The One He's Been Looking For

Chapter Two

Jordan stepped out onto the narrow foyer of her condo and pulled the door shut. The early-September ocean breeze blowing in from the harbor brushed across her skin as she stepped out onto the curb. There was a chill in the air that made her glad that she had chosen her skinny jeans and ankle boots over her favorite microminiskirt. Jordan crossed Island Avenue and headed toward the trolley station. As she walked along First Avenue, a black Bentley parked in the lot directly across from her condo caught her attention. She watched as the chauffeur got out, hurried around the front of the vehicle and opened the door for the passenger to exit. It was an odd place for the Bentley to be parked. As Jordan walked directly in front of it, the passenger stepped out from behind the chauffeur. She recognized him instantly.

Ian Sterling!

Shocked, Jordan stumbled on a break in the sidewalk. She paused temporarily before she started to walk at a hurried pace toward the trolley. This wasn’t a coincidence. GQ was actually stalking her! Jordan quickened her steps as she reached in her pocket; her fingers wrapped around a small, pink, lipstick-size container of mace. He might be bigger than her, but she wasn’t about to go down easily or quietly.

“Jordan!”

She heard the leather soles of Ian’s shoes slap the cement as he pursued her. Jordan lengthened her stride, but wasn’t naive enough to believe that she could outwalk him.

“Jordan!”

Irritated and unnerved, she stopped in her tracks and spun around. “What?” she asked in a shaky voice. “What do you want? Why are you following me?” She pulled out her phone and prepared to hit speed dial for 911.

In three long strides, Ian was in front of her. “I’ve got business to discuss with you.”

Jordan shook her head in disbelief. “How did you find me? Do you have any idea how frickin’ nuts this is?” She continued to shake her head. “You know what? Forget it! I’m calling the cops right now unless you get lost pronto, buddy. And if I so much as see you anywhere near my house again, I’ll file a restraining order against you so fast your pretty-boy head will spin! Are we clear?”

Ian held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not trying to hurt you, Jordan. I’m trying to hire you.”

“Did I ask you for a job?” she snapped. “No. I don’t think I did! But what I am asking is for you to leave me alone. Am I speaking in tongues? Why are we having a failure to communicate?”

Jordan spun around and began to walk with purposeful strides away from Ian. She glanced over her shoulder once and was grateful that he hadn’t moved from his spot.

“Jordan,” he called after her. “Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.” He paused, and then added, “Please.”

There was a raw sincerity in his tone that made her halt in her tracks; she slowly turned back to him. The sun was waning, but the man still had his sunglasses on. She could barely see his eyes behind the dark amber lenses.

“What do you want, GQ? Really. What do you really want from me?”

Ian took one small step forward. “Like I said the first time we met...I want to photograph you.”

“And why, might I ask, would the great Ian Sterling want to photograph me?”

Her question made him pause for a split second before he stated, “You know who I am.”

Jordan narrowed her eyes, angry that she had let it slip out inadvertently that she had looked him up on the internet. She was caught red-handed, so there was no sense denying it.

“I did a Google search. Ian Sterling...” She waved her hand in front of her body as if she was drawing a large rainbow. “Photographer to the stars. Yes. I know who you are, and the question still remains, why would someone like you want to photograph someone like me?”

Ian took another step toward her and answered her question seriously. “You have the face I’ve been looking for.”

Jordan kept her hand wrapped tightly around the small bottle of mace in her pocket while she thought about his words. She just couldn’t figure out his angle. He seemed sincere, but that didn’t mean that he was. She hadn’t spent much time researching him, but from what she had read, Ian was internationally known and highly respected.

He took another small step forward. “Listen...all I want to do is test you for my next book. I promise you—the offer’s legit.”

Before Jordan had a chance to reply, her phone rang. She slipped her hand off the mace and pulled the phone out of her pocket.

“Hey,” she said as she kept her eyes trained on Ian. “I’m just about to hop on the trolley. I’ll be there in a sec.”

She clicked off the phone and said, “Listen. I’ve gotta go.”

“What about my job offer?”

Jordan paused for a moment and then shrugged one shoulder. “I’m not a model, Mr. Sterling. You’ve got the wrong woman.”

“If you test well, I’ll pay you twenty-five thousand dollars for your time.”

Once again, Jordan stopped in her tracks. She slowly pirouetted until she was facing him again. “What did you say?”

This time, he stayed rooted in place. She could see that he was done chasing her for the moment. “You heard me. Five thousand up front. Twenty when we’re done shooting. Plus expenses.”

