Christina stepped onto the pavement outside Mark’s apartment complex and looked around for Dominic’s Jaguar. It wasn’t hard to find because his car was the only one on the street with its headlights on. Christina went up to it and peered through the windshield at the driver. Yeah, with those shades, it couldn’t be anyone else besides Dominic.
She reached for the car handle, but the door was locked. He had to be that kind of jerkwad, didn’t he? She tapped on the window with her knuckles and Dominic unlocked the door. With that, she dropped her bag onto the backseat before getting into the passenger side herself.
“You really are the devil,” Christina said nonchalantly as she hooked up her seatbelt.
Dominic took off his sunglasses and turned his body a whole ninety degrees to get a better look at Christina. “Tina, is that you?”
“Of course, it’s me,” she answered, flicking him an annoyed expression before turning her head resolutely toward the window. “Would any other woman get into your car and call you the devil without knowing you?”
“Hey, look at me,” Dominic ordered.
Christina turned her head deliberately and looked him in the eye.
At first, she wasn’t sure what his reaction to her regular appearance was. It was his first time seeing her as herself. There was no glimmer in his eyes or twist of his lips to indicate if he was pleased or repulsed. Mark said he didn’t think Dominic would be put off by her real appearance, but Christina didn’t know what Mark was basing that opinion on. It might be nothing. Was that why his car door had been locked? Because he didn’t recognize her?
Finally, Dominic put his glasses back on and put his hands on the steering wheel. “You need a tattoo on your ankle,” he finally said and Christina concluded he must think she wasn’t ‘all that’ after all.
“Is that all you have to say? I was expecting you to be more critical,” she sparked.
“About what?” he asked, turning the car onto the street.
Christina took a long-suffering breath before she answered, “About the real me.
Shouldn’t you be making some comment about how I’m not fit to be seen with you in public without my wig or something? If you hired an escort and you got me the way I look right now, you’d surely be disappointed. So, why not just say it?”
“You’re right. If I called and asked for an escort to be my personal eye-candy and you showed up looking like that, I’d be disappointed, but not for the reason you think.”
“Oh?”
“I’d be disappointed you didn’t take your job more seriously. A certain amount of polish is necessary, don’t you think? Right now, it sounds like you think I don’t find you attractive because you’re not covered in glamor. But, the thing is, you’re making a mistake.”
“I am?” Christina asked, astonished.
“Actually, I’m impressed you’re so pretty without it. Not a lot of women are, you know, and I know a lot of female models who look like nothing at all without their mascara. I wasn’t expecting you to be half as beautiful as you are now. I’m very impressed.”
Christina was speechless.
“Besides, it was never your looks that interested me. I told you before, I have never met a woman who was so good at reading my moods and giving me what I want. That’s why I thought you were interesting and why I thought you might make a good model.”
“Do you really want to become my agent?” Christina asked abruptly. It was the one question she wanted the answer to. Everything else he said was probably fluff.
“Not really,” Dominic said, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t want to have that much responsibility regarding what you do. I’m merely offering this as an opportunity. If you want to make a big deal out of this campaign with Alexander, you might end up as a model instead of an office gopher, but that’s up to you.”
“So, why even suggest the 'opportunity?'” she asked, using his word. “Only because you thought I’d be good at it? That seems unlike you.”
“It is. See what I mean about you reading me? You have a special talent. Are you sure you don't already know the real reason behind my actions?” he asked dangerously, turning a corner at high speeds.
“I don't know. Why don't you just tell me? We're alone.”
Dominic abruptly maneuvered into a parking lot and stopped the car. Then he turned toward Christina and began hovering over her like a storm cloud. She felt like he was invading her space. “I can't believe how alike we are,” he said darkly. His brown eyes shone over the rims of his red shades as he continued. “I'd like to tell you what I've got in mind, but... uh… I’m a little concerned you have your own motives through all this. If you do—I doubt they're the same as mine. Maybe we could both get what we want if we work together.”
