Chapter Twelve

Ornette got out of the pool and had a shower. The facilities at the pool were magnificent and she had a private shower stall with a pebble floor. By the time she’d dried off and styled her hair, one of Joel’s assistants was knocking on her door and passing her a dress.

It was in a big flat box and Ornette placed her bet as to what kind of a dress it would be based on what kind of a man Joel was.

“I think,” she said out loud. “That this is a red dress. It has spaghetti straps. It’s backless and has a million crisscrossing straps in the back. It’s ankle-length, but it has a slit that goes up to mid-thigh.”

Ornette was wrong.

It was a black dress with a built-in sports bra with racerback straps and his company logo in white over the right breast. However, she was right about the length and the slit. She pulled it over her head and was immediately in love. It was a really nice dress. Cozy and supportive.

He didn’t send shoes, so she put on her black ankle socks and put the athletic shoes they’d given her back on.

Looking in the mirror, she looked perfect. She didn’t need high heels to go with the dress. As a matter of fact, high heels would have looked stupid.

She did her makeup and took care to apply the makeup on her hand correctly.

When she was ready, she shook her hair out and went out to meet Joel.

“I get you until midnight,” he informed her pleasantly as he took her up the elevator to the helocarrier pad.

As they went up in the elevator, Ornette was a little too excited. Even though she was a Sleeping Beauty Inc. model, she was rarely wined and dined. She wasn’t sure that the dining experience would be what you would expect from going on a date with a super-rich man. The dress hadn’t been what she expected.

She turned to Joel and gushed, “Thank you so much. I love this dress.”

“You do?” he asked, a playful smile on his face. “What do you love about it?”

“Where to begin?” she beamed. “The bra inside is a miracle. Do you know what’s difficult about wearing racerback straps? The bra under it. To look super classy, the bra and the dress have to work together in perfect harmony. The bra straps cannot be seen, but the bra needs to give adequate support. This dress cuts out the need for the bra entirely. I’ve only got panties under it. And the style? I can wear these comfortable sports shoes instead of some ridiculously high heels that don’t distribute my weight properly. By the end of the night, I’d be rubbing my feet and crying, but in this outfit? No such thing. I love it. It’s magical.”

Joel moved to kiss her and stopped himself at the last second.

Of course, Ornette did nothing to stop him from kissing her. If he wanted to, he could as far as she was concerned, but he stopped himself. As a model and a slave, it was out of the question for her to kiss him first.

“Sorry,” he said, catching his wits about him. “I… uh…” He had placed a hand on his mouth and he took a step away from her in the elevator.

Ornette was not embarrassed just because he was. “Don’t give it a second thought,” she said, still beaming. “I got carried away, but I really want to ask you something. When this is all over, do I get to keep the dress? The shoes? Any of it?”

“I have to provide the show with an outfit you wore during your time with us for them to auction off, along with a swag bag, but I can let you choose which thing you want to auction off. You can keep the rest with my compliments,” he said, waving away her request. To him, a week’s worth of fitness wear was at the very bottom of his list of concerns.

“Thank you. That’s very exciting.” She smiled, warmth on her cheeks.

When the elevator finished, Joel led her onto the helocarrier pad. There was no pilot and no crew. The bright sunlight on Venus made everything golden in the late afternoon, making the whole world black and gold.

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Ornette put out a hand and caught Joel by the elbow. “Are you going to fly us?”

He nodded.

Ornette was very impressed as he got her seated and took the pilot controls. She wasn't sure if he was the kind of rich who did things themselves or paid someone else to do them for him. Within a few minutes, he had them up in the air and across to the other side of their bubble to the restaurant he’d chosen for the evening.

They had a rooftop view.

He poured her a bubbling drink and admired the way the sunlight touched her bare shoulders. “Would you have minded if I did kiss you?” he asked.

She scrunched her nose. “I worry I would have disappointed you if you had kissed me.”

“Why?”

