Camera Shy (Lessons in Love, #1)(33)

“Fine. Abandon me then.”

Lennox takes a tepid sip from her cup. “Why don’t you just tell him to get lost? Cut ties if you don’t want him around, Finn. You’re justified.”

“He’s finally paying Mom her fair share of alimony. He even gifted her flights to Greece for her and her boyfriend. Everything is at peace. I don’t want to kick up the drama again.” I rotate my finger in the air. “Not to mention he cosigned the mortgage for this house. I owe the man my company for one dinner a year, at least.”

“If I were you, I’d kick him in the teeth after the way he—”

“Can we change the subject?” I ask. “This is far more Griffin and family drama than I want to deal with on a late Saturday morning.”

“Fine. What are you doing tonight? There’s a whiskey tasting at Rue 52 that my friend is hosting. It’s far tamer than the foam party. Want to come?”

“Nope, I have plans. Although if you plan on once again popping by uninvited tomorrow, please pick me up the Southwest rolls with the black beans. The eggrolls always taste better the next day for some reason.”

Lennox holds her mug to her lips and blinks at me. Her glib smile grows. “You have plans?”

“Yes.” I think. Maybe. I plan on heading over to Dex’s hot tub at eight. I’m not sure if Avery will be in the tub waiting for me or hiding under the bedroom covers upstairs. I don’t know what the fuck that was last night.

I’ve done the mirror affirmations thing for my clients a hundred times, but never like that. When a boudoir client is really insecure or nervous, I’ll place them in front of a large mirror and get them comfortable with looking at themselves, with smiling naturally. I’ve never undressed any of my clients. I am a consummate professional. Never once has that scenario been sexual…until last night.

Watching Avery cry, or more like twist up her face and try not to cry, broke my heart. I wanted to fix it. Last night, she didn’t need someone to tell her she had a sweet smile and great charisma for the camera. She needed a man she was attracted to, to tell her she was fuckable. More than fuckable. She needed me to see her naked and want her. Approve of her. Praise her. So I did.

But today, I’m wondering if I did more harm than good. No matter what happens, I refuse to be the second man to break this girl’s heart. If I’m not ready for something legitimate and real…if she’s only here for a few months…we should probably just be friends.

“What plans?” Lennox asks.

“I’m hanging out with the girl next door again.” Hopefully.

“Ah, Dex’s fish babysitter?”

“Yup. Her name is Avery. Cool girl. She’s easygoing, funny, and smart. Hey, speaking of which—what do you think about our website?”

“It sucks,” Lennox responds without hesitation.

I roll my eyes. “Excuse me. I built our website.”

“Yeah,” Lennox says, flashing me a snarky smile. “I said what I said.”

“Lennox…if I could fire you…” I take a long, drawn-out sip of my coffee, enjoying the taste of oat milk. It’s probably the only good thing that came out of my relationship with Nora. She turned me on to oat milk. I like it better than regular milk now. “What do you know about search engine optimization and click traffic…all that stuff?”

“I know enough to know we should be doing it,” Lennox says, hunching her shoulders. “I don’t know enough to actually be useful.”

“Yeah, me neither.” I nod. “That’s what Avery does. She’s a brand strategist—whatever that means. I was thinking about asking for her help.”

Lennox drains the rest of her mug. “Do we have ‘help’ money in the business account?”

Not really. I guess I could take Dad up on his offer. “How much could a consultant cost?”

“I don’t know. Let’s find out,” Lennox says, placing her cup in the kitchen sink. She grabs her laptop from her large purse and sets it on the dining table. I pull up a chair right next to her.

“Her name is Avery Scott. Brand strate—”

“Got it,” Lennox says, typing away. “She’s the first result on the search page.”

I blow out a breath. “Yeah, well, that’s kind of what her job is, I guess…”

“Fuckin’ shit, Finn. You can’t afford this.” Lennox clicks and scrolls through Avery’s website. Her firm is called Arrow Brand Consulting. Everything about her site is clean. It’s fresh, interesting, but extremely professional. It looks elite. This is exactly the kind of presence I need for Finn Harvey photography.

“How much is it?”

Lennox angles the laptop screen toward me. She opened up the services page. I read the top line where Arrow Consulting explains that a lot of brand strategists will hide their consultation fees in an attempt to bait new clients. Arrow chooses to be transparent, and while they are willing to create custom packages, their minimum fee for a basic audit and review is…

“Sixteen thousand dollars?” I balk. “For the basic services?”

Lennox meets my wide-eyed stare. “Dude, we are in the wrong business.” She cackles. “And your new girlfriend must be rolling in the dough. Look at her client list. There are Fortune 500 companies on there. I bet they are paying way more than sixteen grand.”