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Chapter One - JEX

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New York City—Early December

 

After trudging through a fresh layer of snow to his upper west-side apartment, Jex Radcliffe would ordinarily have been looking forward to a quiet Friday evening alone. Half a decade beyond most peoples’ prime marrying years found him happy enough living solo, and the extra hours alone had given him time for some much-needed work.

 

Nothing since September—when his relationship with Marla had come to a salty end—brought him more joy than thinking about his prospects as an up-and-coming entrepreneur. Focusing on that part of his life seemed much more productive nowadays than dating, despite an occasional nudge from good-intentioned, married, or otherwise committed friends that he should get back on the proverbial dating horse and find that kind of happiness for himself. No one, according to their logic, should be alone for Christmas.

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His quick stop at Ming’s Corner Teahouse to pick up take-out for two would have excited most of those well-meaning friends, but their enthusiasm would just as quickly have faded after finding out his date for the weekend was his younger sister.

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With the brown, Hanzi-stamped paper bag in one hand, he hefted his camera case’s strap higher onto his shoulder, unlocked the apartment door, and shook off his coat in the foyer.

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“You’re so lucky I’m here.” Natalie’s voice rounded the corner from inside the living room.

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He set the case on the floor and glanced in a hall mirror. Brushing a hand through his hair to comb out the melted snow, he slicked back the longer brown strands crowning an otherwise military style cut.

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“I’m sure you’re here to tell me exactly why. And, by the way, don’t be shy about letting yourself in.” Hanging his coat on the foyer rack, he draped his scarf across another peg to dry.

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When he stepped into the living room, he spotted his sister lounging on the couch with a laptop propped on a throw pillow in front of her. 

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“Being shy has never been on my list of things to try. And you’re predictable. Key under the flowerpot? C’mon. Besides, I’ve come to solve all your problems, so why on earth would I wait for you to get home before letting myself in?”

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“You assume I have problems to solve.”

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“Of course you do.” She nearly snorted. “You’re a man without a woman. Yin without yang. Mac without cheese.”

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“I’ll take my yang-and-cheese-free chances.”

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“After your tryst with Monster Marla I can see why.” She jumped up from the couch and bounded across the room for what most would think was an overdue hug from her brother. After all, they hadn’t seen each other in person for a solid three months. He suspected Natalie’s trip from Chicago to the Big Apple was as much a self-care trip as a need to visit her big brother. SoHo Christmas shopping was always a draw. Instead of offering a hug, she stopped short, popped her hip against his, and grabbed the take-out.

 

“Mmm, my favorite.” Looking him over as she sniffed the savory bag, she cocked her head. “Man, those luscious locks of yours are getting longer. Do me a favor and don’t go back to a total crew cut anytime soon. We’d have to redo your branding, and I’m not in the business of working my magic all the time.”

 

“Whaddaya mean ‘all the time’?”

 

“I, my dear brother, have performed yet another astonishing feat. I’ve found the answer to the Marla problem. Thank me now. Then thank me again later. My ego will approve.”

 

“Are you still hung up on my using that girl you were telling me about for the photo spread?”

 

“Uh, yeah.” She plopped back onto the couch. “Doppelgangers are a thing. And believe me,” she said, “this one’s a dead ringer for Marla. I wouldn’t be so willing to arrange this if she weren’t.”

 

“How’d you find her anyway?” Jex sat down across from Natalie in an overstuffed chair. As she pulled take-out boxes from the bag, he scooped one up and peeled the paper wrapping from a set of chopsticks. 

 

“Coincidence, really. Remember about six months ago when you asked me to jump onto your account in the Digital Review Forum to get up to speed on the photography scene?” She began unwrapping her chopsticks. “It was just after I agreed to become your virtual assistant.”

 

“You mean after you begged me for a job.” He smirked.

 

“What. Ever.” She wadded up the wrapper and tossed it at him. “Anyway, that’s when I met this girl, Honeybee, online. Too cutesy a username for my tastes, but she’s got some talent. She was asking for some guidance—maybe some one-on-ones—on the forum. Says she’s a hands-on learner. I think she’s a little unsure of herself.”

