Crash Into Me(42)

"Don't look so unhappy. You'll love it," he whispered in my ear.

"I guess. Let me go get dressed and you can tell me all about it."

I turned to leave but he held me by the shoulders, forcing me to face him. My expression surely showed my disappointment, and I couldn't hide it. I didn't want to hide it.

"Nina, have faith in me," he said quietly, those brown eyes boring holes into my soul.

When he looked at me like that—like I meant more to him than anything else in the world—I wanted to believe he cared and wanted me to be happy like I wanted to make him happy. "I do," I said, half-believing it myself.

"Meet me in my office in ten," he ordered as he released me.



"I'm here, as commanded," I said with as much bravado as I could muster.

He sat behind his large cherry desk and crooked his finger at me. "Come. I have a surprise for you."

I walked toward the leather Queen Anne wingback chair in front of his desk, but he stopped me as I began sit down. "No, come sit with me. I want to show you what your job is going to be."

So I was going to be his sex slave. I knew it. There would be no art, no need for the new wardrobe, no great job. Just f*cking for money. I was no better than a prostitute, no matter how he or Jordan phrased it. A whore.

"Should I just sit on your lap or would you prefer me to skip the preliminaries and just get on my knees?" I asked as I rounded the corner of his desk.

He said nothing but turned his laptop and looked up at me. "I love your idea of work, but I had something slightly different in mind."

I looked down at the laptop and there on the screen sat ten small thumbnails of artwork. My face felt red hot as I stood there staring down at the screen while my words echoed in my ears. What an ass I was!

Embarrassed, I looked down at the floor. "I'm so sorry. That was uncalled for. I didn't know."

Tristan chuckled and took my hand in his. "I love how honest you are. I've told you that. Don't ever stop being that way. There aren't enough people in this world who will truly say what they're feeling, Nina."

Biting my lip, I looked up in humiliation, his soothing words not working. "I really am sorry. I feel like such a jackass. I just assumed that...well, all I've done with you so far is..." I really wasn't explaining myself well and was probably making things worse. I definitely felt worse.

All he did was smile and stand from his chair. "Here, sit down and let me tell you what I plan to have you do. Unless you'd rather go down on me first. I'm not going to say no to that."

Oh, he wasn't going to let me live this down any time soon. I deserved it, though. As I sat down in his chair, he dragged one over next to me. "I know you want your job to involve working with art, so that's exactly what you'll be doing. Those pictures are just ideas I have for your job."

I looked at the pictures on the screen again, studying each of them and seeing no common theme or period. "What exactly is my job, Tristan?"

"I want you to choose the artwork for the penthouses and suites in my hotels. You'll have to choose pieces for each one and pitch them to me to convince me to buy them. If you succeed, then I'll buy them and put them in that suite or penthouse. If not, you'll have to choose something else and pitch that to me. I'll have the final say as to the choices, but I'm trusting that you'll show me excellent pieces."




I looked at him, instantly worried. "What happens if you don't like anything I choose?"