Bit by the Bug
by
Michelle M Pillow

Contemporary Romance

Kat Matthews is in love…with her art. As a photographer, her greatest desire is to one day create a photo so potent that it will stand the test of time, the kind of picture that is looked at for centuries and remembered. If she can accomplish that, she will be content. While vacationing with her mother in Vale, Colorado, she meets an eccentric, rich couple who have a bizarre proposition. They want to hire her to date their son. And not just date him, but train him how to date so he'll continue doing so afterward. As payment, they dangle a once in a lifetime opportunity in front of Kat - the chance to have her photographs seen by the owner of the most prestigious are gallery in New York. Their terms should be simple—teaching their reclusive son how to date without him finding out. Dr Vincent Richmond unwittingly holds the key to her dreams in his hands...if only he’d notice she exists.

The door had said this was a laboratory, but Kat found the room odd for a lab, though the old brown tables and the old library-like atmosphere was probably suited to a guy who studied word history. Cluttered along the edge of the long counter, there were beakers, microscopes, an array of instruments from tweezers to little slides and some sort of machine that looked like it belonged in a science laboratory, but Kat had no idea what it did. She’d failed science in high school and never went to college. There’d been no point. Ever since she was little, she wanted to be a photographer. She deduced easily that the drawers had to be filled with old texts and maybe the equipment was used for carbon dating or whatever it was these types of men did.

‘I don’t work for you.’ Kat set her camera bag on the table. Thinking to catch movement on the floor, she glanced down. It was nothing.

‘Sorry, what was that?’

‘I don’t work for you,’ Kat repeated.

Vincent stopped, standing very still as if it took him a moment to process what she said. Slowly, he turned. ‘You can’t quit on me. I’ve had too many quit on me this year.’

‘But—’

He held up his hands and came back to where she waited by the door. As if seeing her for the first time, he blinked, his eyes roaming over her face and clothes. ‘Ah, wow, you’re…’

Kat waited. Beautiful? Pretty? Sexy? Dateable? This was more like the reaction she was used to from men.

‘…ah, different,’ Vincent said, not exactly in pleasure. He frowned at the pink in her hair. ‘Did that happen here? Did you have a chemical spill? I hope you filled out the proper paperwork. I’m not sure what I have around here that would cause such a reaction in human hair, but is why you’re quitting?’

Kat tensed. Different? She was different? This nut job was one to talk. He didn’t even know his own assistant’s name or what she looked like.

‘Here,’ he reached for his wallet. ‘I’ll pay to get your hair fixed, only don’t quit. Please. I’m so close to a breakthrough, I can feel it. I’ve got too much going on right now and the college won’t send me another assistant until the fall semester.’

‘I coloured my hair like this on purpose,’ she said, dryly.

Copyright © 2007 Michelle M. Pillow. All Rights Reserved.

Rating: Contains graphic sexual content, adult language, and violence.