He sat opposite me, flipped open a folder on the coffee table between us, then leaned back and propped one foot on the opposite knee as he eyed me speculatively.
Prada. My gaze zoomed in on his shiny leather shoes. Those shoes he wore so casually probably cost more than my pathetic car.
“So, Ms. James,” he said in that thick Italian accent that did weird things to my blood. “An internship for a fashion magazine seems pretty far beneath your potential. I looked at your résumé. You recently graduated with a bachelor of business administration in entrepreneurship management, and you’ve been managing a store since. Why the sudden interest in New York fashion? And why should I waste my time on someone who’s overqualified, in all the wrong ways, for this position?”
I swallowed the water in my mouth. Friendly. Mild. Pliable. Be someone he wants to hire, not someone who wants to infiltrate his company to find a killer.
“Well.” Lowering the glass to my lap, I said, “I’ve always been interested in fashion. As a kid, I used to devour magazines like Vogue and Elle and Glamour. But, as you can see”—I glanced down at the black pencil skirt and fitted jacket I wore—“it was pretty obvious at an early age that genetics was not on my side and that I wasn’t cut out to be a model.”
His gaze slid over my body, from the top of my curly hair pinned up so a few soft tendrils framed my face, across the jacket pulled tight at my chest, then down my slim skirt and finally to the length of my legs and the sensible two-inch heels I’d splurged on for this interview. But it wasn’t a fleeting look. It lingered. Lingered so long, warmth gathered in my belly and inched its way up my skin until my neck tingled and my face grew hot.
He was checking me out. This daunting man who was surrounded by drop dead gorgeous models every single day was checking me out.
“I’m someone completely different with him…”
Laney’s email popped into my head once more, snapping me back to the reason I was here. The heat faded. My skin cooled. I set my glass on the coffee table and straightened my spine. If this was the man Elena had written about, I wasn’t about to fall for his games. I was smarter than that. I wasn’t here to be played. I was here for answers.
“As you can see from my résumé, my minor was in design studies. During my senior year, I was the cochair for the Design Gala, which celebrates outstanding achievements in design of all types, including fashion. And for the last two years, yes, I have been managing a store. An upscale boutique in downtown Boise, which has received several awards from the city council and which provides the women of Boise with cutting edge fashion choices. I’m interested in this internship for two reasons, Mr. Salvatici. To expand my knowledge of the fashion industry, and to prove what I can do. My background in business is only an asset to anyone I work with.”
He glanced at the folder between us. “Yes. I do see all that. Forgive me for asking, but have you ever been to New York City before, Ms. James?”
That wasn’t a question I’d anticipated. “No, but—”
“I thought not.” He reached for the file. “I see you grew up in a small town in Montana and that after high school you moved to Boise. I realize Boise, Idaho might be a big city to you, but it isn’t exactly the fashion capital of the world, cutting edge or not. In fact, judging from what I’ve seen today”—his gaze lifted from my résumé and skipped back over my black suit—“your little boutique probably wouldn’t stand a chance if it were located here in New York City.”
My mouth dropped open in shock, but I closed it quickly. He’d just dissed not only the town I called home but my style as well. In a flash, I realized that wasn’t interest I’d seen in his eyes moments before, it was disdain. For someone he viewed as beneath him.
Waaay beneath him.
My vision turned red all over again, but I held my temper because lashing out at this pompous asshole wouldn’t get me any closer to my goal. And I needed to keep that goal in sight if I had any hope of figuring out what had happened to Laney.
“Look, Ms. James.” He leaned forward to rest his forearms against the thighs of his designer slacks and tossed the folder on the coffee table between us. “I’ll be honest with you. You’re not what Covet looks for in an intern.”
“And what does Covet look for?” I snapped before I could stop myself. “Dumb blondes?”
His brow lifted, and I caught the flash of amusement in his odd gray eyes before the shutters came down. “Worldliness. Most of the models we use come from small town America, like you. Our goal is to expose them to new people and new experiences because a job as a Covet model will take them all over the world. As impressive as your résumé may be, to our models, you would forever be a reminder of what they’ve left behind. And for that reason, you are not the type of intern we are looking for.”
