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Cole avoids me for the rest of the day. He probably doesn't have any ideas on how to prove to me that this studio is artistic. I'm sitting in my new room, on my bed, with my head against the wall. It's a little guest room off the main hall.

A girl wraps her knuckles on my door and pushes it open. "Hello?" she says. A massive amount of red hair peers around the door with a strikingly pretty pale face at the center. Impossibly green eyes blink at me. "Are you Anna?"Advertisement

I nod and scoot the edge of my bed. "Yes. Can I help you?"

She walks into the room. "I'm Regina Davenport. I'm Mr. Stevens' assistant. I heard you're the new intern, well, the only intern."

Confused, I ask, "What do you mean?"

She laughs, "I'm sorry. I thought it was common knowledge. Every year Le Femme takes in one intern, and every year that intern quits before it's over. Sottero usually scoops them up and it pisses Mr. Stevens off to no end. We've never seen him on speaking terms with someone interning after this long."

My mouth is hanging open, "It's only been a week."

Her eyebrows lift, "Yeah, like I said, a long time in internland." She hesitates and then asks shyly, "Is it true? Do you really get to run this if you finish the internship? I mean, it seems like a sweet deal, assuming you can tolerate Stevens..."

I nod slowly. "He chases off the other interns? How?"

Regina looks back toward the door like she shouldn't be talking, but she's the only person I've seen today that is within a few years of me. I know we'll be working together if I stay here and so does she. She grins, "He's just difficult to get along with. He's got his own ideas about things and if yours don't line up, well, there's no future for you here. But he offered you this, so he must respect you an awful lot."

I don't know what to say, so I nod. She says, "He's looking for you. He said something about some artwork to show you. I told him I'd check, that I thought you were sleeping. What would you like me to tell him?"

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She's protecting me from him. I don't really understand why. I don't even know her. A thought occurs to me and I blurt out, "You're trying to make sure that I don't burn out?"

She smiles like she's guilty and nods. "A girl's gotta make a living, Miss Lamore. And it's so much prettier out here than in Manhattan. No commuting. Can you imagine?"

I finally understand, "You'd be the assistant who stays out here, with me?"

She nods, smiling, hope flowing from her eyes. "That's the plan, Ma'am. So, what should I say?"

"Tell him I'll be right there. And Regina..."

"Yes?"

"Don't call me, Ma'am. I'm younger than you. And if you talk to me like I'm an old person, I'll truly lose my mind." pqdm.com