Prologue

Cloud Flyer Headquarters, Silicon Valley, Fourteen Months Earlier

“Mr. Knickerbocker, be reasonable. When you agreed to grant GQ an interview for their February feature, surely you must have known they’d want your photograph?”

British-born fashion photographer Francesca St. James paused for breath. For the past ten minutes, she’d been speaking not to a wall but to a broad—if somewhat thinly fleshed—set of shoulders.

“I agreed to be interviewed—period.” Cloud Flyer founder and CEO Gregory Knickerbocker sat at his computer with his back to her, body language so blatantly rude it set Francesca’s teeth on edge.

His tech start-up might be the hottest new social media community since Facebook and he the latest addition to that year’s list of top ten tech CEOs, his net worth in the vicinity of thirty billion dollars, but for the present he was her subject only, photographing him for GQ magazine her sole reason for flying out on a red-eye from New York. Beyond getting the cover shot, nothing else mattered—nothing.

Since she’d arrived, he’d done everything to thwart her, beginning with keeping her and her team waiting in the lobby despite their prearranged appointment. Jet-lagged and fed up, Francesca had bypassed the front desk, the flip-flop-wearing receptionist, and the party in progress and taken the stairs up to the suite of second-story offices. She’d spent the time since talking herself blue in the face.

Digging in her heels, she insisted, “No magazine will run a feature story without a photograph.”

Dubbed the “Media-Shy Mogul” and the “Camera-Shy CEO,” until now Gregory Knickerbocker had refused to give interviews or to appear on camera. His CFO, a pricey PR firm, and his personal entourage of programmers served as the collective face for Cloud Flyer’s corporate brand. But now that the company had reached the milestone of a hundred million users, he’d appeared to have a change of heart. This present profile piece for GQ, his media debut, was a huge coup, not only for the magazine but for Francesca—provided her photographs and byline were part of it.

“Why not?” he asked, still staring at the screen.

Did he really mean to go on fighting her on this? Choking back her frustration, Francesca dragged a hand through her hair, belatedly recalling that she’d pinned it back in preparation for working.

Fingers catching on a clip, she answered, “Because it’s…just not done.”

He swiveled in his office chair to face her. Progress? “So make an exception.”

She ran her gaze over him, wondering again what the bloody big deal was. He wasn’t the Elephant Man for Christ’s sake. Give the mop of thick black hair a good shearing and take away the thick-rimmed eyeglasses and baggy clothes topped off with the ubiquitous gray hoodie, and Mr. Knickerbocker had the makings of quite a good-looking man.

“That’s not in my purview, Mr. Knickerbocker. I’m a freelancer.”

A freelancer who always got her shot—always. That this impossible man might be the black mark on a decade’s career record of unbroken successes was not to be borne.

Softening her tone, she tried again. “Cloud Flyer is a global company now. Just this morning you, or rather your spokesperson, announced your intention to go public before the year’s end. Don’t you wish to celebrate your success?”

His even gaze met hers again. “I am celebrating.”

She glanced beyond him to the screen of Greek-to-her functions and variables. “By…coding?”

He unfolded his long-boned body from the chair and stood. Reaching his arms over his head in a stretch, he said, “By doing what I love, what took Cloud Flyer from a crazy idea I had in my head back in college to what it is today.”

Doing her best to ignore the sweatshirt rising above his navel, revealing a flat belly dusted with dark hair, Francesca said, “Yes well, I can see how busy you are, and I assure you I’ll be fast. You won’t even know I’m here.” She sent her camera case a sidelong glance, hands itching to take out the Nikon. Still zipped, it sat on a chair.

A groan greeted that promise. “Oh, believe me, I’ll know.”

Ignoring his sarcasm, she sallied forth. “We can shoot using natural light if you prefer.”

Dark brows lifted. Sending her a quizzical look, he lowered his arms to his sides. “You say that like it’s some sort of concession.”

“Sorry, I don’t follow.”

Planting his hands on his trim hips, he tilted his head to one side as she sometimes did when mentally mapping out the angle of a shot. “You’re offering me natural light to incentivize me into letting you take my picture, but the fact is sunlight, solar power, is one of the few free natural energy sources. It’s not really yours to give. The next thing I know, you’ll be offering me air, too.”

