Code Name: Blondie

One of the pilots leaned against a palm tree and peeled an apple, clearly enjoying the models’ escapade. An older pilot napped in the shade, hat over his head. Her boss sat in a leather campaign chair scanning the photos she’d transferred to his laptop.

Vance Merchant didn’t look pleased. She’d given him her best work, shots that shimmered with dawn light and burned with sunset crimson. There was no possible reason for his frown other than the simple fact that he could. The man knew he held all the power and he enjoyed wielding it mercilessly. He was a tyrant, just the way Miki had heard. Being around him was about as much fun as sharing a cardboard box with a scorpion.

But the job was important, her first chance at national commercial exposure. If the calendar was a success, Miki knew she’d receive dozens of travel assignments, a fiercely competitive category of photographic work. So she dug her toe slowly through the warm sand, fighting uneasiness as she waited for Vance’s verdict.

Her balding boss looked up as the tent shook one last time. Moments later Miss Finland 2002 emerged, stunning in a black string bikini that hugged her body like butter. When her partner appeared, he was rumpled and languid, his shirt buttoned wrong and his zipper still open.

Someone snickered. The men looked up as Miss Finland stretched languidly. Vance smiled and started to make a comment.

Miki cut him off. “Can we go now?”

The model, who currently worked under the name of Jasmyn, stretched slowly while she toyed with her tiny bikini top, aware that she had all the men’s attention. “Me, I am hungry with appetite. I can eat very big horse right now.” She frowned beautifully. “Anyone have very big horse to give?”

Miki’s boss muttered something to the older pilot. Miki ignored them.

Sometimes men had all the subtlety of boa constrictors. And now three new bruises darkened Miss Finland’s elegant neck. They’d have to be digitally removed, the same way Miki had removed the other bites and scratches incurred from St. Thomas to Tahiti. Luckily, Miki was very skilled at both cosmetics and Photoshop.

Vance Merchant looked up and waved his hand at the younger pilot, who climbed aboard one of the two amphibious Cessnas rocking in the water. As the models waited, the pilot revved the engine and gestured from the small cockpit.

About time, Miki thought, heading toward the plane. This place was getting creepy. Besides, the wind was picking up.

Vance caught her arm. “Not you. I need a dozen more shots of the reef before we leave, babe.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. I filled a flash card this morning.”

Her boss’s eyes narrowed. “I’m the one who decides when we’re done, honey. Remember that.” He tossed her his big Nikon, careless of the $10,000 piece of equipment. “Get moving.”

Vance Merchant could afford to buy a camera a day for the rest of his nasty life. His silver spoon came from his father’s success in coffee commodities—and his mother’s good fortune in being an oil heiress. The man’s trust fund was obscene.

As Miki checked the camera, the balding businessman slid an arm around her shoulders. “I can see that taking orders is a problem for you. We’ll have to do something about that.”

She pushed his hand away smoothly and thought about decking him. One solid chop to the collarbone and he would be moaning. On the other hand, physical assault didn’t get credits on a job resume.

Excellent lighting skills. Inventive with neutral density filters. Crushed the supervisor’s collarbone. May be unstable and probably dangerous.

Not the best path to career advancement. Miki sighed. She needed to stop drifting and start being serious. Photography was in her blood, a passion since she was ten. Day and night images haunted her thoughts, burned into her head. The problem was getting someone’s attention so that she’d have the backing to shoot for a living. She had finally grown up and started to take her work seriously, which meant no decking the boss.

The Cessna’s motor turned over. The models were aboard with all their gear, and the pilot was checking his equipment.

“What’s he doing?”

The Cessna began to pick up speed. Miki felt a sudden sharp uneasiness at how isolated they were on this speck of an island. “They’re leaving ahead of us? I thought we were flying out together for safety.”

“If you do your job, we’ll be flying out in a few minutes.” Vance glanced at the older pilot, and a silent signal seemed to pass between the two men.

“What do you mean, do my job?” Miki frowned at Vance. “I think we’ve got enough background shots for ten calendars.”

