He didn’t usually wear sunglasses at night. But with this crowd, he had surmised that he might look more as if he belonged by wearing them than not. He hadn’t been mistaken. Even the guards at the gates checking IDs and invitations were wearing shades. Though in the colorful but soft light bathing the place, he was surprised that they could read anything.
Maybe they didn’t read. Maybe they just knew. Or perhaps the rumor circulating among the less fortunate was true and exquisite beauty got you in, with or without an invitation. He noticed that the guards were only scrutinizing the IDs of the “regular” people, and then only if they didn’t recognize and approve of the labels being worn.
He thanked the two burly men at the gate who stepped aside after eyeing him carefully. He had the height to match them, but he’d never been built like a bulldog, though he worked out enough each day to keep up the muscle he needed. He supposed, however, that for this evening, his appearance of being tall and lean worked well, and it made the clothes fit better, anyway.
Once across the lawn, as he neared the house, he noticed a bevy of beauties on the porch. They were sipping cocktails and posing. Perched on the railing, seated at the edge of a chair, legs folded just so, elegant and certainly provocative. They weren’t being overt about anything—these girls weren’t looking for careers as porn stars. They were shooting for the big leagues, for uberstardom. Swimsuit issues and the covers of fashion magazines.
They must have seen instantly that, though his features were attractive, he wasn’t young, and he was far from model perfect. In their world, that meant he was money.
He was welcomed with a cascade of hellos and smiles, a few of them more obvious than the rest. He smiled in return and made sure to look like a businessman with a personal interest in the modeling business. The Bryson Agency, with offices not only across the country but around the world, was one of the most reputable in the business, known for creating some of the most highly paid celebrity models of the century, women far above the sleazy sex-for-a-swimsuit-spread trade-offs that were common at the low end of the profession, though he suspected some girls would certainly be more willing than others to engage in a little extracurricular activity to achieve the goal of stardom.
But that was different, of course. Or was it?
But as to the agency being legitimate …
It was so aboveboard, in fact, that only her family and friends had even looked twice at the agency when a girl had disappeared on a shoot. Bryson hired beautiful girls and offered them the world; the disappearance of one would-be model was not enough to keep the star-seekers away. Two months ago, Colleen Rodriguez—a typical young Miami woman whose Cuban and Irish-American genes had combined to create a green-eyed, raven-haired beauty—had disappeared while on a shoot for the agency in the Keys. Both the Monroe County and Miami-Dade authorities had been mystified, with some believing the girl had been the victim of foul play, while others believed that though she had been seeing a man named Mark Johnston, she was young and impressionable—and ambitious—and might have run off with someone who could offer her a bigger career and the promise of big money. Alive and well or dead and gone, Colleen had been over twenty-one when she had taken the job and sailed off to the shoot on the privately owned island. With no body and no evidence of foul play, she was officially classed as a missing person, and her case remained open.
Luke didn’t think she’d left of her own volition, though. Her best friend, Rene Gonzalez, was listed through the agency, as well. Rene was avoiding her parents, certain that their overprotective instincts in the wake of Colleen’s disappearance were going to cost her a career, so whether she really believed it or not, she was insisting that Colleen had disappeared on purpose. And so he was here, suddenly an up-and-coming designer, to find a way to speak with Rene and see what she knew that could help him discover the truth about Colleen.
“Hi there.” A lissome blonde uncrossed long legs and stood as she saw him coming, then offered him a perfectly manicured hand. “I’m Lena Marconi. And you’re …?”
Luke produced a card. “Jack Smith, Mermaid Designs,” he said. “A pleasure to meet you.”
“Mermaid Designs?” Lena asked, her gray eyes smoldering. “Beach clothing?”
“Exactly, women’s beach clothing,” Luke said. “Bikinis, tankinis—'inis’ of all kinds.”
“How wonderful,” Lena gushed.
A dark-haired woman rose with a fluidity that might have been spellbinding if it hadn’t been so practiced. “A bathing-suit designer! How perfect. They’re just starting to plan the next agency swimsuit calendar, you know,” she said as she offered an elegant hand. “Maddy Trent, late of Amarillo, Texas, and quite fond of South Beach. A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Smith.”
“Likewise,” he assured her.
There were two more women sitting on the porch, both blondes. The first, very light, with huge blue eyes and a look of friendly amusement about her, rose. “Hi there, Mr. Smith. I’m Victoria Preston. Please, come in. I’ll introduce you to Myra—Myra Allen, the head of the Miami office—and see that you get something to drink.”
The fourth woman, seated on a gently swinging wicker love seat, didn’t move, though she looked at him assessingly. There was a touch of red in the smooth fall of blond hair that curled around her shoulders. Her eyes were green, lime-green, almost like a cat’s eyes. She continued to survey him thoughtfully, without speaking. Strange—she didn’t look as if she was trying to appear cool and aloof; she was just more interested in studying him than introducing herself.
Interesting.
“Chloe?” Victoria Preston said quietly.
“Oh, of course.” The woman with the sunset-streaked blond hair rose. She was tall, five-nine, maybe, hard to tell. She was wearing sandals with small, weirdly shaped heels, probably the newest thing. She wasn’t the most classically beautiful of the four—that title would have gone to Victoria—but she was the most intriguing. It was her eyes. They were light colored, but also large and well set, and just slightly tilted, giving her a look of mystery. She had a wide smile and full lips, perfect white teeth. A necessity, he imagined, in her business. She wasn’t quite as thin as the others; she looked more like an athlete or a runner.
She offered him a hand at last. “Chloe … Marin,” she said.
It was a strange hesitation, as if she didn’t really want to identify herself. The first name came easily, the surname not so much. Maybe it was a model’s equivalent of a pen name because she had a tongue twister of a last name with twenty syllables or six consonants in a row. Awkward to say. Schwartzenkopfelmeyer or Xenoskayanovich or something.
Or maybe, instinctively, she just didn’t trust him.
“Chloe, nice to meet you,” he said.
“You’re a designer?” she said.
He nodded.
The ghost of a smile played over her lips, and skepticism touched her eyes.
“Chloe, let’s introduce Mr. Smith to Myra,” Victoria urged.
“Oh, look who’s coming!” Maddy drawled. “It’s Vincente!”
“Vincente … who?” Lena asked.
“Vincente. Just Vincente,” Maddy said. “There was just a huge article on him in GQ!“
Luke tried not to laugh out loud; he had just become dog chow as far as Maddy from Amarillo was concerned.
“Come