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with, but what could I do? My brain seemed to have taken a vacation. I quickly added, “I’m

supposed to be meeting Yana today.”

Luka shrugged—a maddeningly casual lift of his shoulders. “She got called off on band

business. I volunteered to bring you the contract.”

“Contract?” At first the word didn’t make sense. I soon realized if I didn’t get a grip on

myself, many things wouldn’t be making a whole lot of sense while standing in front of the

rock god. Gathering what little wits I had left, I straightened to my full height, which was still several inches shorter than Luka’s, and put on my best professional face—serious with a hint

of a smile. My gaze dropped to the manila envelope he had tucked to his side. “Right, the

contract.”

He pointed at the display case. “Is there something you want?”

I turned toward the display case again. “I was thinking of a cherry Danish, but the waitress

and the guy behind the counter seemed to have disappeared.”

Luka moved from behind me to behind the counter. He slid the door to the display case

open and picked up the entire plate holding the cherry Danishes.

“I don’t think you should be doing that.” I splayed my hands on the glass, leaning against it

again. “They might come back any second and we’ll get in trouble.”

“Don’t worry. Terry and Lana are on an extended break. We have the place to ourselves for

as long as we want it.”

My eyebrows lifted to my hairline. “Terry and Lana?” I had to think about the names for a

second then my poor brain finally caught up. “You mean the guy and the waitress?”

Using tongs like an expert, Luka picked out the largest Danish of the bunch and placed it

on a plate before he returned the rest to the display case. Using the same tongs, he reached

for a chocolate croissant and placed that on another plate. Then he filled a large mug with

coffee then turned to face me.

“Where are you seated?” he asked like he belonged here and didn’t play bass for a

superstar rock band.

Stunned, I pointed toward the corner table. He nodded, placing my Danish, his croissant

and coffee on a tray. As he lifted the tray like a pro and brought everything to the corner table, I eyed the front of the café. Outside stood a line of bodyguards. One blocked the entrance

while the rest blocked the picture window. Beyond them a large, black SUV took up most of

the curb space. Add paparazzi and screaming fans and the image would be straight out of a

movie.

“What are you looking at?” Luka asked from behind me. The clatter of plates and mugs

told me he moved our food from tray to table.

“You bought out the place?”

“Is that wrong?”

“It’s certainly not right.”

I turned my back on the burly bodyguards, silently thanking Yana from leaving them

behind when she first visited my place. Those guys would never fit in my apartment. I figured

since we were in a public place and Luka was such a high profile personality that he couldn’t

ask them to leave. He shouldn’t. But watching him return the tray to the counter, I’d say he

knew his way around a waitressing job. For a second he wasn’t Luka member of Vicious. My

gaze dropped to his hand. Yup, all the rings were accounted for. Involuntarily, my tongue

darted across my lower lip. I sucked it back into my mouth when Luka sauntered back to the

table, coffee pot in hand.

He refilled my empty mug with the rich, hot beverage. “Take a seat. I don’t bite.” He

paused then leveled his playful gaze my way. “Hard.”

I would have whimpered if I wasn’t thinking of the job. Yes. Must keep thinking of the job,

I reminded myself as I neared the table and returned to my seat. Luka settled his long limbs

on a seat opposite mine and took a bite of his croissant. He twisted to the side so he could

cross his legs without his knees hitting the table’s edge. I watched him chew, lifting my mug

to my lips just to give them something to do. How could someone chewing be the sexiest

thing ever? For a heartbeat, I wanted to reach in my bag for my camera. I got the sense that

Luka didn’t take bad pictures. Whatever he did would look good through a lens.

“You’re one of those people,” I said as an afterthought, taking my own bite of Danish. The

pastry flaked perfectly and the cherry burst between my teeth. Heavenly buttery goodness

with a hint of tart sweetness. My stomach thanked me for it.

“Roguishly handsome? Incredibly sexy? Oozing charm?” Each a question said with the

most boyish grin I’d ever seen. As if I could stop an eye roll after that.

“I was gonna say photogenic. The camera loves you.”

“I’ll take that.” He brought his own mug to his lips and for a second I could only focus on

how his lips parted before they touched the rim. My eye bobbed with his Adam’s apple. Ugh!

It was gonna be harder to stay professional than I thought.

At Sacrifice, I had the buffer of other people around us and the relative darkness. Here, in

the light of day inside an empty café, nothing shielded me from the magnificence of Luka

Visraya. Every handsome, sexy, charming inch of him.

“So, the contract,” I said because I had nothing else to say.

The eyebrow with the bolt quirked up. “To business already?”

“Just thought you might have things to do today other than have coffee and a croissant

with a photography major.” I punctuated my words with a shrug of my own.

His eyes turned serious for a quick second. “Don’t ever assume. I’m here because I want to

be. Plus, I haven’t gotten a chance to eat breakfast yet.”

I sucked in a breath, not because of his words, but for the honesty behind them. He might

as well have shot me. “Alright.” Not going to apologize.

He seemed to accept my reply because he relaxed into his seat and handed me the

envelope. “Yana marked the terms you requested with idiot proof sticky arrows. She said to

look them over before signing on the final page. There are two copies, one for both parties.”

Wishing Larry was with me to confirm everything, I tried my hardest to understand the

legal language used to articulate what I wanted out of the partnership. I thought of it as

practice for the day when other clients asked me to sign contracts. I needed to be savvy if I

wanted my career to flourish.

“I liked the pictures you took of the band, especially the one of Phoenix.” My gaze flicked

to Luka. He had this faraway look on his face I didn’t understand. “I’ve never seen her smile

like that during a performance. She’s always so serious.”

“Yana said the same thing about your picture.”

