Ros Clarke's Blog, page 19

Lying for the Camera

A serial romance, published here on the blog.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

All I Want For Christmas

Info here

The Oil Tycoon and Her Sexy Sheikh

New bedroom!

The Grand Tour:

The pictures aren’t perfect. The wall beside the bed is a really dark, rich purple. The gold paint on the walls is metallic and shimmering, not orange. The whole thing looks incredible at night, especially with the candles lit, but that’s impossible to photograph if you are me. But hopefully you’ll get the idea.

New bedlinen was my greatest extravagance but I love it. The pillowcases are from one set and the duvet cover is from the second set which arrived today despite the snow. Headboard is squares of MDF covered in batting and fabric. The mini quilt on the wall was bought in an Amish shop in Intercourse (yup, makes me giggle every time) several years ago. I’d never had a good place to put it before now.

 

 

Colour-blocked bookshelf. I did this once before and it makes me smile every single time I look at it. Books do furnish a room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wardrobe is a standard IKEA Pax in birch effect. Because it basically takes up an entire wall of the room, I wanted it to pull its weight, decoratively speaking. I painted it with one coat of a rich greeny-blue and then put gold paint over that. I love, love, love the way it looks now. It gleams in the light. Sadly, this is not quite finished because B&Q haven’t got any more sample pots of the blue. One sample pot did over 3/4 of the wardrobe, so I really don’t want to buy a full-sized pot for the bit that’s left. New storage boxes on the left came from TK Maxx (or as Americans know it, TJ Maxx). Aren’t they lovely?

The lampshade is from ASDA, of all places, but I think it looks fab.

I used to have a chest of drawers under the bookshelf but it was really a bit too big for the space and, since it came from IKEA and I put it together, it didn’t work properly. So I threw it out. But I did want some extra storage and this leather bench is perfect. I plan to make a cushion or two to sit on top of it, and when I’ve made the quilt I want to for the bed, it can go there in the summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, the window. This used to have big, warm curtains which were lovely but took up a lot of space. I hardly ever opened them, because the bedroom is on the ground floor and very open to the world. Now I have a roller blind which means I can shut out the world without hiding the windowsill or the heater. The curtains are purely decorative, from orange/pink shot silk. They are so pretty.

 

 

 

Total budget:

Rollerblind: £12

Curtains: £22.50

Lamp: £10

Lightshade: £25

Headboard: £12 + £6

Storage boxes: £7 + £10

Bedlinen (2x duvet covers, 2x sheets, 4xpillowcases): £80 + £8 + £50

Pillows: £11.50

Footstool: £25

Leather storage bench: £100

Paint (4 sample pots emulsion, 3 sample pots other, 1 pot metallic): £30

Wallpaper border: £18

GRAND TOTAL: £427

The leather bench was an added luxury at the end when I found it reduced from £280 in the January sale. The other things that I spent proper money on were the duvet sets. One is Clarissa Hulse and the other is PiP Studio. Both are 100% cotton with a high thread count and utterly gorgeous. Without those, the total spend is less than £200. And for that money there is an almost total transformation.

My initial plans for the room were soft, calm and sophisticated. I don’t know who I thought was going to sleep there, but clearly not me. I am not soft, calm or sophisticated. It never worked and I never felt at home in it. More recently it had mostly become a junk room, which is not precisely conducive to restfulness. I knew I didn’t want it in the same colour scheme as the main room (Cath Kidston-esque pinks, greens, blues and reds) but I didn’t know what I did want. It is a very small room – my whole house is small, but the bedroom is where it’s really noticeable. There isn’t room for anything other than a single bed, for instance. So everything that goes in there has to earn its space.

Now it is “M&B Sheikh’s Harem Without The Sheikh”. Warm, rich colours with lots of luxurious textures – I want to make a velveteen quilt for the bed to add to the silks, leather, satin and fake-jewels that are already there. I’ve reorganised the storage and thrown out quite a lot of stuff so it doesn’t feel so full. The rollerblind has also helped to increase the feel of space in the room, and now the heater doesn’t have the curtain over it, it gets warm much quicker too.

Apart from the quilt, the other long term plan is to cover the empty dark purple wall with old picture frames and mirrors. I’ll use the picture frames to show off some of my favourite fabrics, and maybe do some embroideries and so on, specifically to go in that space.

I’m so happy with it and it’s been fun to work on it, building in new ideas as the work has progressed and finding just the right things for the tiny space.