His logic made absolutely no sense. “And because you think I’m not worldly enough, you’re not even going to interview me?”
“I have interviewed you. In the process, I learned everything I need to know.”
Which meant he’d taken one look at me and decided I wasn’t hot enough to work for Covet. “You didn’t even give me five full minutes.”
He shrugged in an I-couldn’t-care-less move.
His arrogant attitude was all I could take, but I wasn’t about to admit defeat. “Mr. Salvatici, perhaps instead of looking for ‘worldly’ employees, you should be searching for ones who are highly trainable. An employee who can think on her feet is way more valuable than one who comes from a big city. I can assure you, I would not remind any of your mod—”
“And that’s you?” he interrupted with another lingering glance that traveled the length of my body before finally making its way back up to my eyes. “‘Trainable?’”
Something about the way he said that word—trainable—hit me as off. There was heat in his voice, yes, and in the way he looked at me, but I didn’t see any kind of interest in his eyes as they held mine. If anything, I saw disgust.
“Yes.” I managed, trying not to be shaken by him. Reminding myself I didn’t care if he was disgusted by my appearance or not. “I’ve learned a lot of things in my life. Quickly and well. As my résumé proves, I—”
“We’ve already covered your résumé, Ms. James. And you’re not what Covet is looking for.”
I stared at him in utter disbelief. It couldn’t be over so soon. I had to find a way to convince him.
Be agreeable.
“Perhaps I’m simply not hot enough,” I suggested coldly.
I cringed as the words echoed back to me and bit down hard on my tongue. Dammit. That wasn’t what I’d meant to say.
He flipped the folder closed. “This interview is over, Ms. James.”
Angry with myself for the way I’d screwed this up, at the way he’d labeled me before he’d even asked me one damn question, I snatched my purse from the floor and pushed to my feet. “Just tell me one thing. Why the heck did you even bother to schedule this meeting if you knew you weren’t going to hire me?”
“I didn’t,” he said casually, easing back against the couch to look up at me with narrowed, stormy eyes. “Ms. Clayborne did. But if I had to guess, I’d say it was scheduled as a courtesy. Seeing as you were a friend of Elena McCabe.”
My fingers grew cold against the strap of my bag, and the air caught in my throat.
Shit. He’d done his research.
“We were all very sorry to hear of her passing,” he went on, his voice cool and composed, not empathetic in any way. “She was a sweet girl. One we will all miss.”
A sweet girl…
In a rush, I realized that he’d known her. Personally. I could hear it in his taunting words. And that meant he could very well be the man who’d murdered my friend.
I tensed and eased back a half step as he slowly pushed to his feet, his eyes locked on mine as if I were a bug he wanted to squash beneath his fancy shoe. His broad shoulders and formidable size loomed like a menacing shadow above me when he reached his full height.
But instead of grabbing me as I half expected him to do, he moved past me toward the door.
“Thank you for coming by.” He tugged the door open and pinned me with a hard, contemptuous look. “Good luck in Boise, Ms. James.”
The air whooshed out of my lungs—air I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. He wasn’t going to hurt me. But he was dismissing me.
My mind spun. He didn’t know I was on to him. I briefly, wildly considered barring the door and forcing him to hear me out, but since he outweighed me by a hundred pounds, I knew that wasn’t going to work. And the pointed way he glanced at his watch told me loud and clear my ten minutes were long gone and that if I didn’t get the hell out on my own, security would soon be here to throw me out.
Stunned, I moved toward the door as if on autopilot. As I stepped into the outer office, I heard him speak to his secretary, but I didn’t catch their hushed words. All I could focus on was the fact I’d failed before I’d even had a chance to try.
Somehow, I made it down the elevator and out the main doors of the building. People rushed by on the street, and the oppressive late-June heat pushed against my skin from every side, but I barely noticed. In a daze, I wandered across Fifth Avenue until I found a bench in Central Park.