“I’m a Sleeping Beauty Inc. model. I’ve been kissed a lot,” she put her gaze in the corner over his head. “And every kiss is beautiful and different from the last, but you deserve better.”

“The women I date are greedy, but in a different way from you,” he said, taking a sip of his drink. “They’re not greedy for a couple hundred dollars worth of sportswear. They want to use me to take everything I have. It’s not good to be left penniless on Venus.”

Ornette nodded, understanding completely. “No. It isn’t.”

People who didn’t have money to pay the taxes to keep the city floating were deported… Immediately. If you missed one payment, you were captured and shipped to Cerise to work mining asteroids. If you thought for one minute that you couldn’t make your payment, you had to get yourself off-world later that day. That way you could go somewhere else: to Earth, to the Moon, the moons of Jupiter, and even Mars might be easier to work with than Cerise. A lot of people never earned enough money to get off Cerise.

“Do men like you lose all their money in divorce settlements?” she asked conversationally.

“The marriage laws are harsh. One supposed violation and a man’s wife could take half his company, half his property, and more. What’s worse is that the women insist on prenuptial agreements that go beyond the law. They want to take everything if one thing goes wrong. The greed is overwhelming. I’ve often wondered if it might be better to simply buy a companion than bother with marriage.”

Ornette looked at him across the table. He suddenly became a different man to her. She thought he was one thing, but he was actually the same as all the other men who had hired her. In a way, it comforted her. In another way, it discouraged her. Had she been hoping to marry her owner someday? Not Joel, but one of them?

The half of her brain that usually remained silent exploded, screaming, ‘Stupid! Stupid! Stupid. They never marry the women they hire. Everyone just thinks that it’s a possibility because Harrison Fox married Paige Waters. That was a once-in-a-lifetime happenstance! It will never happen again! And It will never happen to you!’

Ornette smiled and said, “Well, if you want to ask me any questions about Sleeping Beauty Inc. or the way the agreements go, I’d be happy to give you all the information you desire.”

“I was thinking that I’d like to buy you when your current contract expires. That is... if I lose the auction for you.” He smirked the last part of his sentence. He clearly did not think he would lose the auction.

“You can certainly put in a bid,” she said with a smile, tipping her glass at him. As far as she knew, she had never had a bidding war over her. She had merely had men who bought her from the showroom or worse… online.

Ornette spent the rest of the dinner telling Joel everything wonderful she could think of to say about her experience working out at his gym for the week. She showed him the barely bulging muscles in her arms and told him that it was all thanks to him.

When he dropped her back at the dorms attached to the studio, she was quite done with Joel, but since she couldn’t communicate that to him, he just kept getting warmer and warmer, enjoying her more and more.

He kissed her in front of the glass doors of the dorms and Ornette had to offer him her compliments. He was a good kisser, even if she found the romantic philosophies that came out of his mouth a little gross.

When she came tripping through the glittering studio doors, she saw Desmond standing by the front desk. He was wearing a three-piece suit like he had just come from an important dinner himself. His eyes were on her. He had clearly seen the kiss and clearly had a collection of thoughts on the subject that were merely an extension of what he had told her when he confronted her about making out with Fen.

“Nice date?” he asked sourly.

She had already put Joel out of her mind, so she was free to give all her attention to Desmond, who looked very nice in his vest with the coat of his suit all the way open. He had a way of leaning against the high front desk that made his hips look very, very nice.

“There’s no need to be jealous. I’m all yours if you want me,” she said saucily, but maybe she had accidentally sipped too much champagne when she meant to spit it out.

The Coordinator stepped forward and put himself in between Desmond and Ornette. “You’re back right on time,” he praised as he checked Ornette in at the front desk and then escorted her to her room.

As they left the lobby, Ornette glanced over her shoulder and she saw a particularly dangerous look on Desmond’s features.

Maybe it had to do with her. Maybe it didn’t.

All the same, a corner of Ornette’s mouth went up. He was adorable when he didn’t get what he wanted.