Table for One

Info here

Lying for the Camera: chapter 5

Chapter Five

Of all the ridiculous things Tom had made her do, this was the one she felt self-conscious about? Hattie knew she was being ridiculous. All he’d asked her to do was straddle a chair backwards and lean on her arms.

“Relax,” he said.

“Can’t,” she told him.

He stood up and looked at her directly. “Is your shoulder hurting?” There was concern in his voice, but mostly guilt. Hattie was getting a bit fed up with the guilt, to be honest. He was in charge of the shoot, so technically it was his responsibility. But if she could recognise that it had been an accident, why couldn’t he just let it go?

“No.” It was, a bit, but that wasn’t why she was tense.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“This.” Hattie stood up and gestured at the studio he’d rigged together. “It’s not me. It’s not what I wanted.”

“Studio shots, you said. For your portfolio. This is what we agreed.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want pictures that try to make me look like every other model in town.”

“Hattie.” He took hold of her elbows and gazed down at her. “You could never look like every other model.”

“Well, that’s true, I suppose.” She was three times the size of most of them, for a start.

“But you need head shots. Front and profiles. Full body. Standing, walking, posing. Agents need to see the range.”

He was right. He knew the industry inside out and that was exactly what bookers wanted. She’d had no success with her current portfolio, but it wasn’t just the photos that were the problem. “Maybe I should just admit that this isn’t going to work after all. No one’s going to book me unless I lose a ton of weight, are they?”

“I did,” he reminded her softly.

She met his gaze, remembering that first day in his studio. The heat which had sizzled that day flared between them again. “You said I was your muse.”

“Yes.”

“Am I still?” The shoot hadn’t been successful. Even before the accident, he’d been disappointed. Maybe he’d made a mistake with her.

He stepped closer, eyes narrowed on her face. Hattie held still while he examined her with emotionless detachment.

Then he sighed. “Damn it, but you are.”

“Right. So be inspired. And don’t ask me to sit on the stupid chair again.”

They got on much better after that. He chucked the chair away and got Hattie to curl up on one of the ancient sofas with a book while he distracted her from reading it by telling silly jokes. She giggled and grinned and glanced over her shoulder to catch his eye, and all the time his finger was on the shutter, snapping everything.

Eventually he announced, “We’re done.”

Hattie stretched, careful of her injured shoulder. “Can I see them?”

“I need to sort through, pick the useable ones, and edit them first.”

“Now?”

“Now I need dinner.”

“You sent the chef away,” she said with accusation in her voice. “And you know I can’t cook.”

“Actually, I don’t know that. You make excellent shepherd’s pie, for a start.”

“I’m not cooking tonight.”

He grinned. “I wouldn’t dream of asking you. I’m taking you out.”

“Are you taking me on a date?” She already knew exactly what she planned to wear. The polka dot blouse which gave every impression of being modest and sensible. Until she leaned forward and her entire cleavage was on view. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself.

“I’m feeding you dinner.”

“And then you’re bringing me back here for hot sex.” She winked.

He scowled. “Hattie…”

“We had an agreement, remember?”

“As I recall, our agreement was for careful sex.”

She laughed. “I’m hoping for both.”

“Go and get changed, Hattie. I’ll meet you in fifteen minutes. It’s only the pub down the road. Nothing fancy.”

Jeans ought to be outlawed. Well, maybe not all jeans. But the kind that moulded themselves around a woman’s backside so that you could see every curve definitely ought to be illegal. The kind where you couldn’t help wonder if her legs would look as amazing without the denim as they did with it. And then you remembered exactly what her legs looked like without anything on them and forgot everything else in the world.

“Tom?”

“Sorry. Miles away. Are you ready?”

Her lips curved into a smile that told him she knew just where his mind had been. “Yes, I’m famished.”

“Good. It’s the sort of place where they think they’ve failed if you clear the plate.” He held the door for her and locked up behind them.

“That’s my favourite sort of place. I can’t bear those restaurants where they serve a spoonful of food on half an acre of white china, and charge you a fortune for it.”

“The kind where you have to stop for pizza on the way home because you’re still hungry?” He pressed the car remote and walked round to the driver’s side.

“With anchovies?” Hattie suggested as she slid into the passenger seat.

“Not a chance. Pepperoni and extra cheese.”

She sighed and shook her head in disappointment. “So conventional.”

“There’s nothing revolutionary about anchovies.”

“There is if you have them with pineapple.”

He swung round to look at her in horror. “You don’t?”