 

“I like it—the name.” He opened a box of Kung Pao chicken, and steam escaped from the container.

 

“Anyway, you remember when you brought ‘Marla the model’ home?” Natalie air-quoted her description and further punctuated it with a subtle eye roll. “Well, that was shortly after I met this girl on the forum. Remember, I even asked Miss Prissy Pants then if she had a sister? She looked that much like Honeybee’s profile picture.”

 

“Yeah.” He remembered some of it alright. It was when the Marla problem all started. Her coming home with him was the reason he was in this mess in the first place. He thought she was flying with him from New York to Chicago to meet his parents, but she had another motive altogether.

 

Weeks before their trip, he’d told her about scheduling his first meeting with Hughley Photographics to present his new camera prototype. After she’d sufficiently pumped him for details, she stepped in with a request. Maybe “demand” was the more accurate word. She badgered him, until he finally relented, to let her pose as his assistant-slash-model while he presented the prototype.

 

Getting in front of the CEO of a company specializing in all-things photography, she said, would give her some networking clout on the modeling scene. Jex just wanted to present his concept.

 

The biggest problem? When they went for the meeting, Hughley liked Marla. Called Jex back and said she had the right look to represent the product, and he wanted them both. Unfortunately, that came a few days after Jex had pulled the plug on his relationship with Marla.

 

“If I’d only realized then the trouble she’d cause coming to Chicago. I could kick myself.”

 

“I’d line up for that.” Natalie grinned over her take-out box. “But all is said and done. No sense in moaning over it now. From what you’ve told me about Hughley’s demands, I would be tempted to tell him and his people to kiss off, though.” She poked at the box of rice with her chopsticks.

 

“And ruin my chances of landing the contract of the decade? We’ve had our silver spoon, Nat, but I’d like to make my own name in the world—something besides being Langston Radcliffe’s son. That’s why I moved to New York in the first place. And I’m still a little wounded about having to go back to Chicago to get my sea legs under Hughley.”

 

“I’m just saying, if they hinge your genius on your fiancée’s looks?”

 

“Ex-fiancée.”

 

Natalie huffed. “Anyway, I see no merit in their judgment, that’s all.” She stabbed the air with her chopsticks. “Pretty face?” —she lifted the Kung Pao chicken box— “or genius? Put those two on a scale, and genius tips it every time in my book. I don’t understand why another model wouldn’t do.”

 

Jex shrugged.

 

In the follow-up call that came two weeks after the breakup, Mr. Hughley’s assistant had requested for Jex to come back with the prototype flaws corrected and a montage of shots with Marla as the model, showing it off. That would still leave plenty of time, he said, for fine-tuning before the unveiling of the new design at the Digital Imagists Association’s spring awards ceremony.

 

For added measure, he also expected Jex to have the model in tow on ceremony night, if he cleared all the other hurdles. According to the assistant, Hughley fully expected Marla to play a part in the public unveiling.

 

“And you said Hughley wanted her at the ceremony too? Why?” Natalie frowned. “Even if you did have her for the montage, her job would be done once the pictures were complete, right?”

 

“If only.” Jex sighed. “You want to know what I think?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “He likes his women tall, tawny, and tethered.”

 

“Tethered? You know I have no warm fuzzies for Marla, but she’s not a goat. So, what’s that supposed to mean?”

 

Jex smirked. “I’ve got my theory.”

 

“Which is?”

 

“If she’s in a relationship, he sees it as more than a business conquest. I made the mistake of introducing her as my fiancée when we had that first meeting.”

 

“Your species can be so obscene!” She rolled her eyes again as she set the half-emptied box on the table.

 

“The problem is Hughley’s the top dog for pushing this project. I deliver to them, or I don’t deliver at all. And my chances of catapulting my career will take a nose-dive if word makes the circuit that Hughley tossed Jex Radcliff out with yesterday’s junk mail.”

