The Assignment - Part One
When Priya is offered a weekend in Dubai on the arm of a celebrity, the opportunity is too good to resist…
“Would you like more champagne?” Emily asks, leaning over towards me in my seat as I look out the window.
“Please,” I reply, as if it’s entirely normal for me to be sitting on a private jet alone, drinking Dom Perignon and eating chocolate-dipped strawberries while she tends to my every need. She pours carefully.
“When do we land?” I ask.
Emily looks at her watch. “Around two hours from now.” I nod, and she heads to the back of the plane. I adjust my skirt, realising that wearing a skirt this short to fly in probably means Emily could see my underwear as she leaned over me. I wonder if she knows where I am headed when we land and who I’ll meet. I wonder why I let Anna talk me into it in the first place. But then I think of the bottomless expenses I was offered to take the assignment, the thousands of pounds of new clothes in my suitcase, and the chance to spend a long weekend in a luxury hotel in Dubai between the public appearances my clothes were purchased for, and I smile to myself, sipping my champagne.
Modelling was never my plan, far from it. I studied law at Oxford and had dreams of starting my own firm. But after graduation, I went out to an agency party with a friend from University who had been modelling part-time to pay for her tuition. I’ll never forget the first time I met the owner. She just glared at me and said, “Holy Shit!” She then spent the rest of her night trying to convince me to sign for her, claiming there’s a huge market for attractive girls with Indian heritage. My parents didn’t seem to mind, after I assured them I wasn’t being signed up for prostitution and promised never to model in lingerie, so here I am, at twenty-three, the face of a major international cosmetics brand which designs products specifically for women with dark skin.
But that isn’t this assignment.
I received a call from Clara, the owner of the agency, about a week ago with a strange but intriguing request. A wealthy, well-known ‘celebrity businessman’ needed a beautiful woman on his arm for some public appearances in Dubai. He’d apparently seen my cosmetics ads and found me through my agency. Money was no object. He wanted ‘me’.
Clara didn’t think I’d do it, so she asked for an exorbitant fee, expenses, my own security throughout the trip, and a whole new wardrobe before even bothering me with it. The immediate answer from his people was yes.
The deal is pretty simple. I have to attend three public events, looking glamorous on his arm over two days: a gala dinner, a red-carpet walk to a night at the theatre, and a meet-and-greet with celebrities and businessmen from all over the world the following afternoon. The only problem I have is that I don’t know who he is. And despite being assured I will recognise him when we meet, I’m not allowed to know who he is until then.
As the plane touches down at Dubai airport and heads to a private hangar at the edge of the airfield, a limo awaits me, and I’m quickly taken to my stunning hotel. His people have booked me a suite overlooking the city, which sends me weak at the knees when I see it, and the views it offers. My security detail came to my room and introduced themselves. I have a woman named Elizabeth leading a team of three, and she’s supported by two insanely large men in sunglasses who seem friendly enough. All three of them will join his security team for our public engagements. I can’t help but wonder how much security we’ll need.
I take a long, hot shower, then dress for dinner in a cute little black sparkly dress, tie my hair up, and wear some of the makeup I am paid so handsomely to promote. That’s where I’ll meet the guy who’s paying for all this. One dinner before the public engagements begin tomorrow.
Elizabeth collects me at seven and walks me to the elevator. She can tell I’m nervous.
“You’re safe,” she says as we walk.
“It’s not safety I’m worried about. It’s making a fool of myself. Generally, I perform better in still images or studio settings. Do you know who he is?” I ask. She nods but keeps tight-lipped. Not that it matters. The look in her eyes when she thinks of him tells me that she fancies the pants off the guy.
We exit the elevator on the tenth floor, and I’m led into an empty restaurant. The lighting is dim, except for one table near the window overlooking the city, which is bathed in soft light. Elizabeth leaves me, and the waiter takes me to the table, pouring me a glass of water as I sit there alone.
My eyes are adjusting to the light when I see him, standing in the corner of the room in the darkness, holding a glass of something fizzy.
“Priya,” he says, and my skin prickles all over. ‘I know that voice.’
I follow him with my eyes as he walks towards me, and realisation dawns.
“It’s you,” I say, stunned.
He steps forward into the light and takes my hand from the table, bowing and kissing the back of it. I lose the ability to speak.
Marcus Reed is one of the wealthiest, most enigmatic, most mysterious, and in my mind, most attractive men on the planet. He has chiselled, masculine looks, silver hair, and clearly takes care of himself. He’s also kind of my employer.
One of the many things he owns worldwide, including an airline, a string of hotels, and a telecoms giant, is the makeup brand I model for, which was founded by his late wife. He smiles at me, and I go weak at the knees. Luckily, I’m already sitting down.
“Let me guess,” he says warmly. “You were expecting Leonardo Di Capprio?”
