CHAPTER ELEVEN

A PHOTOGRAPHER IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

Christina couldn’t get what Dominic said to her at the escort service out of her head. He said, ‘There’s no way you’ll still want him by the end of it. I promise.’ Where did that kind of arrogance come from? But that wasn’t the only problem. It wasn’t just Dominic’s attitude that bothered her. It was the fact she knew what he said was true. She and Mark couldn’t last, so when Dominic said those words it felt like he saw straight through her. Naturally, it was an unpleasant sensation.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in Mark. She was. It was just that she couldn’t shake the idea that he liked her false face better than herself. If he just enjoyed having her around because she could put on a good show, then everything she was afraid of would happen when he got bored of her. She'd be brokenhearted and, on top of any other fallout, she’d feel like a fool for having trusted him.

Without question, Dominic understood her alter ego wasn’t real, and for some weird reason, that made all the difference in the world to her.

It had only been a few hours since she had agreed to date Mark, but already she felt like she had made a mistake.

Not that Dominic was any better. He was clearly the devil, but he made her see that she could get someone who wanted her exactly the way she was. She didn’t have to settle for someone who was impressed with false eyelashes.

It wasn’t until later that afternoon that she got a phone call from Mark. He explained that he wasn’t going to be able to shake off his brother for supper and asked her if he could tag along with them. Christina scratched the back of her neck and said she didn’t mind. She didn’t tell him the remainder of her thoughts, that she thought him inviting his brother was an extension of his bad behavior with Laura the previous evening. Couldn’t he explain to one person he had other plans and they would have to wait?

Needless to say, she didn’t put a whole lot of creativity into her attire that night. She wore a pair of blue jeans, layered a low black V-necked shirt with a white tank top, and put on her black boots. She decided her makeup didn’t matter, so she only wore eyeliner, mascara, and lip gloss.

When the time came, Christina went onto the balcony and watched for Mark’s car. She was half daydreaming when she spotted something interesting. There was a car pulling into her building’s parking lot, but it wasn’t Mark’s Toyota. Instead, it was a champagne-colored Mercedes convertible and Mark was sitting in the passenger’s seat. Christina’s eyebrows went up. The person in the driver’s side was apparently his older brother, but… what was he driving? Then Christina remembered Mark said his condo was actually owned by his older brother and his comments about rich relatives.

Mark got out and started walking toward her building.

But Christina thought it was stupid for him to ring her bell when she could see him, so she leaned over the balcony railing and yelled, “Hey Mark!”

Mark craned his head back and looked at her. “Oh hi,” he called at half the volume with which she had called him.

“I’ll be right down,” she yelled even louder. Then she turned around and ran back into the apartment. She grabbed her keys and wallet and chased out the door. Some kinds of youthful exuberance just couldn’t be hidden.

Outside the building, Mark was leaning casually against the side of the Mercedes with his arms across his chest.

“Hi,” Christina said as she hugged Mark briefly.

“Christina, I’d like you to meet my brother, Trevor,” Mark said, easily slipping his arm around her waist and turning her to face the driver of the car.

Christina smiled politely and said, “Nice to meet you.”

Trevor took off his sunglasses and extended a hand to Christina before he said curtly, “Well, get in, girl, and make sure to sit in the front seat. I’m not escorting the two of you around like I’m your driver.”

Mark opened the door for Christina and saw her seated before he hopped into the backseat. Christina couldn’t help but wonder if Dominic would have gotten into the back for her. She doubted he'd even let another person drive.

As Trevor drove to the restaurant, Christina got a better chance to look at him, but it was hard to examine him properly without feeling like she was checking him out. Why didn’t the man dress properly? He was wearing a white button-up-the-front shirt, which wasn’t skanky on its own unless you happened to forget to do up the top five buttons and Trevor had forgotten. He wore several silver chains around his wrist and dog tags around his neck. Christina thought he was almost as handsome as Mark, except that his hair was cut so badly. Did anyone still wear their hair long in the back anymore?

When Trevor noticed her looking at him, he quickly asked her, “Is the wind bothering you?”

“No,” Christina said, turning away and feeling embarrassed.

“No, I guess it wouldn’t. I have a scarf in the glove compartment for women, who don’t want their hair wrecked, but since you’ve got a haircut like that, then I guess you don’t need it. It’s a relief really. I can’t stand the complaining.”

Christina didn’t even realize an open car would destroy a girl’s hairdo, but once she thought about it, she conceded to herself if she had worn her wig, they would probably have ended up searching for it on the side of the road.

“You’re not a womanizer, are you?” Christina asked him, suddenly flirtatious. Escort habits die hard.

In the back, Mark started laughing.

