Author: Bella Andre

Of all the problems Jack had faced over the past decade, worrying about sex hadn’t been one of them. He had a great appreciation for women. He liked to watch them move, liked to feel them soft and warm beneath him and enjoyed the way their minds worked. And yet, just as eating and sleeping had always played second fiddle to his work, so had women and sex.

Larry sighed as they got off the trolley and rounded the corner into Union Square, which was fully decorated with lights in every store window and huge green wreaths hanging from the lampposts. “If we can’t convince the retailers to carry our product this Christmas, we’ll officially be out of money. And I’m getting too old to keep living on the edge of completely broke like this, guys.”

Howie gestured toward the center of Union Square, where there was a portable trailer on the corner. Several large lighting rigs had been set up around the area to shine down on the snow that had been brought in for the scene. Flakes of fresh snow fell from another rig positioned above the brightly lit stage.

“Imagine having the funds to put something like this together to sell our invention.”

Their usual coffee place was just ahead but, instead of heading inside, Jack detoured toward the crosswalk.

“Where are you going?” Howie asked.

“To take a closer look.”

Larry was right. They’d need a miracle in the next twenty-four hours to keep their dream alive. Jack knew it wouldn’t be the end of the world if they didn’t make this deal. He’d easily be able to get a job working for one of the high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. But he’d never wanted to work for anyone else. And just as this snowy scene in the middle of San Francisco had been some director’s impossible vision, Jack wanted to see his own impossible vision come to life, too.

A sixth sense had him moving quickly toward the Union Square set. He didn’t know exactly what he was going to learn by watching the filming of a movie or commercial. It was just that today he needed to witness fantasy become reality.

Turning up the collars of their suit jackets, and shoving their hands deep into their pockets to try to keep warm against the strong Bay breeze that whipped between the tall buildings, the three men crossed at a busy corner. They had just stepped up onto the sidewalk when the door to the trailer opened.

And the most beautiful woman in the world stepped out.

Jack stopped so suddenly that Howie and Larry both barreled hard into his back and a car rounding the corner nearly knocked them down.

Glossy, straight dark brown hair moved over shoulders covered in red velvet. Soft fabric clung to a perfect hourglass figure and swirled seductively around an incredible pair of legs, made even sleeker by extremely high heels. Long, elegant fingers were tipped with nails painted red to match the dress and the full lips that were curving up into a smile.

The woman on the Union Square set wasn’t only the most beautiful woman Jack had ever seen, she was also the most vibrant. As she took her place on the set beneath the lights the photographer began taking pictures of her. Though Jack didn’t know what it was she was selling, he wanted it anyway.

And her.

He wanted her, too.

“My girlfriend is never going to believe it when I tell her I saw Mary Ferrer live and in the flesh.” Howie’s expression was starstruck.

Larry’s eyebrows went up. “You know her name?”

“She’s on the covers of a bunch of magazines Layla has lying around in the living room. Hard to believe it, but Mary Ferrer is actually better looking in person.”

Men, women and kids of all ages stopped what they were doing in the middle of downtown San Francisco to watch the beautiful model pose for pictures. As she smiled, flirted and laughed for the camera, she was sexy without being too sexy, sweet without being too sweet.

A little girl broke free from her mother’s hand and barreled onto the set with a squeal of joy. The model scooped the girl up into her arms with a laugh, and the two of them chatted cheerfully until her mother rushed up to take her daughter back. Jack couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could see that Mary was waving away the woman’s apologies without a second thought.

That was when something inside Jack’s chest clenched tight…and he immediately knew why.

“She’s the answer to our problems.”

But what he felt when he looked at the beautiful stranger didn’t just come from thinking she could be the perfect spokesperson for their invention. Jack was a scientist who believed in what he could prove with numbers and calculations and wires and chips hooked together. At the same time, he’d been following a dream long enough to understand that passion lay beneath it all.

Suddenly, he had to ask himself, was love at first sight actually possible?

Larry and Howie had turned to stare at him as if he’d lost his mind. “How on earth could that gorgeous creature have anything to do with our problems?”

“Our device needs sex appeal. She’s got plenty of that. But we also need someone to represent it who will appeal to the broadest possible market.” He could see it all so clearly, just as clear as his first vision had been ten years ago. They would need both still shots and live commercials of her holding the Pocket Planner. Because people wouldn’t be able to take their eyes off her, they also wouldn’t miss the product she was selling. He gestured at the large crowd of men and women, boys and girls, of all ages. “Everyone is clearly mesmerized. Even two-year-olds can’t resist her.”

“Okay,” Howie said slowly, “you’re making some good points. But how are you going to convince Mary Ferrer to work with us? Especially since she has to be one of the most expensive models in the world, and our budget at this point barely covers our coffee.”

“Don’t worry,” Jack said. “I’ll convince her.”

