Joanna Sims - The One He's Been Looking For

Jordan took the card. “If you can make me look good in a picture, you would be the first.”

“Come to my studio tomorrow and let’s find out,” he said.

“What do I have to lose?” she asked out loud, more to herself than to him.

“Twenty-five thousand dollars.”

The trolley doors slid open. “Touché, Mr. Sterling.”

“Ian.”

Jordan stepped down onto the curb. “Touché, Ian.”

“You’ll come to my studio, then.”

She turned to face him as he stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets, sunglasses back in place. Tall, broad shouldered and built for a woman’s appreciating eye. He appeared to be perfectly at ease on the surface, but Jordan picked up a tension in his jaw that belied his relaxed, confident stance.

“What time?”

“Eight in the morning.”

“Too early.”

“Ten, then.”

As the trolley door began to slide shut, Jordan flashed Ian a peace sign and said, “I’ll be there around eleven.”

* * *

“Rise and shine, lazybones.”

The next morning, Jordan was rudely awakened by the sound of her twin sister’s “cheerful early riser” voice. She groaned and stuck her head under the pillow as Josephine pulled open the blinds and let sunlight flow into the room. Jordan squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to ignore the sound of the thick plastic blinds slapping against each other as they settled back into place.

Josephine plopped down on the bed next to her and began to shake her shoulder. “Wake up. Wake up. Wake up....”

“Oh, my God, Jo!” Jordan grumbled loudly. “Knock it off!”

“Not a chance.” Her sister laughed as she grabbed the pillow and pulled it off her head.

Jordan made a frustrated noise as she dragged the covers over her head. She hadn’t planned on being awake for at least another hour or two. “Go away!”

Next, Jo started to bounce up and down. “Get up. Get up. Get up!”

Jordan finally kicked the blanket and sheets off her body and glared up at her. “Holy crap, Jo, you’re annoying! What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be learning how to sue people?”

Josephine, whose friends and family called her “Jo,” was her identical twin. They were mirror images of each other in appearance, but exact opposites in life. Jo was an “early bird gets the worm” student working on her law degree, while Jordan had dropped out of graduate school five weeks into her masters. Jo loved to shop, was a political junky, recycled religiously and thought that it was perfectly normal to date a young environmental lawyer named Brice. Besides the recycling, Jordan could live without all those things—especially a boyfriend with a country-club name.

Jo smiled at her sister’s trademark early-morning grouchiness. “I’m meeting Brice and his parents for brunch in Van Nuys. I thought I’d drop by for a quick visit.”

Jordan pushed herself up and leaned back against the headboard. “I find you to be rude and offensive on all possible levels.”

“You love me.” Jo smiled broadly.

Jordan squinted at her sister through sore, puffy eyes, wishing she had the motivation to get up and shut the blinds again. The bright sunlight was only making her pounding hangover headache worse. To look at the two of them, someone would be hard-pressed to make out that they were twins at all. Josephine always looked like the healthy girl next door with her flowing, sun-kissed hair and glowing, sun-kissed skin. Jordan, on the other hand, was a rebellious night-owl artist with a multicolored faux hawk and pale skin that barely saw the sunlight. In a lot of ways, they were truly night and day.

“How you can date someone named Brice is beyond me,” Jordan said as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “Much less have brunch with his parents.”

“Quit being such a snob. He didn’t choose his name,” Jo teased. “By the way, you look hungover.”

“That’s because I am hungover, Nancy Drew.” Jordan squinted at her. “Joelle had a pink-champagne fountain at her bachelorette party. Who does that?”

“You could’ve said no.” Jo went into the bathroom; she grabbed a glass of water and two aspirin. “Here.”

“Thanks.” Jordan popped the pills in her mouth and then chugged down the water.

“I thought you liked Brice anyway.” Her twin perched on the edge of the bed again in her pretty forest-green wrap dress.

“I like him in theory.” Jordan put the empty glass on the nightstand.

“Whatever that’s supposed to mean....”

“It means that he seems like someone who’d be perfect for you, but he’s not because he’s actually a total knuckle-dragger.”

Jo raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows at her before saying, “Subject change.”

“Agreed.”

Jo pulled her phone out of her purse, flipped through her text messages and then held up a picture for Jordan to see. “I’m dying to know... How’d you end up with a picture of the Armani guy on your phone?”

Jordan stared at the picture she had taken on the trolley. He looked handsome, of course, and ticked off. “That’s Ian. He’s a photographer.”

Jo looked at the image with a shake of her head. “Well, then, he must have been a model before he was a photographer, because I’m telling you, that’s the Armani guy. How you could have your fantasy man sitting right in front of you and not recognize him is a total brainteaser.”

“I didn’t recognize him because it isn’t him,” Jordan said as she climbed out of bed. She pulled on a pair of jeans that had been crumpled up on the floor. “I need emergency coffee.”

The twins climbed up the narrow spiral staircase to the second-floor kitchen and dining area. Amaya was sitting at the small dining table eating sushi with finely carved black-and-gold chopsticks.

“Coffee?” Jordan asked her roommate at the top of the stairs.

Amaya nodded and pointed to the kitchen. Jordan grabbed a cup of coffee for herself and one for Jo before she headed to the table.

“What time did you get in?” Amaya asked in her Cambodian-accented English. She had twisted her silky blue-black hair into a thick topknot at the crown of her head and she still had a smudge of purple eye shadow above her dark chocolate eyes from the night before.

Jordan slumped into her chair and gratefully took a sip of piping-hot coffee. “Three, four. I’m not sure, really.”

Her roommate swallowed a bite of food before she said, “What’s up with that picture you sent to me last night? Who is that guy?”

Jordan dropped her head onto her arms with a groan. “He’s a photographer. Wants me to model for him.”

Jo’s eyes widened. “The Armani guy wants you to model for him? You didn’t tell me that!”

“Jesus...he’s not the Armani guy. His name is Ian Sterling.”

“Seriously, Jordy? I can’t believe you didn’t recognize him.” Her twin shook her head as she searched for something on her phone. Once she found what she was looking for, she held up the device triumphantly. “Take a look at this, sis. Tell me that isn’t the same guy.”

Chapter Three

Jordan’s forehead wrinkled as she stared at the photograph on Jo’s phone. It took a split second for her to recognize Ian in the Armani ad. His hair was longer and his face thinner, but there was no doubt it was Ian. No wonder he looked so familiar to her! She had this exact ad hanging up in her room...framed. How had she missed that?

“Ho-ly crap.” she muttered. “He’s the frickin’ Armani guy.”

“Told you,” Jo said smugly.

“What am I missing?” Amaya asked.

“Jordan had this ad hanging above her bed when we were in high school—she used to kiss the guy’s picture every night. Swore she was going to marry him,” Jo said, before she blew on her coffee.