He was eccentric, Francesca got that, but then he wouldn’t be the first boy genius entrepreneur to have a touch of a Peter Pan complex. The environment he’d created all but screamed “bats in the belfry!” Searching for possible backdrops, she cast her gaze about the emptied room, not a private office but rather a huge communal workspace of whiteboards, desks, and meeting tables; the latter covered with craft paper, much of it doodled on. Bowls of crayons and colored markers were set about. A mural of a cloud-filled sky took up one large wall. More clouds were painted on the high ceiling and stenciled into the glass partitions—Neverland, indeed.

“Image—fashion—is part and parcel of Gentleman’s Quarterly’s mission. If you’ve ever picked up a copy from a newsstand or…” She paused, glancing at the glass-topped desk, devoid of a blotter or so much as a slip of paper, and amended, “Read it online, you know that’s true.”

He rolled his eyes. Even outlined by the ludicrous frames, they appeared lushly lashed—and deeply blue. “Do I look like I’m into fashion?”

Francesca hesitated. Striving for diplomacy, she admitted, “I have a stylist with me.”

She did, along with her assistant, both cooling their heels in the lobby on a ticking deadline clock. She’d asked them both to stay below, hoping Mr. Knickerbocker might see sense if she spoke to him in private.

“Good to know.”

Rounding the desk, he came toward her, closing the gap between them to mere inches. Francesca swallowed—hard. For the first time it occurred to her how utterly alone they were. Barring them, the room was deserted, everyone else having decamped downstairs. Blaring music, a cacophony of conversational chatter, and the occasional champagne cork popping suggested the party was nowhere near waning.

She forced her gaze back up to his. Impossibly clear cerulean-blue eyes pinned her. A moist mouth mocked her. More than six feet of tall, lean man towered over her. Like a dragonfly trapped in amber, she was caught in place.

He took another step, obliging her to back up—to the wall. “You get my picture, you leave, is that the deal?” Shaggy dark hair hung low over his high forehead, the ebony strands silken-looking and all but begging to be brushed back.

Resisting the bizarre impulse to do just that, Francesca marshaled her marauding senses. “Yes.”

She licked her lips, planning out the angles from which she would shoot him, how to make best use of the fading late afternoon light. She could already tell that, scruffy and unstyled as he was, the camera would love him. The cleft in his chin and the dark stubble blanketing his jaw added interest to a classically featured face.

He drew back suddenly, and she felt as though an invisible cord had been snapped. “Okay, you’ve got it.”

“I…do?”

He nodded. “Sure, just give me a second. I need to send something.”

“Y-yes, of course.”

He reached into his sweatshirt and pulled out his iPhone. Thumbs working, he tapped out a text message. Hitting send, he pocketed the phone and looked back up at her. “Okay, we’re done.”

“We are?”

He nodded, his flashing smile making her heart flutter. “Take out your phone.” It wasn’t a request but an order.

Only Francesca didn’t take orders. “Why?”

His square jaw firmed. “Just do it.”

Sidestepping him, she reached for the bag she’d set down on a nearby chair. Feeling around inside, she found her iPhone and took it out. Sure enough, she had a text message waiting from GKnickerbocker@CloudFlyer.com. Humoring him, she tapped on the photo link, and then waited a few seconds for the picture to load.

It did, and she jerked up her head to stare at him. “If this is some kind of joke…”

His face, oddly attractive and utterly slap-able, drew close to hers, his expression that of a kid who’d just said, Gotcha! “The magazine needs my photograph to run with the article? Well, this is me.”

“But it’s your—”

“Baby picture, yes, I know,” he said, backing way. “The deal we just struck was for a photo of me—you didn’t say anything about it being current. And just so you know, I’m also happy to provide my high school yearbook picture and oh, I have some great shots from sixth-grade computer camp—that was one hell of a wild summer. Feel free to shoot my assistant an e-mail if you want more.”

Rage ripped through Francesca, supplanting the sensual awareness of a moment ago. “This is outrageous!”

He turned toward the glass doors through which she’d entered and had the gall to grin back at her over his shoulder. “I’ve kept my end of our bargain, Francesca. Now I expect you to keep yours—and go.”

“With pleasure!”

Snatching up her camera case and storming out, Francesca allowed that she well and truly loathed Gregory Knickerbocker. Of all her subjects over the last decade, his was the one face she heartily hoped never to set eyes upon again.