Her eyes twinkled. “Want to find out?”

“I’ll order it one night and make you eat it.”

“Great. A second date.”

He winced. He’d walked straight into that one. It was just so easy to imagine hanging out with Hattie, ordering pizza, laughing over her ridiculous topping combinations. Insisting she cleaned her teeth before he kissed her so that she wouldn’t taste of anchovies. Kissing her. Kissing her a lot.

“This isn’t a date, Hattie.”

“Okay. But you’re paying, right?”

“The only reason you’re here is because I was careless yesterday. So yes, I’m paying.”

“Cool. I’ll have the most expensive thing on the menu, then. That should help to get rid of some of your guilt. And then you can tell me why you have such a hang up about sex. That’ll be fun.”

He pressed his lips tightly together. He did not have a hang up about sex. He had a perfectly valid reason not to have sex with models, based on previous experience. But he had no intention of discussing it with Hattie over dinner.

The doctor had told her no alcohol while she was still on the high dosage painkillers, so Hattie regretfully ordered a coke.

“I should have driven,” she said. “Then you could have had a drink, at least.”

He frowned at her. “You are in no state to drive.”

“I’m fine.”

“Right. Do you want a packet of crisps while we order?”

“Cheese and onion.”

She found a table near the log fire. If they were going to freeze back at the house tonight, she might as well get warm now. Tom brought their drinks over and a large packet of crisps, with a couple of menus under his arm. He ripped the bag open so that they could share.

“Beef and stilton pie with chips.”

Tom raised an eyebrow at her. “I thought you were going to choose the most expensive thing on the menu.”

She shrugged, then winced as a flash of pain shot through her. Best not do that again. “I decided I’d rather pick what I actually want to eat.”

He nodded. “Very sensible.”

“You’ll have to get over the guilt on your own.”

“Hattie.”

“Tom. It was an accident. I’m fine. It’s really not the big deal you seem to think.”

“I’m going to order the food.”

Running away. She watched him lean against the bar while he waited to be served. Tension simmered in every line of his body. He really needed to get laid. To kick back and just enjoy the moment. Hattie tugged her blouse down and slipped the top button undone. He was toast.

If he’d thought the jeans were bad, that top was positively wicked. Surely she hadn’t been so… on show before? She was leaning over to pick up a crisp, taking her time, and he… God, he wasn’t actually drooling, was he? She had the most fantastic breasts. He’d known that for weeks. He’d imagined holding them. Stroking them…

Stop. Now.

He cleared his throat. “They said it would be about twenty minutes.”

“Fine.”

“The food here has a good reputation.”

“You said that earlier. Quantity as well as quality.”

“Right.” Twenty minutes was plenty of time. He could drag her into the ladies loos. Or out to the car. She’d be ready and willing.

“So, what on earth will we do to pass the time?” Her lips pouted suggestively.

Tom pushed his chair back and dragged his mind away from the vision of Hattie squirming naked beneath him. Or on top. Or anywhere she damned well pleased.

“Talk,” he managed. Talking was good. Talking was not ravishing a woman in a public place.

“Excellent. Tell me about your hang ups. You said it hadn’t gone well when you’d had relationships with your models before. Several models or one in particular?”

She had him well and truly cornered. He didn’t have enough control of his mind left to divert her. And he couldn’t jump her in the middle of a pub. Before their meals had arrived.

“One. Just one.”

“What happened?” She leaned forward and lowered her voice, giving him some semblance of privacy.

Tom reached for his glass and wished it contained something stronger than ginger ale. “It didn’t work out.”

“Okay. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work with someone else.”

He took a deep breath. “It wasn’t like that. It was my fault.”

She took hold of his hand. “Do you always blame yourself?”

“Only when it’s my fault.” He pulled his hand away and took another drink.

“So what did you do to her that was so awful?”

He closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear to watch while she heard him. “I killed her.”

He heard the intake of breath. Felt her move away. Knew he’d done the right thing, even if it had killed him to say it.

“What happened?” The same soft voice, but without the trust he’d come to expect from her.

“She died.” He could still see Lianne’s body. So frail that he’d hardly dared breathe near her, for fear of breaking her. “She died and I couldn’t stop her.”

“What did she die of?”

What did it matter? Why did she keep asking? Why hadn’t she run away already? “She had anorexia. She starved herself to death.”

A long pause. “Oh, Tom.” Hattie’s hand took hold of his again, with a firmer grip.

“I didn’t even know. I should have seen. Should have stopped her.”

