For His Eyes Only Page 3

  What rotten luck. The night he’d managed to make some emotional progress with her, she’d bolted—not exactly the reaction he expected from a woman who came at least twice each time they got together. A dull pain weighed down his chest at the prospect of never seeing her again. Or worse, seeing her at the next party without being able to touch her. Or seeing her on the arm of some other guy.

  Oh, hell. He was in deep, and he hadn’t even seen himself fall.

  He collapsed into the chair behind his desk and found the Tylenol, then grabbed a bottle of water from a drawer and swallowed half of it in one gulp. When he opened his eyes and saw Kim standing in his doorway, he suspected it wouldn’t be long before he would need another dose.

  “Hey there.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, boosting the visible cleavage at the center of her blouse. Alex was certain her shirt had been buttoned to the top during the staff meeting. “Got a headache?”

  “I’ll be fine. It’s just been a long day. Aren’t you going to head home?”

  “Well, I thought you might want to get a bite to eat, since we’re the two singletons around here.”

  “I appreciate the thought, but I really can’t. This competition has buried me in work.” He hoped Kim would take the hint and let him be. Instead, she strutted closer to him and leaned her hip against the side of his desk.

  Her fingernails traced the buttons on the cuff of his shirt. “You know, things have been kind of awkward between us lately. Is everything okay?”

  He rubbed his eyes. He was running on three hours of sleep and his day had been a chaotic mess. The last thing he needed was a sermon about their one-time affair, which had happened years ago when he’d had a bottle of vodka and enough ego to enjoy playing the role of spoiled playboy. The moment he’d awakened from that nightmare, he had parked their relationship back at friends—he was her boss, after all—and vowed to stop being such a womanizer before he got himself sued for harassment.

  “I’m dog-tired, and my career depends on the success of this modeling contest. Other than that, everything’s fine.”

  “So I guess you couldn’t get hold of her?”

  He blinked. “Who?”

  “What’s-her-name—Jacey. When I called this morning about the meeting and you asked me to get her number from the database, I figured it was an emergency. Something to do with the model situation, I’m assuming.”

  “Thanks for getting the information for me. But no, I couldn’t reach her.”

  Wasn’t that the truth. He turned to his computer and tried to work, but Kim’s eagle eyes unnerved him. Just as he opened his mouth to ask her to leave, she pushed off the desk and gave him a little smile.

  “Well, then. Just let me know if you need anything.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  When she was gone, he took another swig of water and pulled up the employee database on his screen. He didn’t make a habit of digging around in the staff’s personal information, but the desire to know more about Jacey was driving him mad. Despite the way she’d blown him off this morning, he couldn’t accept that his curiosity may have come too late.

  As a rule, he tried to keep from getting attached to any particular woman. Most of them were looking to seduce their way into a photo shoot, and he figured he’d spare himself the disappointment. But now he knew modeling wasn’t on Jacey’s agenda, and seeing her more often made for an appealing possibility.

  He typed her name into the search box and her file popped up, complete with a color photo that looked like it had been taken at the DMV. She was smiling in the picture, and gorgeous as ever despite the notoriety of bad license photos. He’d never seen her face so many times in one year, yet after the way she had run away from him, he felt farther away from her than ever.

  He scanned the contents of the file. She’d told him the truth on the phone this morning—she worked for minimum wage as a sales associate in a nearby shopping center. But of all the facts revealed in that file, her birth date shocked him the most. She was only twenty-four.

  He conjured up an image of the way she always looked at Insomnia’s parties. He could picture her down to the last detail, and while he understood that she probably made herself up quite a bit for those evenings, something in addition to her looks had made him believe she was closer to his age. She exuded independence and maturity, not to mention a level of sexual abandon unmatched by even his most experienced past lovers. He certainly hadn’t taken her for a girl barely out of college—or one who hadn’t attended at all.

  The scene in the parking lot came together in his mind. Their encounters at each party had been filled with mystery. They’d known very little about each other and because of the staggering difference in their salaries, Jacey had preferred it that way. Now that he knew there was nothing glitzy about her true identity, she planned to hide from him.

  But there was one advantage to being at the top of the social ladder—Alex got what he wanted. And he wanted Jacey badly. He would see her again, and it would happen long before next summer.

  ***

  Jacey dropped the black dress and sorry excuse for a pair of shoes onto the sales desk in a series of thuds.

  “Sorry I’m so late returning these,” she blurted when her friend appeared behind the counter. “I’m trying to save gas, and there’s a tear in the dress and I haven’t had a chance to—”

  “Hey, hey, relax.” Monica Valdez stashed the garments out of sight, then reached out and put a hand on Jacey’s shoulder. Concern filled her soft brown eyes. “No biggie, sweetheart. What’s the matter? Party wasn’t any fun?”

  “Oh.” With a sigh of pure longing, Jacey closed her eyes and envisioned Alex in his sophisticated suit, then pictured him out of it. “The party was great. As usual.”

  “So you did see him!”

  She couldn’t help returning Monica’s excited grin. The woman was old enough to be her mother, but she had never married. She believed men made better toys than companions. Monica dressed like she could be asked to enter a nightclub at any given moment, and she made a fortune designing and selling sexy, eccentric clothing out of a boutique in Bal Harbour.