“Please.” Her arched brows drew together. “You can’t be serious.”

“Try me.”

Jordan tilted her head slightly to the side. “Are you willing to put that in writing?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She chewed on her lower lip and narrowed her eyes as she mulled over the offer. Twenty-five thousand dollars could buy a heck of a lot of canvas and paint. She’d be swimming in art supplies, not to mention that her rent would be paid for months in advance. Her money worries would be over, at least temporarily, and she could concentrate full-time on the paintings for her first gallery showing. And for what? Posing for a couple pictures? Smiling pretty for the camera? She’d be a fool to say no. And yet...

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.”

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 didn’t recognize him because it isn’t him,” Jordan said as she climbed out of bed. She pulled on a pair of jeans that had been crumpled up on the floor. “I need emergency coffee.”

The twins climbed up the narrow spiral staircase to the second-floor kitchen and dining area. Amaya was sitting at the small dining table eating sushi with finely carved black-and-gold chopsticks.

“Coffee?” Jordan asked her roommate at the top of the stairs.

Amaya nodded and pointed to the kitchen. Jordan grabbed a cup of coffee for herself and one for Jo before she headed to the table.

“What time did you get in?” Amaya asked in her Cambodian-accented English. She had twisted her silky blue-black hair into a thick topknot at the crown of her head and she still had a smudge of purple eye shadow above her dark chocolate eyes from the night before.

Jordan slumped into her chair and gratefully took a sip of piping-hot coffee. “Three, four. I’m not sure, really.”

Her roommate swallowed a bite of food before she said, “What’s up with that picture you sent to me last night? Who is that guy?”

Jordan dropped her head onto her arms with a groan. “He’s a photographer. Wants me to model for him.”

Jo’s eyes widened. “The Armani guy wants you to model for him? You didn’t tell me that!”

“Jesus...he’s not the Armani guy. His name is Ian Sterling.”

“Seriously, Jordy? I can’t believe you didn’t recognize him.” Her twin shook her head as she searched for something on her phone. Once she found what she was looking for, she held up the device triumphantly. “Take a look at this, sis. Tell me that isn’t the same guy.”

Chapter Three

Jordan’s forehead wrinkled as she stared at the photograph on Jo’s phone. It took a split second for her to recognize Ian in the Armani ad. His hair was longer and his face thinner, but there was no doubt it was Ian. No wonder he looked so familiar to her! She had this exact ad hanging up in her room...framed. How had she missed that?

“Ho-ly crap.” she muttered. “He’s the frickin’ Armani guy.”

“Told you,” Jo said smugly.

“What am I missing?” Amaya asked.

“Jordan had this ad hanging above her bed when we were in high school—she used to kiss the guy’s picture every night. Swore she was going to marry him,” Jo said, before she blew on her coffee.

“Do you think that might have been an overshare of my personal information?” Jordan asked her sister.

Jo ignored her and continued, “As it turns out...” She turned the phone toward Amaya. “This guy and the guy from last night are one and the same.”

“Freaky.” Amaya studied the picture. “He’s seriously hot.”

“Yes,” Jordan agreed, as her high school fantasies flooded her brain. “He is.

“Does he really look that good in person or was he edited to look like that?” Amaya asked before she took another bite of her sushi.

Jordan shook her head. Ian Sterling didn’t need to be edited. He was damn near perfect. “No. He really does look like this.”

She groaned as she dropped her head into her hands and rubbed her temples. How could she have missed this when she’d found him on Google? How could she have missed it when she’d sat across from him on the trolley? And now she was supposed to go to his studio—the Armani guy’s studio—looking as if she had been on a week-long bender? Unimaginable.

“Start from the beginning—tell us everything,” Jo said, her blue eyes sparkling.

Jordan lifted her head and took a deep breath in through her nose and then blew it out. She told them everything—from Ian saving her from a ticket to him tracking her down at the condo and offering her a job.

She finished her story with, “I’m supposed to go to his studio today for a test shoot.”

Jo smiled at her as she reached out and shook her arm. “It’s serendipitous! You always make fun of me when I tell you stuff like this happens. But come on.... What are the chances?”

“Slim to none,” Jordan admitted as she stared at the Armani ad.

Amaya asked bluntly, “And you’re sure he’s not a wacko who’s gonna chop you up and stuff you in his freezer, right?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s not a psycho.” Jordan said.

“Then this is great news. You’re saved! Rent’s due in a week and I can’t cover the spread for both of us again this month.”

“Why did she have to pay your rent last month?” Jo asked, concerned.