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“I…” She didn’t remember. Maybe if her mom were here, she could ask her.
While she was Amber’s biggest supporter for her career, her mom still pushed Amber to relax occasionally, reminding her that life wasn’t all about modeling. But she still couldn’t think of a recent time when it hadn’t been.
She stood there, feeling exposed and vulnerable. There was only one safe place of retreat. Behind the plastic smile.
She flashed it. “My career is all the fun I need, Señor Menendez. Now, if you gentlemen don’t mind, I’d like a chance to get a drink before we resume shooting.”
He reached out and caught her arm before she walked away. “Let me buy you a fruit juice. And my name is Miguel. Use it.”
He dismissed the other two men with a jerk of his head and the ad campaign manager and photographer melted away.
“Is that an order?” she asked, her internal hackles rising as she once again faced him.
While her body might be her tool for her trade, it was not a plaything and if he thought she’d fit the role of a playboy’s plaything in her off-hours, he was very much mistaken.
“Does it need to be?” he countered, ignoring the frost in her voice.
“That depends. Do your other employees call you by your first name?”
“Some do. Some don’t. I prefer that you do. And technically, you are not my employee, but a private contractor hired for a specific purpose. Quite outside my jurisdiction.”
“So outside of your jurisdiction that you called a break in the middle of a successful shoot and have dismissed the two men Ido answer to in order to be alone with me?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t think anything inany of your companies is truly outside your jurisdiction, Miguel…except me.” There was no warmth in the smile that curved her lips then. “I’m a model, not an escort.”
Undaunted, he gave her a genuine grin, his gray eyes filled with amusement and unalloyed approval. “You are a beautiful woman I wish to get to know. What is the harm in that?”
“You tell me.”
“You are very prickly, are you not?”
“I’ve learned to be.”
“Have a glass of fruit juice with me. Decide if you like my company enough to share dinner tonight.”
She opened her mouth to deny him, but he put a finger to her lips.
“A moment of your time only. Please.”
This was not a man who said that particular word very often. She was certain of it.
She shut her mouth.
He left his hand where it was. “Your decision will in no way impact your role as cover model for this campaign.”
She stared at him, trying to read his sincerity. All the articles she’d read about him touted him as an honest man. And fair. She chose to believe.
She couldn’t talk with his finger pressed against her lips, however. Well, she could, but she was finding it difficult enough to deal with the sensations that tiny touch evoked without moving her lips against him. She swallowed and nodded with a short jerk of her head.
He smiled and let his hand drop. “Good.”
The photo shoot was being done on a roped off area of the beach and he led her to a small café less than twenty yards from it. They took a table for two outside and he called the waiter with an arrogant flick of his hand.
The young man came over, his eyes widened as if in recognition. She supposed the billionaire was something of a celebrity in his home country…like Hollywood actors back home. But Miguel Menendez was a lot better looking. Miguel ordered them both a glass of fruit juice before she could think better of it and request water. The extra electrolytes wouldn’t hurt and she could make up for it by eating less at dinner, she thought with a mental shrug, unconsciously counting the calories.
“Have you always wanted to be a model?” he asked after the waiter left.