“It’s an illness, Tom. You couldn’t have stopped her.”

He opened his eyes and looked into Hattie’s blue ones. “Oh, but I could.”

“Tell me.”

It was years since he’d talked to anyone about Lianne. Even then, the only person he’d confessed the whole, horrible truth to was his counsellor. She’d nodded and listened and all the while the guilt had been congealing into a hard, dark mess within him.

“She was just starting out. I took some photos for a teen magazine. She was cute. Full of ambition.” Beautiful. Slim but curved. The kind of perky breasts that only teenagers had. He’d fallen for her straight away.

“What was her name?”

“Lianne. Lianne Price.”

“Was she successful?”

He sighed. “Not at first. She did catalogue shoots. A few magazines, but nothing spectacular. She wanted runway work but they never booked her. And one day she asked me if I knew why.”

Hattie didn’t say anything, just squeezed his hand gently.

“I told her. They wanted the Kate Moss look. Hollow-cheeked, bones showing.”

“Oh, Tom.”

“I thought she was still growing up. She was only eighteen. Of course her body was changing. A couple of months later she got booked for Paris Fashion Week. She was so excited. I was excited for her. It was what she’d always wanted.”

A waiter brought two plates of food. Hattie let go of his hand and he bit his lip to stop himself asking for it back. She picked up a chip and ate it with her fingers.

“Go on,” she said.

He stuck his fork into the pie he’d ordered and pretended to concentrate on that.

“She was away a lot after that. New York, Paris, Milan, fashion shoots all over the place. My career was just taking off and I travelled a fair bit too. We didn’t get to see each other very often.”

“I see.”

“I should have made more of an effort. Worked my schedule to fit in with hers. Been there so I could have noticed. Helped. Done something.”

“When did you notice?”

“After she collapsed in the middle of the runway at London Fashion Week and was rushed to hospital. I’d been on a shoot in Egypt and by the time I got back she was conscious and hooked up to a dozen drips and machines. But she looked like a skeleton in the middle of it all.”

“Poor girl.”

“Yes.” He took a mouthful of food. Chew. Swallow. Try not to remember how it felt when Lianne had smiled at him.

“She was proud.”

“Proud?” Hattie paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. “Proud of what?”

“That she’d lost so much weight. The designers had all been happy to book her because she fitted into their smallest samples.” He laid his fork down. He hadn’t any appetite for food. “I took her home. Tried to feed her. Tried to tell her she would be more beautiful if she weren’t so skinny.”

“It’s a disease, Tom. She wasn’t thinking rationally. There’s nothing you could have said.”

He shook his head. No. He’d loved Lianne. She’d loved him. He should have been able to make her understand. “A month later, I found her unconscious in the bathroom. She’d eaten the dinner I made for her, then gone upstairs to vomit.”

Hattie looked down at her plate, then set her knife and fork neatly together.

“I took her to a clinic. She agreed to the treatment. But…”

“It was too late?”

He nodded. “Two weeks later, she died. She weighed four and a half stone.” He drew in a shuddering breath. “So you see, I killed her.”

“The disease killed her.”

“I told her she needed to be hollow-cheeked to get her dream job.”

“You weren’t the one booking skeletally thin girls, were you? Did you make the tiny samples they had to squeeze into? Maybe you gave her the ambition to do something she didn’t have the figure for? No, I didn’t think so.”

“I didn’t notice when she was putting herself at risk. I could have stopped her earlier.”

“She was an adult, Tom. She made her own choices. You didn’t take food away from her.”

“I loved her and I didn’t protect her.”

Hattie slid out of her chair and came to kneel in front of him. She laid one hand on his knee and the other cupped his cheek. “You did everything you could. It was not your fault.”

He wished he could believe her.

“You were her lover, Tom, not her doctor. Not even her parent. Or her agent. What the hell were they doing while this was going on?”

He shrugged. He’d never thought about it much.

“There were a whole lot of people who had a duty of care to Lianne. A whole industry that had a duty of care to a generation of vulnerable girls. She was a victim, Tom, but it wasn’t your fault, do you hear me?”

Tears slid down his cheeks but he shook his head again. “I can’t risk it, Hattie. You’ve already been hurt because of me. I daren’t let it happen again.”

Her eyebrows rose.

“You think I’m going to starve myself because of you?”

“I think you’re more vulnerable than you realise, Hattie.” He’d thought that from the beginning, though he still hadn’t broken through to the source of her fragility.