What was I going to do now? I knew that man upstairs was somehow linked to what had happened to my friend, and I’d just blown my one chance to get close to him.
A click sounded somewhere close, followed by the words, “Bellissima.”
Blinking several times, I glanced over my shoulder to find a man with thick dark hair down to his shoulders holding a camera in front of his face as he snapped a photo of me. I quickly held up a hand to block his lens. “What are you doing? Don’t take my picture.”
“Ah, bella,” he said in a thick accent. “But you are too sad and beautiful to ignore.”
Italian. He was Italian. What was it with me and Italian guys today? “I really don’t think so.”
He lowered his camera and sat next to me on the bench, flipping his long hair out of his eyes in a move that was so perfect, I knew he had to practice it in the mirror. I tried to scoot away, but his heat surrounded me, and when I glanced his direction to tell him to get lost, I caught a quick look at his face.
He didn’t need to flip his hair to draw attention. He was insanely attractive already—long, thick lashes, striking, pale blue eyes, and a day’s worth of stubble on his square, formidable jaw.
“We have a saying in Italy.” His hypnotic accent was eerily similar to the accent of the asshole upstairs who’d kicked me out of his office only a few moments before. Irritation trickled down my spine. “Dolor comunicato è subito scemato.” He grinned, showing off perfectly white teeth. “A problem shared is a problem halved.”
My eyes narrowed. “With a camera?”
“The camera sees all, bella. It senses something troubles you.”
His camera didn’t know the half of it. Sighing, I looked across the road toward the skyscrapers beyond. “Not something, someone.”
“Ah. Let me guess. The beauty just left a meeting with the beast.”
He was pouring on the charm. It should have irritated me, but after the last few minutes, all it did was leave me feeling amused. “Something like that.”
He leaned back against the park bench with a sigh of his own. “Luciano Salvatici has quite a way with women.”
My gaze snapped to his handsome face once more. “How did you—?”
“I saw you walk out of the Covet building. I suspect you didn’t get the modeling gig you were up for.”
I should have felt a little creeped out that this guy—hot or not—had been watching me for the last five minutes, but I was too distracted by my recent failure to care.
“I’m not a model.” Shaking my head, I glanced over the rest of him. He wore loose faded jeans and a three-button black T-shirt that stretched across rippling muscles and was open to show a hint of chest hair. Even though I wasn’t the fashionista Luciano Salvatici expected me to be, I could tell from one look that this man’s boots were Italian leather and expensive and that the camera in his hands was high-tech and new. “I was interviewing for an intern position. Which I didn’t get.”
“Not a model? But, bella.” He shifted on the bench, lifted the camera, and snapped a close-up of my face. “Bellissima.”
I couldn’t stop myself. I laughed and held up a hand again to block his lens. Only in New York could you have the shittiest day, then run into a character like this. “Okay, enough. Your Italian charm has done its job. I’m done pouting.”
Grinning, he lowered the camera and leaned back against the bench once more. “So why did you not get the internship?”
My smile faded as I watched traffic inch by on the street. “Because I’m not blonde and leggy, and probably because I have a brain.”
He chuckled and fiddled with a knob on his camera. “My brother does like to surround himself with leggy blondes.”
“Your brother?”
The man let go of his camera and held one hand out to me. “Giovanni Salvatici. Not nearly as…how do you say it here in America?…pompous as the Beast. You can call me Gio.”
He grinned again, and my gaze narrowed as I shook his hand and took a closer look at him. His hair was the same color as the Beast’s, but that was the only similarity I could see between the two men. Gio’s smiling eyes were a completely different color and shape than his brother’s, and his face was more slender. He was also a thousand times more approachable than the brute who’d kicked me out of his office with barely a sideways glance.
Remembering that humiliation sent my mood skydiving south again, and I let go of his hand and glared up at the Covet tower. “No offense, but your brother’s a dick.”
