Page 19

And moreover, why did I feel a keen little unwanted thrill at the knowledge?

I realized after a time that he wasn’t going to speak again.

“So all of the rest . . .” I began haltingly. Genuine confusion warred inside me. “The IQ tests. The psych evals. The background checks. The compatibility tests. The medical exams. Your people researched me down to who I sat next to in third grade.”

He shrugged, his eyes raking over me in a cursory manner then darting away. “I didn’t care about any of that. That was my father. The whole thing was my father’s doing. I didn’t want to be married. I still don’t. I was lucky I even had a say in what you looked like. It was nearly a deal breaker.”

That added up, I supposed. That didn’t mean it wasn’t a little jarring to hear it come directly out of his mouth. And with such contempt.

“Back to your question,” I said slowly after it was clear he was done speaking. “I’m eighteen.”

He flinched, looked away, then back. His eyes caught on my drink. He picked it up and set it decisively away from me. “You’re too young for that,” he muttered.

“So about Millie and the over twenty-one club,” I said. “I’ll tell her no.”

He didn’t roll his eyes at me, but I could tell it was close. “If you think you’re going to get carded, you haven’t been paying attention,” he bit out, obviously annoyed. “Let your security handle those kinds of details, and tell Millie yes.”

I almost answered with a sarcastic, Yes, sir, but restrained myself. Barely. “Alright,” I managed to get out instead.

Our main course arrived, and silence reigned again for a time.

I took a few bites of my branzino while he devoured his grass-fed beef.

“You don’t like it?” he asked me when the waiter took our plates away.

“It was great, but I filled up on salad.”

“No, you didn’t,” he contradicted. “You had two bites of that salad then pushed it around your plate for ten minutes.”

“I don’t want to go over my calorie count,” I leveled with him. It was the truth. I had a photo shoot in the morning that involved skin-tight clothing.

He’d been lifting his fifth bourbon to his mouth, but he stopped mid-motion at that, setting his glass back down. “You hardly ate anything.”

I turned my head to meet his eyes and tried to keep my expression perfectly blank. “I’m on a strict diet. For the job.” He may as well get used to my eating habits.

“What you ordered wasn’t enough food to feed a rabbit, and you barely touched it,” he sounded angry, and a little drunk. “Define strict.”

“I’m restricted to eleven hundred calories a day,” I admitted.

“Eleven hundred calories?” he asked incredulously. He didn’t understand what models had to do to stay coat-hanger sized. He knew how to fuck them, but clearly had no clue how to feed them. Eleven hundred actually wasn’t even bad. It was generous. That was the maintenance number. When I was actively trying to lose weight, it could vary from nine to as low as five hundred.

Eventually I nodded, studying his face.

He looked more pissed than usual for some reason. His lip curled up in distaste and he tossed his napkin on the table. “Well, that nonsense is coming to an end. I’ll speak to your chef.”

I stiffened. If you messed with a model’s diet, you messed with her career. If he hated our arrangement enough that it might make him want to sabotage me that would be a good way to do it. I almost stood up to him, but I forced myself to back down. Whatever he tried to do about my diet, it wouldn’t matter. I’d act amenable, pretend to eat whatever was put in front of me, move the food around my plate, etc., but if it went over my calorie count I just wouldn’t consume it. I was used to denying myself. Rigid self-control was an old friend of mine.

He called the waiter over. “My wife,” he stressed the word in a certain way, like he found it so distasteful and oppressive that he wanted even strangers to know it, “would like dessert. A praline mousse roulade, I think. And I’ll have another round. Thank you.”

I waited until the man left before I said quietly, “I can’t eat that.”

He sent me a less than friendly look. “Indulge me. My father forced me to fly all the way here from London just to take you on a romantic date, so I think you can go over your calories for one night.”

Dessert arrived, and with a sigh I did indulge him, all the while calculating how much more time I’d need on the treadmill to compensate for the extra calories.

We didn’t speak for a time, and the quiet between us felt less awkward/hostile and more charged. Charged with something interesting.

Yes, he hated me. But he’d also kind of admitted that he was attracted to me. In spite of myself, I was kind of attracted to him too. It was hard not to be. He was as beautiful as he was mean.