Chapter 16

Adira

I paced the hallway on the third floor, my midnight blue dress swishing around my legs. I was waiting for my anxiety medicine to begin working before we headed down. Adrian and the bouncers we hired had been letting people in for the last 10 minutes as the flow of people had not stopped yet. Finally Gio grabbed my hands to stop me and I looked up into his warm brown eyes.

"Breathe Petra," he said softly, purposefully using my modeling name to help center me. "This is about Adira tonight. You'll only be down there an hour or so taking in everything from your perspective. It's a small party, invite only remember? This is easy compared to some of the ones you've done. Then you'll be able to come up and put on something that is more you and get Charlie ok?"

I took a few deep breaths feeling a little more centered. I always did after his pep talks, but he's right. This is about my work and getting to hear honest feed back. And if I could do a charity ball with over 300 pe