“I scratch your back, you scratch mine?” Christina asked smoothly, refusing to lose her composure or to be bullied by Dominic.
“Exactly,” he answered calmly. “Hmm. I don’t want to take you home. How about my place?”
“So we can talk about this in a more ‘comfortable’ setting?” Christina asked dryly. Dominic touched his nose and put the car in reverse.
***
Christina wasn’t sure if it was safe to go with Dominic to his place without a guardian or something. She didn’t think he was the type to attack her, but he had acted so unpredictably in the past, she wasn’t sure if she would put anything past him. In the end, she decided to go, because she wanted to hear what he had to say. She also had a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that said she still hadn’t made it completely clear to Dominic that he didn’t have a chance with her—either as a business partner or as a lover. She had to make him understand that before the end of the night and if he simply dropped her off at her apartment then it wouldn’t get done.
Even after being in the luxury of Mark’s apartment, Dominic’s flat was more like a museum than a living space. There were thick woven rugs on the floor and actual statues placed on pedestals at regular intervals in the living room. Dominic lit the fireplace as soon as they entered, even though the weather outside was warm. Then he sat her down on a chair that was covered in animal skin. The walls were dark red and the paintings were clearly from the Renaissance. Christina felt like she had stumbled into the devil’s private office.
“You haven’t eaten yet, have you?” Dominic questioned warmly. “Would you like me to fix something for you?”
“You cook?” Christina asked incredulously.
“If cutting is considered a form of cooking,” Dominic said with a soft laugh. Christina felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle at the way he said 'cutting.' “Whatever is easy,” Christina said stiffly. She had wanted to turn him down, but she found herself unable to. She was starving. It had been hours since her last meal.
Dominic asked Christina to wait in the ‘den’ as he called it, while he went to procure food. She offered to help him, but he said he wanted her to relax and absorb her surroundings, so she should stay put.
Christina did look around. There was an antelope head mounted on his wall. Even though she was from the country, she was still disgusted. She didn’t think putting dead animals on the wall was tasteful even though she knew many men who hunted. She didn’t think Dominic had killed the animal himself, but what if he had? Christina shuddered. Maybe it was better if she didn’t know.
So Christina waited. The fire cracked and sparked and she thought about the room and what it said about the person who lived there. Christina didn’t think Dominic was shallow. He appreciated wealth, but the culture of his apartment was simply beyond her experience. She didn't think Dominic intended to make her feel naive, but having her sit in his weird sitting room reminded her how inexperienced she was. She had probably bitten off more than she could chew following the devil home.
Dominic came back into the room in the middle of Christina's conversation with herself. He carried a tray, which he sat down on a coffee table. Christina thought about Mark’s stir-fry and examined what Dominic had created. There was a glass dish with shrimp and cocktail sauce, three different kinds of cheeses on a plate, and a myriad of sliced fruit organized on a different plate. Yeah, he definitely knew how to cut.
“I’ve missed the last thing,” he said blithely as he quickly returned to the kitchen. He came back with a bottle of tonic water and two Champagne flutes. “Did I get your tastes right?” he asked as he unscrewed the top of the tonic water.
Christina smiled and searched the tray for crackers. Noticing there weren’t any and she found the nerve to complain. “Don’t rich people eat crackers?” she asked, picking up a piece of cheese and putting it in her mouth.
“Of course,” Dominic laughed. “How thoughtless of me. I’ll be right back.”
Apparently, he thought her demanding a cracker was adorable, and Christina wondered if she could do anything that would turn Dominic off. Well, once both of them spilled their guts, he would see how poorly the two of them matched up. Christina would have bet her falsies on it.
When he came back, they began eating together. Dominic sat on the floor with his back to an armchair. That way, the light from the fireplace illuminated one half of his face and the other half was left in shadow. Maybe it was intentional. He also undid the top two buttons on his shirt. Maybe his collar was choking him... maybe.
“I said I wanted to tell you my motivation behind making you a model. You must be able to guess one of the reasons,” he said simply.