She stood up and glared down at him. “That is the most insulting thing anyone has ever said to me. I can take care of myself, Tom Metcalfe. And don’t you think you can hurt me, because I promise you, I’m stronger than you think.”

He was silent throughout the journey back to the house. Hattie slid a sideways glance at him. Mouth tight, shoulders tense, eyes cold. He wasn’t going to make this easy for her but she wasn’t going to let him off the hook. He had years of misplaced guilt to get rid of and this was as good a way as any to kickstart the process.

The car skidded to a halt in the gravel driveway. Tom slammed the car door shut and was halfway to the house while Hattie was still picking up her handbag. She slid out of the car and followed him. He pointed the remote backwards, without so much as a glance over his shoulder. But he had to pause to unlock the heavy door and Hattie caught him up as he stalked into the grand entrance hall. Since the rest of the crew had left, the house was even colder and utterly silent. She automatically stayed close to Tom as he walked towards the staircase.

“I’m going to bed,” he said, without bothering to look at her.

“Me too.” His bed, though he didn’t know it yet.

“Huh.”

She paused at the top of the stairs to let him get a headstart down the corridor towards his room. Her bedroom was in a different wing from Tom’s, so hopefully he’d think she’d given up. Not a chance. Counting to a hundred, she waited until the footsteps had died down, then trod softly after him.

She didn’t knock. She wasn’t giving him the chance to shut her out. Hattie simply turned the handle and went in. Tom was standing by the window, gazing out into the impenetrable blackness of the night. He turned at the click of the door when she pushed it shut.

“Is there something wrong? Do you need help with your shoulder?”

She smiled and shook her head. “I’m fine. Look.” She began to undo the buttons on her blouse.

“Hattie,” he said in a warning tone.

“No, it’s fine. It doesn’t hurt at all.” The front of her blouse flapped open and she slipped it off carefully. She reached behind for the fastening of her bra but pain lanced through her shoulder. Better leave that till later, then. Jeans were easier. And stripping down to her underwear would be an equally clear sign of intent.

She kicked off her shoes and pushed the denim down. If she’d been able to choose, she’d have picked sexier lingerie but she’d been limited by what was in the bag Tom had brought her in hospital. Still, at least the black bra was trimmed with pretty lace, and it almost matched the black and pink silk knickers he’d packed.

“You should go back to your bedroom.” He’d turned away again, but she could see his hands clenched into fists. He wanted this every bit as much as she did.

“Can’t. I need you to help.”

He let out an audible breath. “What sort of help?”

She grinned. “I can’t undo my bra.”

“You…” He bit off his words. “I thought you said you were fine.”

“Fine for most things.”

“Right.”

“You’ll have to come over here.” She leaned against the door and tilted her head up. Tom stalked towards her and stopped at arms length.

“Turn round,” he ordered.

She pursed her lips at him in a mock kiss, then did as he asked, giving a little shimmy as she turned. He unhooked the fastening efficiently and slid the straps down over her shoulders. Even that brief touch of his fingers sent a delicious sizzle through her. This was going to be worth all the effort.

“Done.”

Hattie let the bra fall to the floor and resumed her position against the door. She lifted her good arm slowly above her head and raised the other so that her hand just cupped one breast.

“We’re not nearly done,” she breathed.

“Of course we are. You know that. You know why.”

“I’m not your model any more. It doesn’t break any rules.”

He gave a sharp laugh. “You break every rule, Hattie.”

“I try.” She winked at him.

He stepped forward. “You’d try the patience of a saint.”

“Tom.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Just kiss me already.”

He pressed his lips together and looked her up and down. She held her breath. If he turned her down again she wasn’t sure she could push him any further.

He took another step towards her, so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath against her temple. He pressed his hand over hers, trapping her against the door. With his free hand, he traced the line of her jaw, tilting her face towards his.

“I should have run a mile the first time I saw you,” he muttered.

“You can’t run away from your muse.”

He laughed. “I’m rethinking that position. Muses aren’t supposed to cause so much trouble.”

“Do you have a rule about sleeping with your muse?”

“No rule.”

“Shame.” Hattie slid her arm around his waist. “I would have enjoyed breaking that rule.”

His grip tightened on her chin. “Are you sure about this?”

She rolled her eyes. “Did you not notice me seducing you? Of course I’m sure.”

He bent his forehead to touch hers. “Good point. Well, then.”

His lips were warm and soft, his kiss far too brief. Hattie whimpered.

