Page 10 of The Enslaved Duet

“Yes, I was lucky enough to work with some of the most talented people in Italy.” The memory of my time with Intimissimi warmed me, and I felt my usual confidence return, straightening my spine.

“Yes, well, this isn’t a dinky little national campaign.” Freida Liv stared at me with her glacier eyes. “Things are done differently here at St. Aubyn. You have some good runway experience…” She flipped carelessly through the photos of my runway walks for Dolce & Gabbana and Valentino. “But that isn’t what St. Aubyn is looking for.”

“What Freida means to say is”—Jensen shot his colleague a look that spoke volumes—“St. Aubyn is an international fashion house with a cosmetic line, ready to wear and fragrance. You will have to be as adaptive as a chameleon and as strong as a jungle cat. We want someone women envy, Miss Lombardi. We want St. Aubyn to transition from staid, formal wear to sophisticated sex.”

“You’ll need more than a new face to do that,” I said before I could help it. My hand flew to my mouth, but I lowered it just as quickly. Not thinking before I spoke had always been one of my greatest flaws. They might as well know it before hiring me.

Jensen’s white eyebrow rose in his caramel face. “True, it starts with the designers, the creative directors, and the company, but it will end with you, and that is all consumers care about.”

I opened my mouth to ask another question but stopped myself. This was not the kind of environment when it was appropriate for a run of the mill model to make inquiries. Jace Galantine noticed my hesitation and nodded to prompt me.

“Why not hire an actress then? It’s the standard now and I’m sure you’ve been approached by some of the best to represent your revamped brand.”

Jace nodded like a professor pleased with his student even though Freida Liv glared at me viciously. “The new CEO wanted to go another way.”

“It’s a test really,” Jensen explained gruffly, excitement flaring in his tired eyes. “Of the brand. Can we take a no-name beauty and propel her to stardom?” Freida scoffed delicately, but the two men ignored her. “If so, it would do more for the brand than an actor with an identity separate from the brand. Brooke Shields and Calvin Klein Jeans, Adriana Lima and Victoria Secret.” He opened his palms. “A new image calls for a new face.”

“Enough.” Freida cut in, her eyes cold on my face. “Renna will take you to try on a few items.”

I nodded, my heart beating heavily in my chest. My hands shook as Renna helped me pull on the assorted items, a white organza dress that moved over my body like sheets of luminous fog and a brilliant red suit made of individually cut lace panels cut in a sharp V to my belly button. This was the opportunity of a lifetime and I had no idea what to do in order to stand out. I thought of the beautiful women outside, just as capable as me if not more so, and of my family back in Napoli. Fierce determination flooded my blood, hot and vibrant. When I returned to the room in each outfit, I could feel the strength shine like gold lamé against my skin. When I entered wearing the white gown, even Willa Percy seemed impressed.

After three dresses and four separates, I once again faced my panel of judges, but somehow the atmosphere had changed, iced over, and they each stared at me apathetically. It took only a moment for me to discover why.

“Ciao, Cosima.”

Landon Knox lounged in the doorway, his salt and pepper hair and beard melding with the shadows to creature the allusion of a man with no face. But I knew what he looked like in the sun, the shade, at night and noon. I knew because the agent who stood before me had been the reason I became a model in the first place.

A brutal shiver raked my spine. “Mr. Knox.”

His smile was thin on his pretty face as he stepped forward into the light. “I should have known you’d be here, scratching your way up the ladder like a starved cat.”

The contempt in his voice made me nauseated, but I tilted my chin. “I work hard.”

“Oh, I know.” He was close now, almost directly in front of me, and I glanced uneasily at my judges to see if they would interfere. Though the two men and Willa looked uncomfortable, Freya smiled prettily at me. “But you won’t be here, not for St Aubyn.”

He leaned close and lowered his voice so that his breath passed over my face in a sickly hot wave. “I told you when you left me, you wouldn’t work in Italy again.”

I swallowed the sob that rose in my throat and glared up at Landon, a man I had not so long ago thought I desperately loved. “That’s your loss then, Mr. Knox.” I turned to my panel of judges and smiled demurely even though my eyes were hot with anger. “Thank you for your time, I won’t waste any more of it.”

With my head held high and my fists furled tightly at my sides, I left the room. It was only when I passed the dozens of beautiful faces in the outer room, when I was safely out on the anonymous streets of Milano that I leaned my head against the brick building and fought the urge to cry.

Sweat beaded on my forehead even though I stood concealed in the shade of the alley next to the building, but I was grateful for the familiar heat and constant cacophony of Milanese traffic at midday. I pressed the back of my head to the cool stone of the building I had just emerged so unsuccessfully from and fought the crushing sense of failure that threatened to rob me of breath. We needed the money that job could have brought. I was the primary breadwinner for my family of five, and though I had been modelling since I was fourteen, the blow of rejection still hit particularly hard.

I gritted my teeth at the thought of Landon ruining the go-see for me. He was an Englishman and an editor at ItalianVogue. His special interest in me when I was just a girl was the very reason I was a model now. Once, when I was young and impressionable, he had been more of a paternal figure than my own biological father. He wasn’t that old, in his mid-forties now, but compared to a fourteen-year-old me, he seemed ancient and safe in his old age. In a sense, he was. He never tried to sexually manipulate me, but that is where the line was drawn in the sand.

It didn’t stop him from dictating what I ate, how much I slept, what I wore to go-sees and then even at home with my own family, and how I comported myself around others. I was always to defer to him.

It was a relationship doomed to fail from the start.

You see, I’d never been very deferential.

Our relationship ended seven months ago, the same day I’d been admitted to the hospital for complications from anorexia.

I pushed off from the wall and tugged at the hem of my slightly sheer blouse and smoothed a hand over my hair, ready to head to the metro and back to my tiny shared apartment on the outskirts of town. The only reason I noticed the person passing by was because his earphones had become unplugged from his iPod and the tin-like sound of his music made me look over as he walked up the alley toward me. He was a handsome boy, not much younger than myself, but it was the expression on those features that worried me. His eyes darted quickly between the cars crawling along the street and when a sleek black Town Car pulled up in front of the building, blocking the entrance to the alley, he shuffled almost excitedly from foot to foot.

Cautiously, I moved closer to him, wondering what he was so obviously waiting for. My eyes were on him, but I could see someone emerge from the car and move towards the building I had just left. The boy bounced on his toes—once, twice—and I recognized the giddy fear in his stance as he launched forward.

Before I could consciously debate the decision to do so, I was following him. I swallowed a second of terror when I saw the unmistakable gleam of a gun in his hand as he took three looping strides forward, his fingers white knuckled over the butt. He held it uneasily though, and I drew confidence and conclusion from his shaky grip.