I smile, embarrassed. “They said celebrity, so I just thought…”
“Film star? Sorry to disappoint.”
In truth, I was anything but disappointed. I’ve always been fascinated by the man who does voiceovers for his late wife’s makeup company’s ads, but never for his own, and never gives interviews. Hell, he’s rarely seen out in public at all.
“It’s not a disappointment,” I stutter, embarrassed.
The waiter saves me, pouring me a glass of something fizzy from an expensive-looking bottle into my glass. I pick it up quickly, take a sip, and look up into Marcus’s eyes. He’s studying my face and my bare shoulders, and I love the feeling of him doing it. It’s not creepy. He’s caressing me gently with his eyes.
“You are beautiful,” he says.
“Um, thanks,” I say childishly. To Marcus, that must be what I am — a child. He’s sixty, and I’m twenty-three. All the inappropriate things I’ve ever fantasised about doing with him never mattered in my head, because I was never going to meet him, let alone do any of them with him. And now here I am, sitting in an empty restaurant having a romantic dinner with a man I have regularly fixated on.
As we eat, the conversation begins to flow easily, and I relax into my role. I’m his date for the weekend, and being the girl on Marcus Reed’s arm in one of his very few public appearances will not harm my modelling career, not one bit, and he knows that. We reminisce about Oxford (where he also studied, many years ago) and talk about my law degree.
I lose myself in the warmth of the conversation and start asking questions, which Marcus seems happy to answer, until I ask him about whether he has thought about remarrying. He stops eating and just looks into my eyes as if I spoke an entirely foreign language.
“I’m sorry. That was too personal,” I say. Marcus shakes his head gently.
“It’s fine. I looked for a while, but I came to the conclusion I’d never find a woman as captivating as her.”
“Probably true,” I agree, eating the most delicious ice cream I have ever tasted. Like me, his wife was of Indian heritage. She was also stunningly beautiful and well-known for her philanthropy.
“Maybe not, it seems,” he says. I freeze and look at him as he smiles, then returns to his ice cream. ‘What did you just say?’ I move on quickly, unsure if I just misread him flirting with me.
“It’s beautiful here, isn’t it? The view from my room is stunning.”
“And mine,” he says. “But then we are next door to each other.”
“Are we?” I ask, my mind racing with those inappropriate thoughts again.
“We are,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. ‘He’s just playing Priya, you’re young enough to be his granddaughter.’
After dinner, I wait patiently for Elizabeth to collect me, but she doesn’t show up. And then I realise we never agreed that. Instead, Marcus stands and holds out his hand. “May I escort you to your room, miss?” he offers.
I’m all in. It’s like a dream come true. I take Marcus’s hand and allow him to pull me to my feet, then he steps back and looks at me in my little sparkly dress, all brown legs, heels, and glitter.
“You are the most breathtaking young woman, Priya,” he says. His words tickle me in a place I don’t want to think about while I’m alone with him. But they hit hard, and I’m equal parts desperate to get away from him as I am to have him throw me against the wall and kiss me.
“Thank you,” I breathe, and I hear the arousal in my voice betraying me. I hope Marcus doesn’t. But I suspect he does. There’s no way my constant, involuntary flirting with my eyes and now my voice has been lost on him.
We walk together to the elevator, and as it opens for us, I feel his hand on the small of my back as he guides me inside. The jolt it gives me is orgasmic. Embarrassingly so.
As the elevator rises, he turns and looks at me. “I’m looking forward to spending the weekend with you,” he says.
I open my mouth to speak, then shut it again before I do. What I want to say to Marcus can never leave my lips. The elevator stops, and I give him a smile. His hand rises to my back once more, and I lean into it just a little, savouring it, and letting him know it’s fine.
Marcus walks me to my door, and there’s a silence between us. It wasn’t a date, and he’s not wondering if I’ll kiss him goodnight, but still, it’s awkward.
“Good night, Priya. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, turning to his door as two security guards appear at the other end of the corridor with their backs to us.
“Marcus,” I say, engaging my mouth without thinking — I’m good at that.
“Yes?” he asks.
“Why am I here?”
He smiles, and I see him calculating his answer. He knows he has to be really careful. “Because I have a thing for beautiful Indian women. And you are, well, beautiful. I wanted to meet you.”
He glances down at my body briefly, but again, it’s not creepy. Nice. I feel my head spinning a little. ‘This isn’t happening.’
He opens the door to his suite a little. “Want to see my view?” he asks.
I know I shouldn’t. I know. I know I promised my parents that my modelling wouldn’t change me, and that I’d be a good little girl, then meet a nice guy, get married, and have lots of babies with him. However, I’m standing in the doorway to the suite of a man I’ve fantasised about for years. A man who makes me quiver when he looks into my eyes, who says the nicest things to me. A man who I may never see again after this weekend.
‘Fuck it.’
“I’d like that,” I say. And I step into Marcus’s darkened room.