“Shh. You’ll get plenty more kissses,” he whispered. “But if we’re going to do this, we’re damned well going to take our time about it and enjoy it.”

Her knees wobbled under the intensity of his gaze. She could feel him taking note of every tiny response on her face, while his fingers traced delicate lines down her body, around her breasts, along the top of her knickers. He’d seen her naked a dozen times before. He’d looked at her through a camera lens hundreds of times. It wasn’t as though he didn’t know how she looked. But this was different. There was no camera to hide behind now – for him or for her. He wasn’t watching her as a photographer examines his model or his muse. He was just watching her. Hattie. She bit her lip. She was not going to blush. She wasn’t the blushing sort. Only she’d never known a man who saw so much of her.

His thumb was rubbing little circles around her hip bone. Her jaw slackened, her mouth parted, her eyes lost focus, and he noticed it all, she knew he did. She couldn’t bear any more of it and then, just as she was about to beg, he moved on to discover the next unexpectedly sensitive point on her body. He skimmed the bruises at her shoulder, so gently she could feel the hairs rise to his touch.

“Does it hurt?” he whispered.

“Not there.”

“Turn round.”

His hands rested lightly on her hips while she did as he asked. He leaned forward, his breath warm against her skin.

“Here?”

She shivered. “A little.”

The lightest of kisses, so brief she wondered if she had imagined it. “Here?”

“N…not now.” He had her stammering now?

He curled his hand around her arm. “What about these scratches?”

“What scratches?”

Tom laughed. “Indomitable Hattie Bell. You should have been on the Titanic.”

“The unsinkable Molly Brown?”

“You’d knock her out of the water.” He nuzzled ino her neck, on the good side. “You are the sexiest woman I have ever known.”

She grinned. “Finally he sees sense.”

He pinched her bum. “You are the least modest woman I’ve ever known.”

“I’ve never seen the point of being modest. Isn’t it just another way to make women keep their talents hidden?”

“Your talents…” His hands slid round to cup her breasts, “are wonderfully on display.”

“Tom.”

He paused. “What’s the matter?”

“I have more talents than just a pair of, admittedly fantastic, breasts.”

He dropped a kiss on her shoulder. “I know that, Hattie. You’re my muse, remember?”

That hadn’t exactly gone to plan, though. She grimaced. “Is the exhibition ruined?”

“I don’t want to talk about that now.”

Hattie turned around to face him. “Why are we talking at all?”

He smiled down at her. “Good point. Come here.”

Christ, she was glorious. He slid his hand into her fiery red hair and held her in place while he teased the corners of her luscious lips with kisses that were never designed to satisfy. There was tension in her jaw and softness in her cheeks and the juxtaposition was intoxicating. She was panting and whimpering and he was tempted to see how far he could push her. Except his own need was mounting and her mouth was just there. There was only so much temptation a man could resist. And he’d been resisting Hattie for far too long.

Her lips opened beneath his and she pulled him firmly down against her. She kissed him as urgently as if she were breathing. He kissed her back as though he could give her all the oxygen she needed. Together, they could go on forever, holding, touching, kissing, loving. With Hattie in his arms and her lips against his, there was nothing more in the world to desire.

She slid her hand down to his arse and pulled him closer. He shifted slightly so that he could touch her breast without breaking the kiss. Soft, wonderful breasts that filled his hand and spilled over. He stroked and caressed and finally brushed his thumb across her nipple. The gasp she gave was the sweetest thing he could remember. He couldn’t help but reach across to tweak the other nipple. This time Hattie moaned.

Eventually, she pulled away from him. Just a few inches, but too far. He pulled her back but she managed to hold him off long enough to speak.

“Clothes,” she panted.

“Huh?” He had his lips on her neck, licking until he found the spot that made her knees tremble.

“You’re still wearing…” She tugged at his shirt when he cut off her sentence with his kiss.

“Can’t stop.” There was no way to remove his clothes while Hattie was in his arms and he was kissing her.

She cupped his jaw with her hands. “Pause.”

She backed away then and again he stepped towards her. She shook her head and winked. “Uh uh.”

He groaned.

“Shirt. Now.” She sat on his bed and slid back to lean against the headboard. Tom gave up on struggling with buttons and simply pulled the shirt over his head.

“Jeans.” Her eyes were sparkling and she’d begun to play with her own breasts. He was going to kill her if he didn’t die first.

Finally his belt gave way. He pushed the denim down and kicked it out of the way. Socks were easily dealt with.