Christina couldn’t forget he had interrupted her date with Mark no less than an hour ago so that Laura could spend some quality time with her object of desire. “Naturally, you haven’t squared things off with Laura, so you’re still doing her bidding.”
“Yes.”
“Care to explain why you owe her?”
“She wouldn’t like that,” he said before biting into a shrimp and ripping off the tail.
“Besides, that has nothing to do with our current situation.”
“Fine,” Christina agreed, sounding like cool-headed ‘Tina,' even though she was dressed like ‘Christina.' “She likes Mark and for some reason she will be content with no other man. You are willing to help her because she’s blackmailing you and so you casually offer me five hundred dollars to leave his apartment—which you still haven’t paid me,” she reminded him casually.
“I’ll pay you when I drop you off,” Dominic said. He even looked impressed that she hadn’t forgotten about the money. “Yes, Laura is quite crazy about Mark. I can’t see the reason myself, but—”
“She isn’t going to get him,” Christina interrupted.
“You’re going to get in the way?” Dominic asked, looking intrigued.
“No,” Christina said shortly. “She’s still assuming I’m the barrier stopping her. In reality, it has nothing to do with me. He may have used me as a scapegoat to explain his waning interest, but it’s nothing but a pretense. It won’t matter how many of his girlfriends you dispose of. He’s not interested in her.”
“Well,” Dominic said, raising his eyebrows. “What can we do to make him interested in her?”
“What? You can’t seriously be asking me how to get him to fall for her.”
“Why not? I think you have the skills to teach her how to to turn his head.”
“Even if I do, it's not like she would take advice from me!” Christina rolled her eyes.
“I wasn’t thinking you’d give her hints directly. You’d give them to me and I’d relay them to her—”
“Without telling her where they came from,” she finished for him.
“Basically.”
A brief silence passed before Christina said, “Look, it’s too late. He already has established ideas about Laura and her personality. Meaning, he knows her. More than a surface ‘I met her at a party’. He knows her. He knows how her brain works, her habits, and he knows that her lack of charm is part of her character. There’s no chance for a first impression or the thrill of meeting someone new. If she started using feminine wiles on him at this point, it would look gruesomely obvious. He would know something was up. He’s just not interested. I think your time would be better spent trying to get her to land someone new.”
Dominic cleared his throat and said stiffly, “You think I haven’t tried that? It’s Mark or it’s no one.”
“Well, what have you tried, besides repeatedly buying me? To be honest, I think you’re backing into this from the wrong angle—probably because it’s more fun for you.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, just think. Has Laura ever been romanced? Has a man ever treated her the way I treated you on Valentine’s Day? Has anyone ever gone out of their way to make her feel special and sexy?”
“I don’t know,” he answered slowly.
“If I were you, I’d hire a male escort for her, tell her it’s a blind date, and give the escort specific instructions on how to treat her.”
“That’s no good. What if she falls in love with the escort?”
Christina sighed. “That’s not the issue. The escort would merely be a transition man to get her heart off Mark. If she notices how the escort treats her compared to Mark (who doesn’t do her any favors), then maybe she’ll break out of her shell and start to think about other men. Ever think about that? And on the plus side, if charming Mark happens to see her with another man and experiences a twinge of jealousy then maybe your job will be over and she’ll get him in the end anyway." Christina couldn’t read the expression on Dominic’s face, but the more she thought about it the more she thought it was a good idea. “I think it would work even better if you hired more than one escort for more than one date. Give her a whole string of men and instruct each of them to act slightly differently toward her. After a few dates, she'll believe there's a whole world of men out there she's never known about. With a bit of luck, she'll get a little daring and find herself a new man without wanting any more help from you.”
“That’s an interesting idea,” Dominic said as he flicked his hair away from his eyes.
“Except I don’t really have the time to set all that up. Do you think you could help me?”
“Now I’m your personal assistant instead of Mark’s? No thanks. I already have three jobs and apparently, I work weekends,” Christina said, indicating she was working at that moment.
