Page 57 of Moonlight Over Seattle

“I’m nervous,” Crystal Draper said as she came outside, looking cute in a trim biking outfit.

“You’ll be fine.”

She was fine in the end, though she had to work for it. The photographer wanted “honest perspiration,” by which he meant Crystal riding an exercise bike until moisture gathered on her forehead.

Periodically Nicole was aware of Jordan snapping his own pictures.

“What’s his thing about?” another model, Martin Carter, asked during a break, gesturing toward Jordan. Martin was a college student trying to earn money toward graduate school, though he was still deciding between architecture and engineering.

“That’s Jordan Masters. He’s writing a series of articles for PostModern magazine,” Nicole explained. “There won’t be anything printed about you without your permission. He’s going to ask for a release, and if you don’t want to sign it, that’s entirely your decision.”

“But it might help our careers, right?” Crystal asked. “It’s good exposure to get into a big magazine like PostModern, even if we aren’t paid.”

“True,” Nicole confirmed.

“Then he can take as many pictures of me as he wants.” She gazed at Jordan appreciatively. “He’s sure good-looking, isn’t he?”

“Say it a little louder,” Martin drawled, “I don’t think he heard you the first time.”

Crystal giggled.

There was no question that Jordan had heard. The half smile on his lips reminded Nicole of the teenaged boy she’d known long ago. Did any man completely lose the boy inside…and wasn’t that one of the things women found both appealing and irritating?

Pushing the thought away, she focused on the work. An hour later, her attention was caught by a commotion across the gym with the second photographer. He was shouting and the model was obviously at the point of tears.

Nicole hurried over. “Hey, how is it going?”

The photographer looked disgusted. “The blasted girl doesn’t know how to climb.”

Nicole raised an eyebrow. “Climbing wasn’t one of the skills you specified in your contract with Moonlight Ventures. Jackie fits everything your studio stated you were looking for when you chose her and the others at the go-see.”

“I guess, but I need someone who can scale a climbing wall,” he declared. Loudly.

“Apparently you don’t know how to fill out paperwork and fill in the right boxes and blanks, but I’m not yelling at you for it. Let me work with Jackie and we’ll see what can be done. What shot are you trying to get?”

He described what he wanted, the model in full climb, right hand reaching upward, coyly glancing over her left shoulder.

“That sounds familiar.” Nicole remembered it was the exact pose she’d done for a major sportswear ad a few years earlier.

“Maybe you could take over the shot, since you already know what I want.” His voice was eager, his eyes sharp and speculative.

Jackie’s expression fell.

“That isn’t possible,” Nicole said coolly. “I’m here as the agent for my client, not to take her place. Aside from that, copying another company’s advertising campaign would be unethical. It’s possible you might even get sued.” He couldn’t afford her modeling services, either, but that was beside the point.

“It isn’t going to be exactly the same. For one, that was outdoors, this is in a gym. Anyhow, you just…we didn’t have to use your agency and we don’t have to use it again.”

“That’s absolutely correct,” she agreed smoothly. “And we aren’t required to do business with anyone who doesn’t behave appropriately. This is a two-way street, Mr. Stanton.”

Jordan was approaching, a belligerent glint in his eyes, and Nicole got the strangest idea he was prepared to battle the photographer on her behalf. He halted when she fixed him with a sharp look and shook her head.

But as she started working with Jackie, the stray thought crossed her mind that Jordan might have latent knight-in-shining-armor instincts. It would be an interesting aspect to his self-defined skeptic persona.

A rather endearing one.

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