  A simple walk through the beautiful array of high-end stores made Jacey feel like she hailed straight from the ghetto.

  Which, essentially, she did. Her mother’s run-down trailer park certainly wouldn’t attract the urbane crowd that strolled past the shop windows, as much a part of the scenery as the lush palm trees and tranquil ponds.

  “I saw him, all right. All of him.”

  “Yum. So why the long face?”

  She shrugged, her heart clenching at the way things had ended with Alex. She had spent the past week mourning the loss of their yearly tryst, having realized how much she’d always anticipated it only after the possibility of another one was gone.

  “He asked my name,” she finally said.

  Monica stared like she was waiting for news a bit more disturbing. “So?”

  “So it means he wants more. He wouldn’t need to know my name if we were just getting together for a booty call once a year.”

  Monica clasped Jacey’s hand between both of her manicured and jewel-adorned ones. “Honey, that’s great. From what you’ve told me, he sounds like a prince.”

  “Exactly. I don’t need his glass slipper to save me.”

  Her friend’s eyebrow arched in an authoritative manner that reminded Jacey of the kind of mother she wished she had—one who worried about her life and the direction it took. “Please don’t tell me you’re not going to see him because he makes a lot of money.”

  “That’s not the only reason,” she insisted. “I’m not sure he’s different from any other guy, really. He just thinks I’m cute.”

  “You know that’s not true. He can have any woman he wants at those parties, and he picks you. Every year.”

  “He asked me to model for Insomnia.”

  Monica paused, the silence broken only by the clinking of the bangles on her wrists. J
acey braced herself for a lecture. Flaunt-it-while-you’ve-got-it Monica didn’t see anything wrong with making a living on one’s good looks. She regarded that as a dream job, while Jacey considered it a nightmare.

  The two of them were polar opposites, but there wasn’t anyone in the world she loved more than Monica and her seventeen-year-old daughter, Danielle. A decade ago, when she was young, alone and had nowhere to go, Monica had taken her in and paid her to be a nanny to Danielle as well as do some administrative work for her budding business. After graduating high school she’d moved out on her own, but she had remained in close contact with the Valdez women. They were the closest thing to family she would ever have.

  When Monica spoke, her voice was gentle. “You’re quite the looker, honey. Why is that so surprising?”

  Jacey pressed her lips together and inspected her shoes, old athletic ones that almost made her miss the excruciating but stylish stilettos. She wished she could be so nonchalant about the whole thing. Ultimately, Alex had offered her a job, and she needed money more than anything in the world.

  Wrong. She needed self-respect even more than she needed money. Being “quite the looker” wasn’t the skilled accomplishment she had in mind.

  “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  She looked up. “What?”

  Monica folded her hands on top of the counter. “I mean, this is about more than wanting to earn your own money. Other people have offered you jobs before—I’ve offered you a job before—and I’ve never seen you get this worked up about it. So what’s really bothering you?”

  The woman read her like a book. And she was right. Jacey was used to declining help, and if a stranger on the street had offered her a modeling job, she’d have walked away and gotten over it.

  But Alex, the source of the most powerful pleasure she’d ever experienced, was no stranger. A naïve part of her heart had dared to believe Monica’s earlier assertion—he did pick her every year, after all. She had almost believed she was special. His blatant request to use her body for profit had proven her terribly wrong.

  “I don’t know, I just…I thought he saw more in me than that.”

  “You see each other once a year and you spend that time having sex. What would—”

  “I know, I know. I guess I felt like he knew me. That probably doesn’t make any sense.”

  Monica smiled and adjusted the top of her sequin-trimmed tank, a shirt suspiciously similar to one she had just given Jacey. She didn’t want to take advantage of Monica’s financial success—that was one of the reasons she’d refused a permanent job at the boutique. But that didn’t stop Monica from presenting her with a stack of clothes every few months, insisting they were old things that no longer fit. Yet the two women wore the same size, and the items looked way too trendy and new to be hand-me-downs or garage sale fodder.

  “Sounds to me like you want to know him outside of the bedroom. Why don’t you spend some time with him? Go on a real date?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Jacey scoffed. “We have nothing in common. He only likes my body and I’ve known that all along. Hell, I like his body. I love his body. It’s the only reason I go to that stupid party.”

  Monica leaned forward, clearly not buying the cavalier attitude. “Are you sure about that, hon? I thought I was the poster girl for casual sex, not you.”

  “Oh, I’m no poster girl. It just seemed okay with Alex. I don’t know.” She waved her hand and crossed the room to study a scantily-dressed mannequin, uncomfortable with the sadness that once again crept into her chest.

  That stuff she’d told Monica about liking Alex’s body wasn’t entirely accurate. True, he had muscles she’d like to lay her hands on permanently and a grin that could melt steel, not to mention a hefty package that had never come close to disappointing her. But his tenderness, his ability to make her feel like a virgin in her true love’s arms at last, had brought her back to the party year after year.

  She could feel Monica staring at her. “You know, Jace, if Alex is really a good guy, he’s not going to be bothered by your past. And he probably is a good guy, or you wouldn’t feel so strongly about him.”

