And she was determined to prove it.
“You like being a cocktail waitress, bella? You like men touching you, rubbing up against you, thinking you’re for sale along with the drinks and the chips?”
The heat in her cheeks spread, suffusing her with an angry glow. “No, I don’t. But it’s just about all I’m qualified for.”
“And if I were to offer you something else? A better way to earn your money?”
Her stomach was beginning to churn. “I won’t be your mistress.”
He blinked at her. And then he laughed again, and she felt the hot, sticky slide of embarrassment in her veins. Oh, for pity’s sake. After the way the woman he’d been with tonight looked, did she truly think he was interested in her?
But he had been once. She hadn’t dreamed it. Nicky was proof she had not.
“Charming, Holly. But I don’t need to pay a woman to be my mistress. If I were to choose you for that...position...I am certain you would not refuse.”
Holly could only gape at his utter self-confidence. “It’s a wonder you bother with casinos when you have such bad instincts. I’m surprised you haven’t lost everything when you reason like that in the face of such overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”
“Dio,” he said, “but you are a stubborn woman. How did we end up in bed together again?” He didn’t wait for her reply. He nodded sagely as if answering his own question. “Ah, yes, that’s right. You were deceiving me.”
Shame suffused her at that mention of their night together. But she didn’t bother to deny it. He wouldn’t believe it anyway. “Clearly, you like your women to shut up and do as they’re told.”
“Which you seem to be incapable of doing,” he growled.
“Fine,” she snapped. “Tell me what you want so I can say no.”
His stare was unnerving. But not because it made her uncomfortable. More likely because she wanted to drown in it. “I want you to model for the Sky campaign.”
Holly’s mouth went dry. Sky was the signature fragrance from NC, the one she’d modeled for in New York when she hadn’t been able to tell Drago why she was really there. “That’s not funny,” she said tightly.
His expression was dead serious. “I’m not joking, Holly. I want you for Sky.”
“I did that already,” she said. “It didn’t work out, as I recall.”
He shrugged. “A mistake. One we can rectify now.”
The trembling in her belly wasn’t going away. It was spreading through her limbs, making her teeth chatter. She clamped her jaw tight and tried not to let it show. Thankfully, the car was dark and the lights from the city didn’t penetrate the tinted windows quite as well as they otherwise would have.
“I don’t think it’s possible,” she said. And it wasn’t. How would she go to New York with a three-month-old baby in tow? She didn’t think that was what Drago had in mind at all.
“Of course it is. I will pay you far more than you earn in that casino. You will do the shoot and any appearances that are needed, and you will be handsomely rewarded. It’s a win for you, Holly.”
She thought of her baby in his secondhand crib, of the tiny, dingy apartment she shared with Gabi. The air conditioner was one window unit that rattled and coughed so badly she was never certain it would keep working. The carpet was faded and torn, and the appliances were always one usage away from needing repairs.
It was a dump, a dive, and she would do just about anything to get out of there and take her baby to a better life.
But what if he didn’t mean it? What if he was toying with her? What if this was simply another way to punish her for not telling him the truth in New York?
She wouldn’t put it past him. A man who threw her out and then refused all contact? Who didn’t know he had a son, because he was so damn arrogant as to think she would want to contact him for any other reason than to tell him something important?
He was capable of it. More than capable.
“I want a contract,” she said. “I want everything spelled out, legal and binding, and if it’s legit, then I’ll do it.”
Because what choice did she have? She wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t going to turn this opportunity down when it could mean everything to her child. Once she had a contract, signed and ironclad, she would feel much more in control.
“Fine.”
Holly blinked. She hadn’t expected him to agree to that.
“I hope you’re certain about this,” she said, unable to help herself when her teeth were still chattering and her body still trembling. What if this was a mistake? What if she were opening up Pandora’s box with this act? How could she not be opening Pandora’s box, when she had a three-month-old baby, and this man didn’t know he was a father? “You know I’m not a model. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Which is precisely why you’re correct for the campaign. Sky is for the real woman who wants to recapture a certain something about her life. Her youth, her innocence, her sex appeal.”
Irritation slid into her veins. “I’ve smelled Sky. It’s not bad, but it’s not all that, either.”
The match-scent of anger rolled from him again. Why, oh, why did she feel the need to antagonize him? Just take the money and shut up, she told herself. The silence between them was palpable. And then he spoke. “Ah, yes, because you are an expert perfumer, correct?”
Sarcasm laced his voice. It made her madder than she already was, regardless that she knew she shouldn’t push him.
“You have no idea. As I recall, you threw me out before I could show you.”
He sat back in the limo then, his long limbs relaxing as if he were about to take a nap. She knew better, though. He was more like a panther, stretching out and pretending to relax when what he really planned was to bring down a gazelle.
“It takes years to learn how to blend perfumes. It also takes very intense training, and a certain sensitivity to smell. While you may have enjoyed mixing up essences you’ve ordered off the internet for all your friends, and while many of them may have told you how fabulous you are, that’s hardly the right sort of training to create perfume for a multinational conglomerate, now, is it?”
Rage burned low in her belly, along with a healthy dose of uncertainty. It wasn’t that she wasn’t good, but she often felt the inadequacy of her origins in the business. She had no curriculum vitae, no discernable job experience. How could she communicate to anyone that she was worthy of a chance without backing it up with fragrance samples?
She glanced out the window, but they weren’t quite to her neighborhood yet. So she turned back to him and tried very hard not to tell him to go to hell. He was so arrogant, so certain of himself.
And she suddenly burned to let him know it.
“It’s gratifying that you know so much about me already,” she said, a razor edge to her voice. “But perhaps you didn’t know that my grandmother was born in Grasse and trained there for years before she met her husband and moved to Louisiana. She gave up her dreams of working for a big house, but she never gave up the art. And she taught it to me.”
It wasn’t the kind of formal instruction he would expect, but Gran had been extremely good at what she did. And Holly was, too.
She heard him pull in a breath. “That may be, but it still does not make you an expert, bella mia.”
The accusation smarted. “Again, until you’ve tried my scents, you can’t really know that, can you?” She crossed her arms