His focus returned to our table. “My sister told me you want to photograph the entire band

and not just myself. Why is that?”

Did I hear a hint of disappointment at the tail end of his question? I buried the thrill it

brought to my chest and entered my wheelhouse. “When I was taking your pictures, I realized

everyone in the band resonated with me. My muse liked what she was seeing through the

lens. I wanted to expose what brings the band together as well as bring out the essence of

each individual member. My plan is to capture individual moments and bring them all

together into a final photo that will tell the story of Vicious.”

“Ambitious.” Luka crossed his arms over his chest, emphasizing his biceps.

“If you’re not ambitious then what’s the point?”

The sly smile stretching his lips said he knew I quoted his response to a question in one of

the articles I’d read about the band. “Yana said you did your research, but just to be clear,

everything you read about us doesn’t come close to revealing who we really are.”

Add roaring thunder and flashing lightning to his words and you will get how ominous

Luka was in that moment. Then he tilted his head back and laughed. In an instant breaking

the tension he himself created. I squirmed in my seat. Somehow, I believed him.

I pulled out a pen from my bag and scrawled my signature on the last page of both copies,

sealing my fate. Luka sobered, watching me like a hawk spotting prey. I returned the

contracts into the envelope and pushed it across the table to him. He didn’t move to take it.

“Are you sure about this, Dakota?”

He said my name for the first time and damn if it didn’t cause shivers to run down my

back. That accent of his, which I hadn’t really noticed until now, made my name sound exotic

to my ears. Dah-koh-tah, like a seesaw going up and down.

“As sure as my life.”

He treated me to a slow grin. The kind that held secrets behind it. And his eyes said he

more than willingly wanted to share those secrets with me at a later date. I shifted in my seat, an uncomfortable heat gathering below my navel.

Luka took the envelope from me and said, “Then, Dakota Collins, you are mine until the

end of the year.”

Exactly one month from now.

Chapter Seven

Detour

Luka sat on my couch leafing through my more technical manuals while I packed. I still

couldn’t wrap my mind around how a huge rock star could be sitting inside my suddenly very

tiny apartment. It seemed small when Yana came over, but with Luka’s all-consuming

presence there wasn’t an inch in my apartment where I couldn’t feel him.

With shaking fingers, more from excitement than anything else, I stuffed clothes into my

duffle. I would have used a suitcase if I had one, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. All I really needed was my camera and laptop. Underwear was an added bonus. I would be in the

background mostly, so I didn’t bother with anything fancy. Just the essentials.

“You don’t need to bring much,” Luka said, affirming my thoughts. “Everything will be

provided for you at Lunar Manor.”

Doing my best to ignore him so I could concentrate because I’d hate to leave anything, my

mind whirled back to what Luka said at the café. He couldn’t have said a worse thing to sober

me up. I recognized my body’s reactions to him. He was a rock god who oozed sex appeal. I

would have to be a frigid bitch not to feel anything every time I came within a foot of him.

Even so I would think Luka had the power to melt the most frigid of bitches. Only now the

difference was I recognized those feelings as simply a reaction to his charisma and nothing

more. No one owned me but myself. So long as I anchored myself in that thought I would

make it through the month in one piece.

My goal: take the pictures and leave like a thief in the night. I didn’t have to stay longer

than I had to, which was why I kept the time limit to thirty days. That was more than enough

time to accomplish my project. Plus, I still needed time to treat and clean up the pictures

once I had them. Being a photographer wasn’t just about pointing and shooting. That may be

the beginning but just because you got the photo doesn’t mean you leave it virgin. The panel

at the Spring Showcase would definitely murder me if I did that.

Stuffing several pairs of socks in with several pairs of jeans, I said, “You really didn’t have to wait for me, Luka. I could have cabbed it to Lunar Manor.” Okay, only half the statement

was true. I didn’t have the faintest idea where this Lunar Manor was or if a cab could take me there.

“No cabs go out of the city that far,” he said as if bored by my words. “And if you do find

one, you’ll be charged an arm and a leg for the trip.”

“It’s not like we’re taking a plane there are we?”

“No. But it is quite a trek. Three hours by car.”

That got me to pause. I blinked at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me?” Three hours in a car

with Luka? Inhaling all that sexy couldn’t be good for me, could it?

He merely shook his head, never taking his attention from the manual. What the hell?

Was he actually reading the thing? I get that he was super smart like the rest of his

bandmates, but to actually understand all the technical jargon in that book? I had to read the thing for a third time just to get the faintest idea about most of the concepts.

I returned to my packing. My apartment was paid through the year as well as all my

utilities. I thought I would be going home for Christmas. That was an awkward conversation

with my mother. “Hi, Mom, I can’t come home for the holidays because I will be living with a

rock band for a month so I could take their pictures. Love you!”

Instead I went for the more conventional approach. I lied. “Mom, I can’t come home for

the holidays. I have a ton of school work to get through and my final project to finish.”

Technically the school work and final project were true. But my mother didn’t let me off the

hook that easily. She made me promise to visit the first week of January. Knowing my month

would be over by the 31st, I told her I’d pop in. This pacified her. I booked my plane ticket

home and everything.

I stared at my phone for a second. My contract stated I could bring it with me but once I

arrive at Lunar Manor I would have to surrender it. What good would a cellphone do me if I

didn’t have it with me at all times? With a sigh, I powered it down and stuffed it into my

bedside table drawer.

“You about done?” I heard Luka shut the manual. “I want to get out of the city before rush

hour hits.”

It wasn’t even lunch yet. Why would he be worried about rush hour?

On top of my clothes I lay my laptop then zipped my bag. I hurried to the bathroom and

threw bath stuff, including my toothbrush and favorite brand of toothpaste, into a smaller