Howie and Larry looked at each other with raised eyebrows, but neither of them expressed another doubt. Both of them knew that when Jack Sullivan decided to make something happen, it always did.

Chapter Two

Mary Ferrer could hardly believe this was her final photo shoot.

During a brief break when Gerry, the photographer, changed film and the hairstylist touched up her hair, she looked around at the set that had been created in Union Square for the shoot.

How many bright lights had she sat beneath in the past thirteen years? How many makeup artists and stylists had she worked with? How many high-fashion looks had she sold? How many beautiful pairs of shoes had she worn that had felt as if she’d been walking on nails? How many big cities had she flown to for fashion shows then departed from as soon as the curtain fell so that she could get to her next booking on time?

Though Mary never took her good fortune for granted, the truth was that she’d started to lose interest in all those fabulous trappings somewhere in her mid-twenties. She had been discovered at nineteen by a very well dressed young modeling scout who had passed through Mary’s small village looking for a cup of coffee while he was on vacation in Italy. The man had given Mary his card and had begged her to let him represent her as a model. She’d reached out for her big chance with both hands.

All her childhood friends had been either married or engaged by eighteen. Just like the other women in her village, Mary knew her girlfriends would have a handful of children by their mid-twenties…and they would stay in the same place their whole lives.

But Mary had always dreamed of more.

Of bigger.

And better.

She had always wanted to travel the world, had been filled with a deep need to see what else was out there. She’d read everything she could get her hands on in the library about other countries, from compelling travel journals to somewhat dry atlases. She’d also made sure to learn English so well that she could read it fluently by the time she’d graduated from school. Alone in her bedroom as a child, she would read her English language books out loud and try to mimic the tones of the actresses starring in the subtitled American movies at the theater in Rome.

Unfortunately, all Mary’s mother had wanted was for her to settle down with a nice man who was up to the job of “taming” her wild urges and giving her babies. If Mary closed her eyes and blocked out the sounds and activity around her, she could still remember their final conversation as if it had happened yesterday.

“I will not allow you to leave,” Lucia Ferrer had declared.

But Mary had not only inherited her mother’s dark hair, flashing blue eyes, and olive complexion, she’d inherited her stubbornness as well.

“This is my chance to finally get out of this small town,” she’d retorted in rapid-fire Italian. The two of them were so similar that the years since Mary had hit adolescence had been fraught with tension. Her father had done his best to try to smooth things out between mother and daughter, and she could see the alarm in his eyes at their exchange.

“That man you met at the coffee shop wants to take you to New York so that you can bare your skin to strangers in flashy clothes after they’ve painted your face with makeup like a tramp.”

Terribly frustrated with the way her mother was automatically assuming the worst—and the fact that she wasn’t giving Mary any credit at all for knowing right from wrong—she explained again. “Randy is a scout who works with a very successful agency. He says he can get me work as a model with famous designers in Paris and London and New York City.” Lifting her chin, she declared, “There’s nothing you can say or do that will stop me from going.”

But her mother refused to see things Mary’s way. “If you leave today, don’t bother ever coming back. You will no longer be my daughter.”

In that moment, one she’d never forget, Mary had let her mother’s absolute refusal to see reason—and her own flaring temper—push her all the way out the door and away from their small country village.

But Mary had never believed her mother would stand by her threat.

She’d been wrong.

As Mary opened her eyes, she was glad of the chance to focus on the lights and excitement of downtown San Francisco at Christmastime rather than giving in to the gnawing pain in her heart that had grown bigger and bigger over the years that she'd been estranged from her parents.

But though she dearly wished she and her mother could have seen eye to eye over her career opportunities, Mary couldn’t imagine giving up the experiences she’d had all over the world or having had the chance to work with so many talented and passionate people. The past thirteen years had been exciting, lucrative and challenging. Despite the long hours and working in conditions like today, when the winter wind blew straight through the thin velvet of her dress and chilled her from the inside out, she would never complain about her career.

Gerry, one of her favorite photographers, moved to where she was standing at the side of the set with an apologetic smile on his face. “Sorry for the delay, Mary. I know it’s cold out here. Are you ready to get started again so we can finish up and then go get warm?”

Shaking off her thoughts of the past, she smiled back at him. “Absolutely.”

But instead of picking up where they’d left off, he put his hand on her arm. “I still can’t believe this is the last time I’ll get to photograph you. Please tell me you’ve changed your mind.”

Mary would have hugged him if it didn’t mean sending all of the stylists into a panic and losing another fifteen minutes to more touch-ups to her hair and makeup and clothes.

She’d had an amazing career and was still in high demand around the world for both print campaigns and runway shows, but after seeing what happened to models when they kept working past their prime, and how bitter they became when they were inevitably passed over for younger women, she’d made the decision to step into the next phase of her life.

“I’ve loved working with you, Gerry. Hopefully, we’ll work together again in a different way in the future.”