But I’ve done enough pageants and photo shoots to know that artists often like their subjects to start out as blank canvases. So here I sit with a naked face to match my soon-to-be-naked body.

I spend the next half hour at my computer fixing up my resume. I shoot it off to Thom, the headhunter who got me the job with Carl. I include an email explaining the situation so that he understands why I’m looking for a new job after less than a week at the first one. With luck, he won’t decide I’m a problem client and cut me loose. With even more luck, he’ll get some new interviews lined up this week.

I still have a few minutes, so I decide to work on some code. But instead of pulling up my template, I find myself typing Damien’s name into a search engine. I’m not looking for anything in particular. I just want to know more. Instead of satisfying me, the bits and pieces of himself Damien has tossed my direction have only whetted my appetite.

Not surprisingly, I get about as many hits as the man has dollars. His tennis career, his industrial empire, his philanthropic causes. His women. Though I’m still desperately curious about his youth, I can’t fight the compulsion to narrow the search to Damien and the women he’s been photographed with. I click on the link that shows me images only, then sit back as an array of beauties fill my screen, each on Damien Stark’s sexy but enigmatic arm.

Damien has rarely been photographed with the same woman twice, which matches what he told me. I find one girl and click back to the original source of the image. It’s a celebrity gossip blog, and the woman is identified as Giselle Reynard. When I look closer, I recognize her as Audrey Hepburn with much longer hair. Some of the tension leaves me. I already know that Giselle is married.

There are also a number of pictures that show Damien with a wide-eyed blonde identified as Sara Padgett. Several of the captions reveal that Sara was found asphyxiated. And though none come out and claim that Damien was involved, there are enough hints that I have to wonder if these photos and captions are Sara Padgett’s brother’s doing, and if this is the kind of stuff that Damien is pushing Mr. Maynard to fight.

I press my finger to my monitor and touch Damien’s face, but my eyes are on Sara. Did she kill herself on purpose? Or was she really trying to get off and died accidentally? Either way makes me sad. I’ve felt so lost and helpless that I hurt myself in order to feel real, but I never crossed that line into desiring death. On the contrary, I was trying to find that pulse of life inside me.

I close out the website. I’m already melancholy, and this is not the way to feel better. Instead, I go to YouTube and watch old Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire dance clips. I start with “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”

Fred is just dipping Ginger when there’s a knock at my door. I shut my laptop, grab my purse, and head for the front of the apartment. Already my pulse has quickened and my body is more aware of the space it’s occupying, as if readying itself to share that space with another human being.

I pause, take a deep breath, and reach for the doorknob.

I tug the door open expecting to see Damien, and am surprised to find Edward. “Oh,” I say. “I thought—”

“Mr. Stark apologizes,” Edward says. “He got held up.”

“I see.” I follow him to the car, each of my steps weighed down with disappointment—and with a rising anger. Not at Damien, but at myself. I’ve been letting myself get lost in girlish fantasies, and I’ve lost sight of the larger picture. I’m something Damien bought, like his hotel or his jet or his car. I’m not his girlfriend or his lover. Not really. I’m simply his, and that’s okay because I agreed to it and I’m getting paid for it. But I can’t start thinking that a tantalizing arrangement has some semblance to reality. This is a game to him, and I came in as a willing player, negotiating hard for the terms I wanted.

I got them, too. And I remind myself of that important fact. It may feel as though Damien has all the power, but he doesn’t. I kept a little bit of control—and I’ll walk away with a million.

The grounds are dotted with workmen when we arrive. They’re hauling dirt, planting flowers, clearing rocks. Another crew works on the stone facade on the eastern-facing wall. At least I assume it faces the east. As far as I’m concerned, anything that looks out on the California ocean is west and the opposite is east.

For a moment I fear that there are workmen inside, too, because I never added privacy to my conditions. I assumed that only Damien and the artist would be there. But now, seeing these men …

Surely Damien wouldn’t ask me to stand naked in front of the world?

Don’t be so sure.

But when Edward opens the door for me and leads me in, I see that my fears are unfounded. The place is silent except for the soft strains of music coming from somewhere in the back.

The house is not yet finished, but the shell is firmly in place. The walls still need painting, the wood needs to be finished. Light fixtures are missing, with only a few dangling wires indicating where they will go. But the grandeur of the home is obvious. The ceilings soar. The floors are stunning, even though I can see only bits and pieces under the protective brown paper. And the marble staircase and twisted iron handrail look like something out of a five-star hotel.

I follow Edward up that staircase, and the change when we step onto the third floor landing is astonishing. There is nothing raw or half-complete about this area. The wood floors are polished to a shine, and accented by thick, expensive area rugs. The walls are painted in a pale rose, and I imagine that the space glows at sunset.

The entire room is stunning and inviting. It’s obviously meant for entertaining, despite the fact that the focal point is a giant bed. It’s been put there for my benefit, I’m certain, and I squeeze my thighs together in an attempt to stall the blood that is rushing to my sex.

The room appears to be missing a wall, but I quickly realize that the wall is made of glass partitions that have been pushed aside and hidden, like pocket doors taken to the extreme. I step outside and find myself on a stone balcony that looks out over the ocean. It’s closer than I expected considering how twisting and turning our drive was, and I can actually hear the crash of the waves.

“Mr. Stark will be right with you,” Edward says, and then he bows and leaves, and I’m left to explore on my own.

Part of me wants to stay outside and feel the sea breeze on my hair and listen to the ocean crashing beneath me. But I want to see the room. I go back inside and stand by the bed. It is positioned at an angle to the wide-open wall, and in that area sheer drapes have been hung from the ceiling. They flutter now in the breeze. An easel stands a few feet away, and I know that this area has been staged. For me. I tremble at the thought and run my hand over one of the bedposts. It’s old-fashioned, iron polished to a reflective sheen. Sturdy and yet sensual. Like Damien. Strong. As if this bed has demands of its own.