Chapter 1 The Bet in the Fitting Room
Gigi's POV
“Spread your legs a little.”
I pressed my knees together and looked up at Julian Ashcroft, letting my chin dip just enough to make the hesitation convincing. This face did innocence beautifully, all wide eyes and a soft mouth, and I was curious how long he'd believe it. Watching him discover his mistake promised to be even better.
He stood with a measuring tape in his white-gloved hands and the sort of expression people usually reserved for something unpleasant on a shoe. The rest of him was considerably more inviting: a perfect tie, gray-blue eyes, and a face that could have sold perfume to a woman with no sense of smell.
“Must I?” I asked.
One of the uniform fitters developed an urgent interest in her clipboard. Julian lowered his eyes to the tape, then held it out to me.
“Your calf, Miss Wayne. For the stockings. You may do it yourself.”
“Oh.” I accepted it with both hands. “You should have said.”
His mouth tightened, spoiling the polite smile he'd worn since Arthur Ashcroft introduced me as the girl who had saved his life. That was an improvement. I'd pulled the old man out of the path of a car and accepted his offer to help with school, but nobody had mentioned that his grandson came with the furniture.
As I bent to measure my leg, late afternoon spread across a carpet thick enough to lose a heel in. The guest suite was larger than my old apartment and smelled of cedar, lemon polish, and money old enough to have stopped announcing itself. Beside the velvet bench hung the St. Jude's uniform Arthur had arranged for my transfer: navy blazer, white blouse, pleated skirt. The script called St. Jude's a university, though its uniform, private charter, and alumni who treated admission like club membership suggested a rather particular interpretation. This body was twenty; I intended to have an opinion about where it went next.
The original Georgiana Wayne would have apologized for inconveniencing everyone. I gave the fitter my measurement instead.
“Is that all?”
“Yes, miss. Thank you.”
“You're the one doing the work.” I smiled at her. “Thank you.”
Julian glanced toward the door.
He's the first target, Omega whispered.
I'd guessed. You put his name over a star.
Four dark stars hovered at the edge of my vision, Julian's name on the first. Somewhere beyond this ridiculous room were three more men who, along with him, had to fall in love with me before I earned the right to keep living. It was an ambitious assignment for an intern who'd already recruited the wrong woman, but yesterday I'd died, so I was willing to discuss terms.
There'd been nothing pretty about it. The last human base had fallen around me, and after eleven years of keeping people alive through the end of the world, I'd finally run out of food, ammunition, and ways to make myself enough. Then a voice asked whether I wanted another chance, and I opened my eyes in a blank space facing a flickering interface.
Congratulations on your selection—
“Stop. Am I dead?”
A pause.
Technically.
“Are you qualified to fix that?”
A longer pause.
That was how I'd met Omega-17, fourth-week intern, accidental recruiter, and the first machine I'd ever heard sound close to tears. It had meant to recruit someone else. Someone gentle, obedient, and ideally too grateful to question the paperwork. Instead, it had pulled me out of a collapsing world and placed me in The Ivy Rose and Her Beasts, a romance set at an elite New England university. I'd read its supplied script.
The story gave one poor girl four rich men to contend with. Rescuing an old man bought her admission and a job at their private residence, where she endured enough humiliation to qualify as a full-time occupation. Somehow, the girl kept finding reasons to forgive them all.
“Does she get paid for that?” I'd asked.
She receives their love.
“I meant overtime.”
Omega hadn't laughed. Complete the assignment, it explained, and I'd earn official host credentials and the right to travel through other worlds. After eleven years of keeping other people breathing, I wanted a life I could actually enjoy: clean sheets, good food, a beautiful man in my bed because I liked the look of him and had the whole night to discover what else I liked. This body seemed an excellent place to begin.
There was one catch: important events in the book had to happen. If I tried to skip them entirely, the world would push back.
“So she gets insulted in a dressing room,” I'd said. “Fine. I'll be in the dressing room.”
