“Now I’m your personal assistant instead of Mark’s? No thanks. I already have three jobs and apparently, I work weekends,” Helen said, indicating she was working at that moment.
“Do you know?” he drawled. “I love every word that comes out of your mouth. That is a perfect solution to all this. If you became my personal assistant, I feel positive we could accomplish great things together.”
“Please don’t get excited,” Helen murmured, putting her hand to her forehead.
“I’m not going to stop working for Mark.”
“Why not? I’ll pay you—”
“I don’t care about that,” she interrupted. “I’m afraid that once I started working for you, you’d see how inexperienced I truly am. I might have come up with a few ideas you liked just now, but I’m not qualified to serve your every need. It might surprise you, but I don’t know a lot about my profession yet. I’m an entry-level assistant. I only graduated from college in April. And,” Helen said, grasping for ideas that would convince him of how unfit she was. “I don’t even know what kind of cheese this is,” she said, picking up a chunk. “So just forget about it.”
“Hmm,” he hummed. “Well, I see what you’re saying, but I still think you would make me an incredible assistant.”
“So, do you want to tell me the real reason why you set me up with this modeling job?” Helen asked, basically ignoring what he said. She had things she wanted to learn from him during their interview as well.
Dominic sighed. It was the most human gesture Helen had ever seen him perform. “Well, there were a couple of reasons. But I’m not confident I can explain them without hearing one thing from you.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you have a sincere interest in Mark? If he gave you the opportunity, would you go for him?” Dominic asked looking at her face carefully.
Helen's mouth hung open for an instant. She wasn't sure how to answer him, but having listened to Mark talk his way out far harder situations had paid off and a plausible answer came to her mind. "So far, he hasn't treated me very well. He should have sent Laura away when she showed up on his doorstep. The fact that he didn't when he was entertaining me was seriously offensive. I don't know if I want a guy who lets a girl he's not interested in walk all over him."
"Don't like playing second fiddle?" "No."
"Neither do I," he said quietly. "I ask because it feels like you favor him over me, even though the two of us have this... unique connection."
Helen was touched by his voice and found a lump growing in her throat, but she still had to say what she felt. It was her way of spilling her guts. "You must know I can generate that connection with anyone. It's part of my job when I work as an escort. You have to be intelligent enough to know the name of that game."
"I know," he said, nodding his head. "I know, but somehow, the fact that it's fake makes it even better."
How could she answer that? A moment of silence followed before Helen cleared her throat and asked seriously, "Are you going to explain your other reasons for trying to make me a model?"
Dominic took a slow drink from his goblet before he answered steadily, "Certainly. You see, my dear brother Alexander is a very talented model, but representing him lately has been a rather unpleasant job. He's not an easy man to work with. You saw how cross he became back at Collin's office today. He's temperamental. In the past, his work has been so flawless that the hassle of having him pose has been worth it, but... his work hasn't been so perfect in the last year as to make him irreplaceable. Since his last photos came out, some of his clients are seriously looking at getting someone new. For me, it's okay if Alexander retires if he's tired of the business or even if he's got something else he wants to do. It's not okay for his popularity to dwindle and his work requests to disappear. I was thinking that if I got you to model with him for this campaign then maybe I could raise his stock and improve his reputation. You could tell a few reporters how much fun he was to work with, and I would be spared hours on the phone explaining to photographers that he's become more flexible. Right now, some of them refuse to work with him."
"What about Collin? Doesn't he mind?" Helen asked.
"Collin isn't afraid of Alexander's tantrums and he enjoys making him uncomfortable."
"This should be interesting," Helen groaned, thinking of how much fun it wasn't going to be to model with Alexander.
"Look, I wouldn't have recommended you for this if I didn't think you could do it. It might surprise you, but I am a hell of a lot scarier than Alexander. I wouldn't have been able to push Alexander up as far as I have if I wasn't able to bully him. Trust me, if you can handle me, you can handle him."
"Okay," Helen said, expelling a heavy breath. "Is there anything else I should know?"
"I think I'm in love with you.”