glass of lemonade.

Trihn took it from her hand and sipped it before answering the deluge of questions, “Yes, Damon is a musician. He’s on tour right now with Chloe Avana.”

“Your father mentioned that. It must be hard.”

“It is,” she admitted. “He’s in Orlando right now. He’ll be in Atlanta tomorrow.”

“And will you get to see him anytime while he’s on this tour?”

“Well, when he’s in New York City.”

“Yes, but from the details Gabriel gave me, that’s a month away.”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It all happened so fast.”

“We make time for the ones we love. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Trihn couldn’t decide if that was a backhanded comment about her not coming home enough or not. So, she just chose to ignore it.

“And you won the fashion show at school. You’re up against some stiff competition. Your father showed me the images he had taken of your designs.”

“He did?” Trihn asked, surprised. She hadn’t really discussed this with her mother, but it made sense that she would keep up with her daughter’s life even if she weren’t as involved as she used to be.

“Yes.”

“What did you think?” Suddenly, Trihn felt as if she were holding her breath.

After all, her mother, the fashion magazine senior executive, judged these things for a living. Normally, Trihn wouldn’t have even asked for her opinion. Her mother was a critic. That was her job. But Trihn couldn’t help herself this time.

“They remind me of you, but besides your final piece, they weren’t expressly original,” Linh said.

“Oh.”

“They are excellent for a second-year student though, Trihn. You should be proud of your accomplishments. Just because I don’t think your line is boutique wear doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t sell exceptionally well to the masses. There is a huge difference.” Linh shrugged her dainty shoulders. “You’ll find your place. Now, come on. Dinner is almost ready. We should go into the dining room.”

“The dining room?” Trihn asked.

With only three of them, it always made more sense to eat in the breakfast nook for most of their meals.

“You’re here for one night. I’m doing a bigger meal!”

Then, Linh traipsed into the kitchen, leaving Trihn feeling uneasy.

Trihn followed her mother and stopped dead in her tracks.
Of course.
She shouldn’t have been surprised, yet she was.

Lydia and Preston were standing side by side in front of the stove. Preston had his hip leaned up against the oven, and his eyes were fixed on Lydia as she was stirring something in a large pot. Lydia was wearing a simple sundress that came to her knees and hippie hemp sandals. Her hair, hanging loose to her waist, was a soft blonde color with platinum highlights. Preston looked as if he had just come from work in a blue plaid button-up with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and slim-fit charcoal slacks. He was well-groomed with short hair and just a five o’clock shadow gracing his chiseled jawline.

No matter how many times Trihn saw them together, she always felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. She just remembered the time at the Hamptons when everything had flipped on its head. Preston was Lydia’s. They were engaged.

Trihn felt as if she were intruding on a private moment. But as soon as she started to inch back out of the kitchen, Preston turned his head and looked straight at her, freezing her in place. Bright blue eyes wrapped her in a spell and rooted her to the spot on the floor. A slow smirk stretched across his face. It was painful to witness.

“Hey, Trihn,” he said casually.

When Lydia whipped around, there was no semblance of his dirty smirk.

“Trihn!”

“Uh, hey.”

“So glad that you decided to have dinner with all of us.”

“Yeah…”

“Mom made your favorite.”

“I’m just going to go find Dad.” Trihn slowly eased out of the kitchen, making sure not to look at Preston. She only saw Lydia’s distraught face at her own apparent fear before she hurried from the room.

When she turned back to the living room, she found her dad striding into the room from upstairs.

Trihn walked right up to him with her arms crossed. “Thanks for the heads-up about the ambush.”

Gabriel chuckled and pulled her in for a hug. “I’ve missed you.”

“Yeah, but you said we were just going to have a small family dinner.”

“We are. There are only five of us.”

“I thought you meant just the three of us,” she accused.

“I never specifically said that, and anyway, as soon as I told your mother that you were coming, she invited Lydia. There was no way around it. You should have known that.”

Trihn sighed. “If I slip out the front door, maybe no one will notice.”

Her dad gave her a stern look that told her even he wouldn’t let that slide. He likely didn’t want to hear the complaints from everyone at the table if she disappeared.

“Come on. You can sit by me.” He put his arm around her shoulders, and they walked into the dining room.

Trihn took the seat next to her father while her mother fluttered back and forth between the kitchen and dining room, depositing dishes. With the number of plates out, it was practically Thanksgiving.

Lydia carried in one last dish and placed it at the center of the table. She took an empty seat, and Preston walked in a second later, sitting down directly across from Trihn.

Trihn sighed and looked toward her father. “Any interesting shoots lately?”

“Besides yours?” he asked with a smile.

“Oh!” Lydia said, jumping in, uninvited. “Tell me all about your fashion show. Can I come to the one in New York? I’ll be a free photographer or whatever you need.”

“I don’t know, Ly. Details are kind of up in the air on whether I’m going to have anyone with me, aside from the models. The show is even providing an assistant.”

“That’s great, honey,” her mom said, entering the room and taking a seat. “Though I know Lydia would love to work with you in her spare time while you’re here.”

“I really would.”

Trihn nodded. “Yeah, but like I said, we’ll have to see.”