“Do you know?” he drawled. “I love every word that comes out of your mouth. That is a perfect solution to all this. If you became my personal assistant, I feel positive we could accomplish great things together.”
“Please don’t get excited,” Christina murmured, putting her hand to her forehead.
“I’m not going to stop working for Mark.”
“Why not? I’ll pay you—”
“I don’t care about that,” she interrupted. “I’m afraid that once I started working for you, you’d see how inexperienced I truly am. I might have come up with a few ideas you liked just now, but I’m not qualified to serve your every need. It might surprise you, but I don’t know a lot about my profession yet. I’m an entry-level assistant. I only graduated from college in April. And,” Christina said, grasping for ideas that would convince him of how unfit she was. “I don’t even know what kind of cheese this is,” she said, picking up a chunk. “So just forget about it.”
“Hmm,” he hummed. “Well, I see what you’re saying, but I still think you would make me an incredible assistant.”
“So, do you want to tell me the real reason why you set me up with this modeling job?” Christina asked, basically ignoring what he said. She had things she wanted to learn from him during their interview as well.
Dominic sighed. It was the most human gesture Christina had ever seen him perform. “Well, there were a couple of reasons. But I’m not confident I can explain them without hearing one thing from you.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you have a sincere interest in Mark? If he gave you the opportunity, would you go for him?” Dominic asked looking at her face carefully.
Christina's mouth hung open for an instant. She wasn't sure how to answer him, but having listened to Mark talk his way out far harder situations had paid off and a plausible answer came to her mind. "So far, he hasn't treated me very well. He should have sent Laura away when she showed up on his doorstep. The fact that he didn't when he was entertaining me was seriously offensive. I don't know if I want a guy who lets a girl he's not interested in walk all over him."
"Don't like playing second fiddle?" "No."
"Neither do I," he said quietly. "I ask because it feels like you favor him over me, even though the two of us have this... unique connection."
Christina was touched by his voice and found a lump growing in her throat, but she still had to say what she felt. It was her way of spilling her guts. "You must know I can generate that connection with anyone. It's part of my job when I work as an escort. You have to be intelligent enough to know the name of that game."
"I know," he said, nodding his head. "I know, but somehow, the fact that it's fake makes it even better."
How could she answer that? A moment of silence followed before Christina cleared her throat and asked seriously, "Are you going to explain your other reasons for trying to make me a model?"
Dominic took a slow drink from his goblet before he answered steadily, "Certainly. You see, my dear brother Alexander is a very talented model, but representing him lately has been a rather unpleasant job. He's not an easy man to work with. You saw how cross he became back at Collin's office today. He's temperamental. In the past, his work has been so flawless that the hassle of having him pose has been worth it, but... his work hasn't been so perfect in the last year as to make him irreplaceable. Since his last photos came out, some of his clients are seriously looking at getting someone new. For me, it's okay if Alexander retires if he's tired of the business or even if he's got something else he wants to do. It's not okay for his popularity to dwindle and his work requests to disappear. I was thinking that if I got you to model with him for this campaign then maybe I could raise his stock and improve his reputation. You could tell a few reporters how much fun he was to work with, and I would be spared hours on the phone explaining to photographers that he's become more flexible. Right now, some of them refuse to work with him."
"What about Collin? Doesn't he mind?" Christina asked.
"Collin isn't afraid of Alexander's tantrums and he enjoys making him uncomfortable."
"This should be interesting," Christina groaned, thinking of how much fun it wasn't going to be to model with Alexander.
"Look, I wouldn't have recommended you for this if I didn't think you could do it. It might surprise you, but I am a hell of a lot scarier than Alexander. I wouldn't have been able to push Alexander up as far as I have if I wasn't able to bully him. Trust me, if you can handle me, you can handle him."
"Okay," Christina said, expelling a heavy breath. "Is there anything else I should know?"
"I think I'm in love with you.”