And a pompous asshole. And a misogynistic creep. And very possibly, a murderer.
Gio’s laugher echoed around me. “That he is, bella. That he is.”
He leaned forward to rest cut, muscular forearms on his knees, and as he did, I caught a whiff of citrus with a hint of spice. 1872 by Clive Christian. Another of my favorite designer male scents.
“You wanted this job greatly?” he asked.
“Greatly,” I said glumly. “Very, very greatly. More than anything in the world.”
“Such great appetites should be fed,” he murmured.
A tingle, not entirely pleasant, sped down my spine. Still, it was a hopeful, if weird, comment, and I turned to him as his camera clicked again.
Smiling, he lowered his lens. “You are interested in the fashion industry?”
“Yes,” I lied. “But behind the scenes. Not in front of the camera. I was hoping this was going to be my break in.”
“Hm. And what will you do now?”
I frowned. “I’ll figure out another way.” Maybe with a modeling agency. Elena’s agent had told me Elena had signed an exclusive contract with Covet for the next year, but there had to be another way for me to find out more about Luciano Salvatici. All I needed was an “in” to the industry, and I’d figure the rest out as I went.
“What if I told you I know of a job for you? In the fashion world.”
Skepticism sent a tingle down my spine, but lurking inside was a thread of hope. “What kind of job?”
“A photographer’s assistant. I’m always in need of someone to help me on a shoot.”
Hope bloomed like a rose opening in the summer sun. I turned fully toward him. He lifted his camera to take my photo once more, but I placed my hand over the lens, stopping him. “You’re a fashion photographer?”
He chuckled. “Guilty.”
“Independent?”
“I do some independent work on the side. But mostly I shoot for Covet.”
A rush of heat spread all across my skin, but before I could let my elation show, I remembered the Beast. “Won’t your brother be upset if you hire me? I mean, he made it more than clear he thinks I’m navel lint.”
“Trust me, bella. I don’t need my brother�
��s permission to hire my own assistant. I don’t need his permission for anything. Do you have a résumé in that bag of yours?”
I quickly pulled the extra résumé free and handed it to him. “As you can see, I’ve been working in fashion for some time. Just not, you know, New York fashion.”
He pursed his lips as he scanned the page. “A 3.67 from Boise State. Smart girl.”
My face heated. I was never easy with compliments. “Yes.”
“Smart is not always an asset with models. In my experience, they’re never that bright.” He lowered the paper. “How long have you been in the city?”
I wasn’t sure how to read his comment. Elena had been very bright. Had she acted like she wasn’t to fit in?
“Bella? The city? How long have you been here?”
Crap, my mind was wandering in the middle of an impromptu interview. “Five days.”
“Have you been here before?”
“No. First time. It’s amazing.”
He studied me with speculative eyes. No longer the warm, flirty eyes I’d seen before, but hard blue ice chips that seemed to be searching for…something. “Have you ever traveled outside the US?”
“Does Canada count?” When he only stared at me, the hair on my nape stood straight. “Only to Whistler to ski. And that was years ago when I was a kid. I’m from Montana.”
“Hm.” His gaze slipped over me again, only this time, it was more than assessing. It burned with the heat of an almost-there caress that made my stomach tighten with unease. “Do you have a passport?”
“Does this position require travel?”
“It may. Periodically, Covet sends me overseas to shoot—Fiji, the Caymans, Iceland’s sexy hot springs. Any assistant who works with me needs to be able to drop everything on a moment’s notice to fly off to exotic locations to…work.”
Elena had traveled to exotic locations. Her emails had told me all about them in great detail, how the models traveled with the photographers, how they stayed at the same hotels…
My gaze narrowed on Gio. Had this photographer worked with her? Had he done more than “work” with her? Could I have been wrong? Was he the “him” Laney had referred to in her emails? He was definitely hot enough to attract Laney’s attention, and the way he gazed at me made me feel as if I were the only woman within miles. If he’d poured on this kind of charm with Elena, would she have been able to say no?
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