  “I don’t feel strongly about him,” she snapped, even though Monica would see right through her lie. But Alex was money. He was power. Regardless of how he made her feel, he was everything she had never been and everything she refused to depend on for survival. She pushed an unwelcome image of her mother out of her mind.

  The doorbell chimed, signaling the entrance of a customer who would distract Monica from psychoanalyzing her. She breathed a sigh of relief and dug her keys out of her pocket, prepared to jump on the opportunity to escape.

  “Hey, Mom. Jacey! What’s up?”

  She looked up at the sound of her name, pleasantly surprised to see that the newcomer was not a customer but Danielle, who had just begun her senior year of high school.

  “Hey, Dani. How was school?”

  “Great. Have you seen this?” She waved a sheet of paper in the air. “I think I’m going to enter. You should too. You’d win for sure.”

  Win? Her curiosity piqued, Jacey studied the flyer, but her hopes fled as she read the bold letters at the top of the page. She handed it back with a little laugh. When it rained, it poured.

  “Sorry, but a modeling contest isn’t for me. You should definitely go for it, though.”

  Danielle gawked at her. “Not just any modeling contest. A contest sponsored by Insomnia. The winner gets a year-long modeling contract, their picture on the front of the summer catalog—”

  The older women shared a chuckle at her breathless excitement. Jacey put a hand on her friend’s shoulder, studying her dark hair and exotic brown eyes.

  “I know it’s a big deal, sweetie. Like I said, go for it. You’d have a great shot at winning.”

  Danielle poked her fingernail at the bottom of the flyer. “And a hundred thousand dollars! Hello? Who wouldn’t enter? Except you,” she teased.

  Jacey barely heard her. Her mind had stopped processing words when she’d heard the amount of the prize money.

  “One hundred thousand? Are you sure?”

  “Totally. I read it a million times. Everybody at school is talking about it. Man, I could get a sweet car and a penthouse apartment or something.”

  Monica plucked her daughter’s backpack from the floor and gestured toward the back office. “Well, until then, go do your homework. Just in case you don’t win.”

  Playfully, Danielle stuck her tongue out and headed for the office. Monica shook her head and smiled, shooting Jacey a wry glance.

  “You know…”

  “No. Don’t even say it.”

  “She’s got a point, Jacey. You could win.”

  “I could humiliate myself. In front of Alex, no less.”

  “Alex thinks you’re beautiful.”

  “And I already told him I didn’t want the job.”

  “He won’t care if you change your mind.” Monica stepped closer and offered her the flyer, compassion in her gaze. “You’re not your mom, honey. You deserve this. That’s a whole lot of money they’re offering.”

  She bit her lip. It certainly was a lot of money. Enough to get her through school, and definitely enough to get an apartment in a safer part of town. Maybe even enough to start a freelance media planning business after she earned her degree. How many years had she been nursing that pipe dream?

  But none of that mattered. Monica had it right—she wasn’t her mom. She would not accept payment from a man she’d slept with. No doubt Alex’s offer hadn’t been one of prostitution, but the scenario was similar enough to make her uncomfortable.

  “I can’t do it,” she muttered, then made a quick exit before Monica could talk her into it.

  She got into her car, which refused to start until the sixth turn of the key. Not for the first time, she worried that the clunker she’d bought in high school was on its last leg. Yet another reason she could use that prize money. />
  One hundred thousand dollars. The words taunted her, the possibilities making her head spin.

  But to win the competition and therefore the money, she’d have to sport tiny lingerie in front of a whole lot of people. Whenever she thought of putting her body on display so blatantly, she imagined the way her mother used to strut half-naked around their mobile home. Drunk, or high, or both—and giggling hysterically while her latest boyfriend groped her, neither of them paying any regard to Jacey’s presence in the room.

  Ugh.

  She made it to her complex without any further mechanical problems, then trudged up the stairs to her apartment, still clutching the contest flyer in her hand as though it were the hundred grand. God, that was a lot of money. But she wanted to go to college and sustain a career, not strut down a runway and profit from her cleavage.

  Her mind made up, she crumpled the flyer between her fingers, intending to toss it over the rusty railing. Her fist froze around the paper ball when she neared the top step and saw a notice pasted to her front door.

  No. It couldn’t be.

  She ran the rest of the way up and tore the sheet from the door, frantically scanning the words. You are hereby notified that your tenancy of the following premises will terminate—

  Horrified, she stopped reading and jiggled her key in the lock. She’d missed rent a couple of times, but she’d explained her financial troubles to the lady in the management office. Where was the leeway she’d been promised? Had it been more than two or three months?

  Her heart sank as she realized the answer. The raise she’d been waiting for at work had never come, and she’d fooled herself into believing she would improve her situation before she missed another payment…and another and another.

  Inside, she sifted through a stack of mail, tossing the junk and filing away the bills she couldn’t pay. Then she sat on her bed and stared at an envelope from the University of Miami. Maybe this was her year. If so, she’d avoid the humiliating fact that not only hadn’t she made any progress toward her goals, but she’d taken a step backward by losing her apartment.