“Aren’t we?”
Shit. Is that really what’s happening here? I brave a glance at Daniel, checking for his reaction. He looks uncomfortable, and God knows he should be. His girlfriend of the past three months is in the process of bartering her body and part of her soul in order to save him.
But it’s not my body that’s up for sale. It’s only a painting of it. As for my soul, I’ll be the one to decide how much of it I surrender to Jared Rush and his ruthless talent. If I am crazy enough to go through with this, I’m not going to give up anything except the hours he demands in front of his canvas.
Daniel takes my hand in his again. “I’m not going to let you do this alone, Mel. I’ll come with you to Jared’s studio—”
“Out of the question.”
We both glance at him, into the flinty hardness of his expression. Rush slowly shakes his head.
“No one is allowed inside my studio while I’m working. Ms. Laurent will come alone, and she will agree to be cooperative and open to my instruction while we’re in the session.”
He’s speaking to Daniel, but looking at me, waiting for my acknowledgment. I want to refuse him, but the words don’t come. “How long will it take? The sessions, I mean. How long will I need to be there?”
“Some days I’ll have what I need in a couple of hours. Other days, we could go longer, possibly into the evening if I feel it’s required.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Daytime only. Preferably mornings, and no more than four or five hours at a time. No Saturdays or Sundays, either.”
I don’t volunteer about my commitments at home or the fact that I’m attending classes part-time between the two alternating temp jobs I juggle during the week. Every Wednesday I do accounting work at a dentist’s office in Brooklyn. On the weekends, I wait tables at a diner near my house in Queens. I’m relieved that Daniel doesn’t volunteer those personal details, either. I intend to keep my real life separated from anything having to do with Jared Rush and his unexpected proposal.
A proposal I am on the verge of accepting, I realize with no small amount of reservation.
“I’m not in the habit of being held to working on the clock,” he says, pinning me with narrowed, studying eyes. “But I’ll make an exception . . . for now. If I feel I need more of your time, we can negotiate those terms as they arise. Either way, I expect I’ll have what I need from you in roughly a couple of weeks’ time. Is that acceptable to you, Ms. Laurent?”
I shrug. “I guess so.”
“Good. Then, we’re settled on the terms?”
I nod. Daniel lets go of a heavy sigh before turning to me and pulling me into a tight embrace. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he murmurs against my ear. “Christ, I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you, Melanie.”
“I wouldn’t make her wonder about that, if I were you.”
I didn’t realize he could hear Daniel. I didn’t realize he’d moved off the sofa, either, but now he’s standing tall on the other side of the cocktail table, watching as I extricate myself from Daniel’s arms.
Rush extends his hand and Daniel wastes no time reaching for it. “Thank you very much for your understanding tonight, Jared. I hope we can put all of this behind us.”
“Ms. Laurent,” Jared Rush says, turning to me without indicating whether he feels tonight’s arrangement has satisfied him where Daniel is concerned. He holds his hand out toward me. “I’ll have my lawyer draw up a contract for our signatures before you leave. Until then, I trust a handshake will suffice.”
I place my fingers in his palm and they are immediately swallowed up in the warmth and strength of his grasp. Electricity travels through each digit and up my arm as I stare into the shrewd, unreadable depths of Jared Rush’s deep brown eyes.
He doesn’t smile, but there’s no mistaking the glimmer of triumph in his gaze.
A shiver of unease chases the current of awareness that’s still vibrating through me as he holds both my hand and my gaze captive.
Whatever Jared Rush set out to accomplish with us tonight, that look tells me he believes he’s already won.
6
MELANIE
Jared Rush’s lawyer slides the contract across the desk for my signature.
His name is Nathan Whitmore, and it turns out he was one of the players at the poker table downstairs. Tall, with espresso-dark hair and piercing gray eyes, I place him somewhere under forty. Definitely not the stodgy counselor I’d pictured when Jared announced his attorney would be drawing up our agreement and joining us in the study.
I glance down at the signature page of the contract we’ve all reviewed and agreed to, and are now signing in triplicate. The only name still missing is mine.
I pick up Whitmore’s glossy black Montblanc pen and hurriedly scribble my name on the line below Daniel’s neatly written signature on all three copies of the agreement.