“Shut up,” Trevor shouted at Mark with a chuckle in his throat. “For Pete’s sake, can’t a guy…”

Mark shoved his head between their seats. “Open the glove compartment, and we’ll see if he’s a womanizer or not.”

“Don’t do that,” Trevor advised, trying feebly to stop Christina from getting it open.

But since he couldn’t do much while he was driving, Christina easily clicked it open. It was crammed full of scarves. She pulled them out to get a better look at them. There were floral designs, stripes, and transparent ones of every color imaginable. She saw one that was such a pretty color of emerald green. She stretched it out to have a better look at it only to realize that it wasn’t a scarf, but an incredibly brief nightgown.

Trevor was watching her out of the corner of his eye, and he started shaking his head ruefully as he saw what she discovered. “I forgot that was in there.”

Christina started cramming the scarves back where they belonged when one of them was torn from her hands and blown out of the top of the car onto the road behind them. “Oops!” she cried.

“No need to worry,” Trevor said unconcernedly. “I think that one was pantyhose.”

“It was NOT!” Christina hollered over the wind and trying desperately to see what had happened to it.

“Look, we’re here,” Trevor said as he turned the car into the parking lot of the restaurant.

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“I don’t think that was very funny,” Christina said getting out of the car. “Whatever happened with that woman, you should at least give her nightgown back.”

Trevor shook his head thoughtfully, “If only I could remember which girl it belonged to.”

“What!” Christina exclaimed.

“Trevor’s not really a womanizer,” Mark interjected as he pushed her seat forward so he could get out of the backseat. “He’s just teasing you. He’s a photographer. It might interest you to know he’s the one who’ll be doing your campaign with Alexander. The nightgown was probably leftover from a shoot and got stuffed there because there was nowhere else to put it.”

Christina stood with her hands on her hips. She wasn’t sure she believed him about the nightgown. If Trevor was such a chaste guy, she bet he’d have a few more buttons on his shirt done up.

“You’re the model who was chosen to pair with Alexander?” Trevor suddenly asked incredulously—like he didn't know.

“Yes,” Christina answered, taking Mark’s offered hand and going into the restaurant. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“No,” Trevor said, before he took charge and arranged for a table for them with the hostess. When they sat down in their booth he finished his thought by saying, “No, there isn’t anything wrong with that. It’s just that I had a conversation with Dominic about the woman he was hoping they’d get before the decision was made.”

“Trevor has a meeting with Collin about the campaign on Monday,” Mark explained as he picked up Christina’s menu and cuddled up to her. “What would you like?” he asked. He was clearly trying to draw the conversation away from the topic at hand.

Christina looked at him with her lips parted. She wanted to press Trevor and find out what Dominic said about her, but Mark wouldn’t like it one bit if she had to know what the devil had to say.

“What are you ordering?” she asked, almost choking on the words as she said them. Then she took the menu very firmly in her hands and investigated it like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

It was lucky for her Trevor wouldn’t let the subject drop. “Wait a second. ‘Tina’ is short for Christina, right?”

Christina nodded and said, “I think I was the only person Dominic recommended.”

“I was expecting someone different,” Trevor admitted.

Mark was annoyed. He clearly didn’t want to talk or think about it and he put his arm on the booth above Christina rather than holding her. “Fine,” he said like he had resigned himself to his fate. “What did Domi say?”

“Nothing much, but his description kind of indicated someone extremely exotic with a personality strong enough to squelch Alexander’s.”

“Is that even possible?” Mark asked.

Trevor shrugged his shoulders.

“Is Alexander really that hard to work with?” Christina asked, remembering what Dominic had told her back at his apartment.

At first, neither of them looked like they wanted to answer her.

“Come on,” she persisted. “It’s not like you’re telling a journalist who’s going to write an article. I’m going to be working with him. It can’t be such a bad thing to give me a heads up.”

“Regardless, I don’t feel comfortable commenting,” Trevor said stiffly. “It wouldn’t be professional, but Mark here can say whatever he wants.”

“Only as her agent,” Mark finished, turning to look at Christina. “Alexander has a history of being difficult. He's spoiled. I've never seen it firsthand, but his fits of ego and drama have made headlines.”

Christina frowned, “Dominic already explained all that to me. I was sort of hoping that you could give me an example of bad behavior.”

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Trevor said. “No doubt it’ll be a surprise, but don’t worry. Mark and I will be there to protect you—Dominic too. I’m sure he doesn’t want a blood bath any more than the rest of us.”

Christina looked at the menu, but she couldn’t focus on it. Dominic thought she would make a good model because she would be able to sense what the photographer wanted and if Trevor was the photographer then she would have to please him. Suddenly, she thought to start asking him questions.