Her lips twitched into a smile. “And the rest.” Boxers slid to the floor. “Now get over here and make love to me.”

“Since you ask so nicely,” he growled. He dropped onto the bed and crawled towards her, pushing her legs apart. When he got near enough, he pulled her hands from her breasts. “Gorgeous.”

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

It was too long since he’d kissed her. Time to remedy that. But her lips were no longer enough. He needed everything she could give. He reached down to slide a finger inside her. Wet and hot and enough to send his need skyrocketing.

“Now,” she urged him. “I need…”

“I know.” Her need couldn’t be greater than his.

Only… damn. Damn, damn, damn. He rolled off her and put his arm over his forehead. “I haven’t got any condoms.”

Her breathing was audible. Then he realised that his was no quieter. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t planning to do this when I packed for the week.”

Hattie sighed. “We agreed yesterday.”

He’d agreed, but he hadn’t thought it through. Idiot.

“I don’t suppose you have any?”

“No. But I’m on the pill.”

“Right. Well.” That was something.

“I’m clean. Are you?”

“Yes.”

She turned slightly and reached out her hand. Oh. Oh, Christ.

“I won’t last,” he warned.

“Make your mind up, then. In me or on you?”

He closed his eyes. Sometimes her bluntness was overwhelming.

“Tom?”

“In you. But I think you should be on top. And be careful, Hattie. You remember what happened last time you went riding.” He helped her up, to straddle him. “Take your time,” he challenged.

“Bet I can last longer than you.”

“No bet.” He’d be lucky if he lasted another thirty seconds.

Waking up warm for the first time in a week was the best thing ever. Waking up warm and lying next to a gorgeous guy was off the scale. Hattie couldn’t help the smug grin that spread across her face as she remembered the night before. She snuggled closer to Tom. The shoot was cancelled but the house was booked for another night and she had the time off work. What better way to spend an unexpected holiday than in bed?

He rolled over and dropped his arm on her waist, holding her against him.

“Morning.”

“Morning yourself.” She winked at him and pressed her body against his to check. Oh yes, it was definitely a good morning.

“You are insatiable.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

He sighed dramatically. “I suppose I can work with it.” He pushed her onto her back.

“Ow!”

“Hattie? Is it your shoulder?”

She gritted her teeth. “Painkillers have worn off.”

He clambered carefully off her. “Where are they?”

“Handbag. Downstairs.”

“Back in a second.” He didn’t bother to pull any clothes on, she noticed. Those painkillers had better kick in quickly. Now that she’d got Tom Metcalfe in bed, she didn’t plan on letting him out of it any time soon.

Lying for the Camera: chapter 4

Chapter Four

Hattie didn’t sleep well. Tom’s cold, emotionless voice telling her he planned to shatter her kept ringing in her head. She’d brushed it away in the moment. She had no intention of letting him know how vulnerable he made her feel. He did not need to know that when he looked at her, she felt as though he saw straight through her carefully constructed image to the inner workings of her heart.

He made her want to confide him, to trust him with all the secrets she barely admitted even to herself. On that first night, she’d told him about her miserable office affair and its consequences. She’d never told anyone about the pregnancy—not even her mother.

The way he got her to open up scared her more than any spider. Which was a good thing because there were definitely spiders in the dusty old bedroom here. She hoped it was an urban myth that people swallowed spiders in their sleep. Just in case, Hattie clamped her lips tight and closed her eyes, taking deep, long breaths to help her relax. She needed sleep tonight. She needed to be alert tomorrow to cope with whatever Tom had planned.

She woke abruptly, when one of the assistants banged on her door. “Shooting in ten!”

Ten minutes later, she’d washed and dragged a comb through her hair. There were shadows under her eyes. She shrugged. Tom might think that added to her fragility. And if not, that’s what the make-up artists were for.

Oh God, there was a horse.

She’d hoped he was joking about that. Or at the very least, she had assumed he meant for her to be out in a field where there would be lots of nice soft muddy grass for her to land on. She hadn’t anticipated the giant stallion who towered above head height right in the centre of the grand entrance hall.

Hattie paused on the staircase, clutching the banister rail. Black, shiny, and huge. Humungous. Twice the size of a normal horse, or maybe he just looked that way. Definitely too big for her. He couldn’t expect her to ride it. He knew she couldn’t ride.

She tried to look on the bright side. If he was shooting inside the house, Tom couldn’t be expecting her to gallop through the countryside, jump over hedges or chase innocent animals. Maybe she could manage to perch on top of it in here. Just so long as it didn’t move.