And the humiliation?
“We'll see who earns it.”
Now Julian watched the fitters pack away their supplies, his gloved hands resting at his sides. He hadn't touched me once. When I'd stepped toward him earlier, he'd stepped away. In the script, he couldn't stand the girl his grandfather had brought home. The way he held the tape at arm's length suggested that, so far, the adaptation was faithful. I straightened my skirt.
“Do you have somewhere to be?” I asked.
“My grandfather asked me to ensure you had everything you needed.”
“How unfortunate for you.”
His eyes returned to my face. The fitter snapped her case shut a little too loudly. I could have let him go. But he'd been so careful not to touch me, and now I wanted those immaculate hands somewhere much less respectable than a clipboard.
Tomorrow his name would open doors all over St. Jude's. Tonight, I wanted to make him forget how to leave a room. So I walked closer. He gave half a step before stopping himself.
“I heard so much about you,” I said. “Student council president. Top of your class. One of the famous Four Kings.”
A faint smile returned. “Students enjoy exaggerating.”
“Clearly.”
Silence.
I tilted my head. “I thought you'd be more impressive.”
The shorter fitter stared at me in the mirror. Julian's smile stayed exactly where it was.
“Saving my grandfather doesn't entitle you to insult his family.”
“No. That was free.”
His right hand closed. Omega made a small warning sound. I ignored it. His voice was still smooth, his posture impeccable. Only the glove creasing over his knuckles spoiled the effect.
“Is this how you usually get attention?” he asked. “Shock someone until he looks at you?”
“You're looking.”
“I've met ambitious women, Miss Wayne. None quite this shameless.”
“Oh, this is nothing.” I smiled. “Spend tonight in my room. You can see how much worse I get.”
Someone behind me caught a breath as Julian's smile disappeared. For a full, lovely second he had nothing to say, and after years of deciding who got the last antibiotics, enjoying a rich boy's offended expression felt almost wholesome. I was still appreciating it when his eyes narrowed.
“You're very confident.”
“I try.”
“About what, exactly?”
“That you talk more than you do.”
The measuring tape slipped off the bench. Neither fitter bent to retrieve it. Julian looked at it, then back at me.
“Come with me.”
That isn't an invitation to dinner, Omega said.
You don't know that. Perhaps he's delightful over soup.
We left the guest wing with the two fitters trailing several yards behind. Neither had been dismissed, and neither volunteered to leave. Julian led us through a locked door and down a short corridor, where the air lost its perfume and acquired the clean, familiar smell of gun oil.
The private range was underground, beneath the east wing. A staff member looked up from the equipment bench when we entered.
“Mr. Ashcroft?”
“Give us a moment.”
The man hesitated, then stepped back. There were shooting lanes, acoustic panels, and paper targets suspended in front of a heavy backstop. Ear protection hung on hooks by the entrance. I took a pair and rested it around my neck. Julian opened a locked cabinet. When he turned back, he held a revolver. My amusement thinned. I'd been expecting him to make a point. Apparently, he preferred punctuation with a body count.
He placed the gun on the bench, then set one cartridge beside it. “Six chambers,” he said. “One round.”
The younger fitter whispered his name. He didn't look at her. “You wanted to find out whether I do more than talk. Here's your opportunity.”
My eyes moved from the cartridge to his face. “Your grandfather knows how you entertain guests?”
“Perhaps you'd like to apologize.”
There it was. A way out, offered as a humiliation. Nothing stopped me from taking it and leaving, then telling Arthur precisely what his grandson had brought out of that cabinet. But I knew guns. I knew the scene from the script. And, unlike the girl whose place I'd taken, I knew exactly what I would be agreeing to.
“What are the terms?”
Julian pushed the revolver toward me. “Five pulls. If you finish, you name your reward.”
“Anything?”
His gaze held mine. “Anything.”
I reached for the gun.
