The One He's Been Looking For

Ian interrupted her train of thought. “My car’s right over there. If you’re late, I can take you anywhere you need to go. We can talk on the way.”

Jordan shook her head at him disbelievingly. “Just because I haven’t maced you yet doesn’t mean I’m crazy enough to get into a car with a complete stranger and be taken God knows where! It still hasn’t been determined that you aren’t a very nicely dressed serial killer.”

“You yourself said that you know who I am.”

“Please.” Jordan laughed. “Just because you’re famous doesn’t mean that you’re not a total freak. In fact, being famous is a huge strike against you, in my opinion.”

“Is that a ‘no’ to my offer?”

Jordan turned and headed toward the station. “That’s an ‘I don’t know.’”

Ian waved his hand at the driver before he caught up with Jordan.

“I have to catch this trolley. I’ll think about it.” She quickened her pace as the A trolley pulled in.

Ian stayed with her and, as the doors to the vehicle opened, followed her to her seat and sat down on the bench across from her. He spread out his long legs in front of him and draped one arm over the back of his seat. Jordan would have thought he would look out of place sitting there in his dark gray pin-striped suit and his deep purple shirt, but surprisingly, he looked just as relaxed and in charge on the trolley as he did standing next to his Bentley.

“Ride the trolley often, do you?” Jordan asked drily.

“Never,” he admitted easily. He was so ridiculously handsome, so well made, that it was hard for her to stop staring at his face. She wasn’t certain she had ever met anyone quite as perfectly good-looking as Ian Sterling. Of course, he was totally not her type. She was chronically attracted to scruffy musicians and moody out-of-work artists. It was a bit of sickness, really. Lately she had been thinking that it was time to change her brand of men.

“What’s up with the sunglasses anyway? Are you going for Michael Jackson circa 1982?”

“I’m sensitive to light,” he answered smoothly. It was the truth and made it easy to explain why he wore sunglasses even on cloudy days or at dusk. Most people accepted it or just didn’t care.

“Okay.” Jordan scoffed sarcastically. “Sure.”

She saw Ian work his jaw before he reached up and pulled off his sunglasses. He narrowed his eyes against the light and looked at her. Although the vision in his left eye was fuzzy and blurred, he was able to see Jordan’s face with his right eye. Focusing on what he could see with his right while ignoring his left was a skill he had mastered early on in the diagnosis. To look at him directly, no one would suspect he was slowly losing his ability to see.

For the first time, Jordan was able to see Ian’s intense blue-gray eyes as he stared back at her. A jolt of instant recognition coursed through her system as she locked gazes with Ian. There was something so familiar about this man. She just couldn’t put her finger on it. As the trolley pulled away from the station, she drew out her phone and held it up to his face. She pressed a button.

Ian frowned at her. “Did you just take my picture?”

“Yes.” Jordan dropped her head as she punched more buttons on the device.

“Why?” His voice sharpened on the question.

Jordan was certain he was used to getting his way very quickly when he used that tone. She ignored him and finished her chore before she answered. “What? Oh, I’m sorry. Did that bother you? Was that an invasion of your privacy? I mean, God forbid that should happen to you, a famous photographer. I mean, what’s the big deal? I just took a picture, it’s not like I tracked you down at your private residence or followed you onto a trolley....”

Ian didn’t respond, but she could see by the stony expression on his face that she had made her point.

“I just sent your picture to all of my friends. If anything happens to me, the police will come knocking on your door first,” Jordan said smugly. Then she leaned back on her bench and stared at him curiously. “How’d you find me anyway?”

He dragged his fingers over his closely cropped brown hair. “I know someone who’s good at finding people.”

She looked out at the darkening downtown skyline and muttered, “Privacy is obsolete.” Jordan glanced quickly at his strong, masculine profile. Her gut was telling her that Ian wasn’t a psycho and he wasn’t out for anything other than a photograph. In fact, she suspected that he didn’t see her as a woman in the sexual-object sense of the word; his examination of her was much too...clinical for that. He wasn’t really looking at her, but seemed to be taking an inventory of her features.

“Were you serious about the money?” she asked in a lowered voice.

Ian didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

Jordan leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. The bangles on her arm slipped forward and jangled on their journey down to her wrist. “But why? Why would you give some woman you spotted on the street that much money?”

“Some of the best models have been discovered exactly that way.” He paused for a split second and then added, “And it’s not all that much money.”

“Maybe not to you.” Jordan wrinkled her brow. “Either way, I’m no Gisele Bündchen.”

“I wouldn’t want you to be,” Ian replied. “But interestingly, Gisele was discovered in a McDonalds by scouts, so...”

Jordan knew that he had wanted to make a point with that comment, and the truth was he succeeded. It wasn’t a secret that many famous models were discovered on the street or at a mall. She hadn’t known that about Gisele, but it didn’t really surprise her. In fact, this wasn’t the first time she had been approached. She was five foot ten by the time she was fourteen, so she had been asked to model before. The problem was that she wasn’t what one might call photogenic. And even though the money was extremely tempting, Jordan was convinced that she couldn’t pull it off. She simply photographed badly. Always had. Every single one of her school pictures was hideous and she had always been the one blaring flaw in the yearly Brand family portraits.

“Listen, I appreciate the offer, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the money sounds good, but I can’t model for you.” Jordan watched the muscle in Ian’s jaw clench as he listened to her. He was completely unaccustomed to the sound of the word no. “And even though I think that it was totally out of line for you to stalk me, I’m still sorry you wasted your time.”

“I’m a little confused about why you won’t even agree to test for me. Is it the money?”

“As in, not enough money?”

Ian gave a slight nod; Jordan laughed. “No, it’s not the money. Trust me—the money’d be great right now.”

She had the distinct feeling that if she had said it wasn’t enough money, he would have immediately offered her more.

“Then what?” Ian appreciated the way Jordan’s eyes crinkled at the corners when she laughed. She laughed as if she really meant it.

Jordan sat back and crossed one leg over the other. “Look. I’m going to be honest with you so we can drop this subject for good and you can go find a different model for your book.”

“All right.”

“I’m not photogenic,” she said simply.

“I don’t believe that.”

“I’m telling you the truth. Whether or not you believe it is your business. You’re not the first person who’s tried to turn me into a model. But for whatever reason—” Jordan waved her hand in front of her face “—this doesn’t look the same in a photograph as it does in person.”

As the trolley pulled into the next station, Jordan stood up. She extended her hand. “Well...it’s been interesting.”

Ian stood, as well. Jordan hoped that he didn’t intend to follow her off the tram.

Instead of taking her hand, he slipped a business card into her fingers. “When I photograph you, you’ll be able to see yourself as I see you. Pure avant-garde beauty.”

Her heart gave a quick, hard thump at his words. This man had a way of twisting a woman right around his well-manicured pinky.

Jordan took the card. “If you can make me look good in a picture, you would be the first.”

“Come to my studio tomorrow and let’s find out,” he said.

“What do I have to lose?” she asked out loud, more to herself than to him.

“Twenty-five thousand dollars.”