“What sort of concept do you envision for the ad campaign?” she asked, looking across the table at Trevor.

Trevor appeared amused as he answered, “Well, I haven’t got all my thoughts together yet. My meeting with Collin isn’t until Monday and I have to work with what he has in mind.”

Christina nodded thoughtfully and said, “Sorry, you probably don’t want to talk about it on a Friday night when you’re not supposed to be working, but I have never posed as a model before and I’m really worried that I won’t be able to deliver quality shots.”

Trevor smiled and examined his menu, “Yeah, I heard you worked as an escort. That’s a very interesting profession, but if you can convince Dominic you can do it then you probably can. He knows a lot about this business.”

“Do you look down on me, because that’s how I decided to put myself through school?” she asked abruptly because it seemed like he might be laughing at her.

Trevor cleared his throat and answered steadily, “Well, I’ve done a lot of campaigns where it felt like the product being sold was sex. I can’t say I’m comfortable with that kind of business, but at least I know my models are only on paper and no one viewing the advertisement believes for one second they can actually be with one of them. The business of escorting someone seems different. It seems to me that business takes something like the image I create and takes it to a different level; to a real person a customer can see and touch. That’s the part that makes me uncomfortable. Hopefully, no one believes they can be with their escort. It’s a game, but after the experience is over, the customer has a memory of a real woman who held his hand and danced with him. He can remember her fragrance and the feel of her breath on his cheek. It would be hard for a lonely man to put the memory aside and he may never get someone equal to the escort in a real relationship. The damage might be irreparable. To put it bluntly, it seems like a dangerous game to me.”

“How would you know how a lonely man feels? You probably have all sorts of desirable women fighting for your attention daily,” Christina countered.

Trevor inclined his head like he agreed, but then he said, “Yeah, a model can act like she’s made of gold when she’s in front of a camera lens, just like you can act like you enjoy the company of the man you’re escorting, but the truth behind the facade is seldom as pleasant as the act. Needless to say, I don’t care for models. My last two girlfriends were personal assistants without the faintest hope of becoming models themselves. And even though neither of those relationships worked out, at least I never wonder whether they really cared for me. They were honest women without the slightest hint of pretension.”

“Then you do look down on me,” Christina finished, fighting to get control of her emotions. It would be terrible if she cried.

“Not at all,” Trevor said, reaching across the table and grasping Christina’s fingers in a way that suggested he was used to touching women and consoling them. “Mark told me about the trick you pulled over at the apartment when you took off your wig and were determined that he should know you for who you truly are. As long as you can keep sight of that, then you haven’t compromised what’s real for the synthetic." Then he let go of her hand and said smoothly, “I think I’ll have the prime rib. Have you decided what you want, Mark?”

With those words, that particular conversation was over.

***

When Mark dropped Christina off at her apartment he stopped in front of her door and said, “Now you see why I couldn’t leave Trevor at home tonight. He was one hundred percent determined to meet you.”

“Even though you didn't tell him I was the model who got the job? He wanted to see what kind of girl I was because I'm your new girlfriend?” Christina questioned, positive Trevor’s speech had only been to ensure Mark wasn’t going to get jerked around by a bratty girl. It made her less angry at him and more sensible to his good points, even if she found his immodesty embarrassing.

“Something like that,” Mark said, scratching the bridge of his nose. “Sometimes he’s not a very reasonable guy. I wanted to be alone with you tonight. I’m sorry that our date was messed up by bringing him. I wish there was something I could do to make it up to you.”

“It’s okay. We see each other all the time. I’m your assistant, remember? As long as Lewis boys have a thing for personal assistants—I’m in. Right?”

“But I feel like everyone is conspiring to keep us apart.”

At that exact moment, Trevor honked his car horn to hurry Mark.

“See what I mean?” Mark complained. His eyes looked tired. “Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked, taking hold of her hands.

Christina didn’t want to appear like she was thinking about it, but she was. She was exhausted from the weekend’s activities. Finally, she answered, “As long as you don’t have anything grandiose planned. I’m really tired and I need to mellow or I’m not going to be any good to you at work on Monday.”

Mark smiled and said gently, “How about a date in a hammock with a cold drink and a book.”

“Are you going to supply all that?” Christina asked.

He put his arms around her, “Just so long as you realize you won’t be in that hammock alone. You can even nap if you want to. I’ll let you use my arm as a pillow,” he offered tantalizingly.

Christina felt the blood rushing to her cheeks. He was trying so hard to be nice to her. It was irresistible. “If that’s what you have in mind, then you can pick me up whenever you want.”

“Good,” he said, as he bent down to kiss her.