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.”
The trolley doors slid open. “Touché, Mr. Sterling.”
“Ian.”
Jordan stepped down onto the curb. “Touché, Ian.”
“You’ll come to my studio, then.”
She turned to face him as he stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets, sunglasses back in place. Tall, broad shouldered and built for a woman’s appreciating eye. He appeared to be perfectly at ease on the surface, but Jordan picked up a tension in his jaw that belied his relaxed, confident stance.
“What time?”
“Eight in the morning.”
“Too early.”
“Ten, then.”
As the trolley door began to slide shut, Jordan flashed Ian a peace sign and said, “I’ll be there around eleven.”
* * *
“Rise and shine, lazybones.”
The next morning, Jordan was rudely awakened by the sound of her twin sister’s “cheerful early riser” voice. She groaned and stuck her head under the pillow as Josephine pulled open the blinds and let sunlight flow into the room. Jordan squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to ignore the sound of the thick plastic blinds slapping against each other as they settled back into place.
Josephine plopped down on the bed next to her and began to shake her shoulder. “Wake up. Wake up. Wake up....”
“Oh, my God, Jo!” Jordan grumbled loudly. “Knock it off!”
“Not a chance.” Her sister laughed as she grabbed the pillow and pulled it off her head.
Jordan made a frustrated noise as she dragged the covers over her head. She hadn’t planned on being awake for at least another hour or two. “Go away!”
Next, Jo started to bounce up and down. “Get up. Get up. Get up!”
Jordan finally kicked the blanket and sheets off her body and glared up at her. “Holy crap, Jo, you’re annoying! What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be learning how to sue people?”
Josephine, whose friends and family called her “Jo,” was her identical twin. They were mirror images of each other in appearance, but exact opposites in life. Jo was an “early bird gets the worm” student working on her law degree, while Jordan had dropped out of graduate school five weeks into her masters. Jo loved to shop, was a political junky, recycled religiously and thought that it was perfectly normal to date a young environmental lawyer named Brice. Besides the recycling, Jordan could live without all those things—especially a boyfriend with a country-club name.
Jo smiled at her sister’s trademark early-morning grouchiness. “I’m meeting Brice and his parents for brunch in Van Nuys. I thought I’d drop by for a quick visit.”
Jordan pushed herself up and leaned back against the headboard. “I find you to be rude and offensive on all possible levels.”
“You love me.” Jo smiled broadly.
Jordan squinted at her sister through sore, puffy eyes, wishing she had the motivation to get up and shut the blinds again. The bright sunlight was only making her pounding hangover headache worse. To look at the two of them, someone would be hard-pressed to make out that they were twins at all. Josephine always looked like the healthy girl next door with her flowing, sun-kissed hair and glowing, sun-kissed skin. Jordan, on the other hand, was a rebellious night-owl artist with a multicolored faux hawk and pale skin that barely saw the sunlight. In a lot of ways, they were truly night and day.
“How you can date someone named Brice is beyond me,” Jordan said as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “Much less have brunch with his parents.”
“Quit being such a snob. He didn’t choose his name,” Jo teased. “By the way, you look hungover.”
“That’s because I am hungover, Nancy Drew.” Jordan squinted at her. “Joelle had a pink-champagne fountain at her bachelorette party. Who does that?”
“You could’ve said no.” Jo went into the bathroom; she grabbed a glass of water and two aspirin. “Here.”
“Thanks.” Jordan popped the pills in her mouth and then chugged down the water.
“I thought you liked Brice anyway.” Her twin perched on the edge of the bed again in her pretty forest-green wrap dress.
“I like him in theory.” Jordan put the empty glass on the nightstand.
“Whatever that’s supposed to mean....”
“It means that he seems like someone who’d be perfect for you, but he’s not because he’s actually a total knuckle-dragger.”
Jo raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows at her before saying, “Subject change.”
“Agreed.”
Jo pulled her phone out of her purse, flipped through her text messages and then held up a picture for Jordan to see. “I’m dying to know... How’d you end up with a picture of the Armani guy on your phone?”
Jordan stared at the picture she had taken on the trolley. He looked handsome, of course, and ticked off. “That’s Ian. He’s a photographer.”
Jo looked at the image with a shake of her head. “Well, then, he must have been a model before he was a photographer, because I’m telling you, that’s the Armani guy. How you could have your fantasy man sitting right in front of you and not recognize him is a total brainteaser.”
“I