 

“Look, I want you to get this deal, but as your top aide, not to mention your exceptionally astute sibling, I’m attaching some strings. If I do set up the mentorship with this girl from the forum and you can get her to fill in for Marla in those photos, you can’t let Hughley make moves on her if it goes all the way to awards night. She’s not some piece of meat. What’s this guy? Probably twice her age?”

 

“Assuming she’s close in age to Marla, yeah, at least. How’d you guess?”

 

“He’s old enough to have a multi-million-dollar company, it must have taken some time to build his empire, and ninety-nine-point-nine-two percent of the time it’s always the middle-aged man with a Don Juan complex . . . or is it Don Quixote?” she asked, mostly to herself. “I always get those two mixed up.”

 

“Yeah, well, if I do this, I wouldn’t plan on her sticking around once I have the spread and she signs the release. If I could just get my pictures, surely I could sell Hughley on the prototype without having to feed his ego with the model.”

 

“Don’t get too cocky. You might have to run this little charade all the way from beginning to end.”

 

“Nah.” Jex shook his head. “He’s likely to have his sights on someone else by then. He strikes me as too impatient to wait around for one solitary girl.”

 

“Either way, if anyone sees potential of any kind in Honeybee—specifically of the professional variety—it should probably be you, since you’ll be lined up to help her with her own photography business.”

 

“She obviously has some potential, or she wouldn’t be on the forum. That group’s admins are selective.”

 

Natalie dabbed the corner of her mouth with a brown paper napkin. “Yeah, and who knows. You could meet up with her in Chicago and find out that she’s more than just your ticket out of this mess.”

 

When he caught his sister’s gaze over a box of rice, he shook his head. “You’re not suggesting—”

 

“Yeah, I’m suggesting. Listen, I get why you were attracted to Marla. She’s drop-dead gorgeous, but she had the personality of a dummy in a window display. Painted lips and a disposition as stiff as a board. I don’t get that vibe from Honeybee. I figure if you two meet and you ease her into what you’re doing, you may hit it off, and then you’ll owe me for the rest of your life. I wouldn’t mind that—claiming my brother’s eternal indebtedness.” She grinned over her chopsticks.

 

“Remind me again why we aren’t just being up front with her.”

 

“Are you kidding? Do you know how fast you’d scare off any girl with an IQ above your bicep measurement if you went to her and said, ‘So I’ll teach you a few things about business if you pretend to be my girl for a couple of weekends this year?’ She’d tell you to flash a Benjamin Franklin at the nearest shady street corner and draw in a catch that way. Sheesh!”

 

He put up his hands in surrender. “Alright. Point noted.”

 

“So, is that your go-ahead to put plans into play?”

 

He let out a long sigh, agitation creeping into his thoughts. Setting the now empty take-out box on the coffee table, he stood and walked to the window. The tapering flurries falling on the streets of Manhattan left a covering like a tufted quilt, pleated around the corners and tucked over curbs and parked cars. 

 

He studied the dips and drifts in the deepening snow, trying to convince himself that this was a good idea—a good way to start the new year. Never would he have imagined a few months ago trying to involve someone he didn’t even know, let alone under false pretenses. Hopefully, what Natalie was suggesting would work. He didn’t need or want someone’s hurt feelings on his conscience along with every other worry that came with this new business venture.

 

Finally, he turned to Natalie. “I’ll need the spread by mid-April at the latest, so we need to work within that timeframe. By then, I’ll have moved back to Chicago, likely staying at Mom and Dad’s until I can get settled into my own place. I’ll do the mentoring gig, spend a day or two with her on technique and business stuff. You just get her there. Everything else?” He pointed at her and furrowed his brow. “Leave to me.”

 

“Yeah, of course. You’re a big boy. Besides, why would I want anything else to do with it? Except the eternal indebtedness part.”

 

“Do you really think this’ll work?” He shot her a glance.

 

“It will or it won’t. My money’s on a little honeybee though!” Natalie smirked and double-tapped her chopsticks in the air to drive her point home.