“You think? Who’s paying you to think, babe?” Sunlight burned on Vance’s yellow silk shirt as he traced Miki’s neck. “The sooner you stop whining and start shooting, the sooner we take off.”

“You can’t let them go ahead of us, Vance.”

“I just did, babe. Move it because your stalling is costing me money.”

No point trying to change his mind. After three weeks of travel in close quarters, Miki had figured out that the man was impossible. She stalked over the sand and leveled Vance’s Nikon, trying to ignore the roar of the other Cessna as it prepared for take off. Palm trees waved, the ocean glittered—and clouds piled up to the south.

Miki couldn’t shake a sense of unease. When she finished two dozen new shots from different angles, she gritted her teeth and turned back to her boss. “I’m done here. Why don’t you take a look so we can go?”

“Cool your jets, babe.”

Babe? If Miki never heard that word again, she would die a happy woman. Was it stupidity or arrogance that made men think women actually liked that name? Of course, Babe was better than Blondie. For the last five years, Miki had dyed her natural blond hair to a streaky brown in order to shield herself against the wrong kind of male attention. From bitter experience she knew that being blonde automatically took off five years and ten pounds. The only problem was that being blonde also knocked fifty points off your I.Q. in the eyes of most men. Some women seemed happy with the tradeoff, but Miki wasn’t one of them. So why the hell was she back to bubblehead blond now?

When she’d heard about the team shooting an exotic calendar called Best Beaches of the World, Miki had instructed her photo agent in Santa Fe to accept the offer with no negotiation. At first her agent had been discouraging. “Waste of time, Fortune. Vance Merchant only hires blondes because he thinks they’re good luck.” The agent had rolled his eyes. “That means all blondes, all the time. Besides, Merchant is a little hard to work with.”

Miki was too enthusiastic to let the offer slip away. That same day she had dyed her hair to its original streaky gold, angry but determined to snag the job.

Unfortunately, her agent had neglected to mention several details. For example, Vance Merchant’s interest in blondes usually took on touchy-feely overtones by the second day of a shoot, and Miki soon tired of dodging the producer’s fast hands. Between the constant travel and the isolated location shooting, she could never seem to escape him.

Not that she would whine. She could handle a weasel like Vance Merchant. The trick was finding a way to rebuff him without costing her the job.

All her irritation snapped into sharp focus as she waited for the balding California millionaire to amble across the beach in his $800 handmade Panama hat. When she held out the camera, he moved in close, pressing against her shoulder while he looked into the LED screen.

Miki controlled her irritation by imagining a few more zeroes in her bank balance. “So what do you think?”

“Nice cloud detail. But I keep telling you, we’re here for the sex and the skin. That’s what sells, not your artsy nature shots.”

Miki bit back a hot answer, reaching for the camera, but Vance moved out of reach. “You screwed up Jasmyn’s close-ups today. Where’s the mineral oil I told you to use on Jasmyn? There’s no shine, no sizzle. Are you a total idiot?”

I’ll give you shine, Miki thought. “Vance, you didn’t tell me—”

“Can it, babe. I need a dozen more windward shots across that slope. Then I can crop and insert some shots of Jasmyn later in post-production. Get to it.”

“Now?” Miki started at him in disbelief. The other Cessna had taken off five minutes ago and the dark clouds were getting closer. Was the man crazy?

“Are you coming or not?”

She ached to tell Vance where he could put this job and his expensive Nikon, but somehow she swallowed her pride and nodded. Why did all the good jobs come with jerks in charge? Was there something wrong with her?

“Fortune, are you listening to me?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Vance muttered as he vanished behind the low sand dunes. As soon as Miki crossed the slope, she saw a shirt spread out on the ground. Vance was standing beside it, tugging at his belt.

She went absolutely still. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t be so damned uptight. It’s just sex, something to loosen you up and get your creative juices flowing. I saw you staring at Miss Finland and the hunk. All that noise got you excited, didn’t it? You want it.”

“Excuse me?”