She sidled around the horse towards the costume team.

“Another nightie?”

Inge grinned. “Not today.” She held up a shot silk ballgown which shimmered black and fuchsia in the light.

“Ooh, I like that. I like that a lot.”

Inge fitted her with the kind of industrial underwear which sucked Hattie’s stomach in and pushed her breasts out.

“I look like Marilyn Monroe,” she decided.

“With a better bosom.”

“Of course.”

Hattie stepped into the gown and waited while Inge fastened it at the back, then shook the skirts out. The bodice fitted like a glove, smooth around the shape Inge had created with the underwear. The skirt fell to the floor and trailed behind as Hattie twirled and preened.

“It’s stunning. Can I keep it?”

“If you have a spare five thousand pounds you can.”

Hattie froze. “I can’t wear a five thousand pound dress.”

Tom looked over his shoulder. “Relax. It’s insured. But please don’t spill tomato ketchup down this one.”

“Right. No ketchup. I’ll try.”

He rolled his eyes. “Come on then. Let’s get you mounted.”

Hattie stood behind Tom as he checked the side saddle. “I don’t like horses. They kick.”

“Can’t kick you when you’re sitting on top.”

“But they move.”

“The handler’s holding his bridle. He’s very well trained. Give me your foot.”

Tom boosted her up into the saddle. Hattie peered down. “It’s a long way to the floor. What if I fall off?”

“Don’t fall off. Here.” There were pommels on the saddle to hook her legs around. It didn’t feel at all secure. She gripped the reins for dear life.

“Feel safe?”

“No.” She waggled her stilettos at him. She was absolutely sure that they weren’t safe for her. Or the horse, come to think of it.

He grinned at her. “You’ll be fine. Just remember the reins aren’t handles, Hattie. Let go of them.”

She gritted her teeth and unclenched her fingers from the leather straps. “I’m going to fall off.”

“Sit up straight, face forward and don’t panic.” Tom wandered off to speak to the lighting guys and make sure the props had been set up how he wanted. Hattie was left stranded on top of approximately a ton of horse. Better on top of it than underneath, anyway.

So long as she didn’t look down.

Don’t look down. Don’t look down.

She looked down. Her stomach lurched and the horse skittered in response to her. She squealed. Only a little squeal. She wasn’t a total wuss.

“Hold on, Hattie. We’re not ready for you yet,” Tom said before immediately turning back to continue his checks.

Heartless bastard.

She’d told him last night that he wasn’t going to break her. No matter how much he made her face her fears, she was going to show him that she was a strong, confident woman. Hattie Bell wasn’t going to be photographed cowering with fear on top of a horse. She picked up the reins and pretended she did this all the time.

Sit up straight, face forward. Don’t panic. Easy. Just as long as she remembered not to look down.

The shot silk looked amazing against the sleek dark coat of the horse. The black disappeared into the background but the pink sparkled with life. Tom signalled that the lights should be moved a little closer, then checked his viewfinder again. Hattie’s spine was rigid and she’d grasped the reins again, transmitting every spark of tension to her mount. The handler was holding the bridle, murmuring soothing noises to the horse and keeping it quiet.

“Clear the shot.” He waved the handler away. Hattie’s mouth tightened and her knuckles gleamed white. “Perfect.”

He took several shots with the pale sunlight streaming into the room. There was a delicious incongruity between the raw strength of the stallion and the refined beauty of the house. And Hattie, strong and brave, beautiful and fragile was the perfect embodiment of the contrast.

“Turn this way,” he instructed. “Glance over your shoulder, Hattie. That’s it. Drop the reins. Hitch up your dress.”

Throughout, he kept the camera clicking, capturing as many moments as he could, hoping that just one of them would have the magic he needed.

“We need more movement.” Tom nodded to the handler. “Walk him across the hall.”

Hattie squeaked.

“Sit up, Hattie. Shoulders back, chest out.”

She glanced down at her cleavage. “I don’t think my chest goes any further out.”

He grinned. It was extremely tempting to take some close ups of her bodice. Maybe later.

For now, he needed a way to inject more drama into the shot.

“Can the horse climb the stairs?”

“Of course.” This was a specially trained horse for film and television. No doubt they were hoping for a remake of Black Beauty. The handler mounted the stairs and held out her hand to call the horse to her.

“You’ll need to stand aside,” he warned her. “I need a clear shot up the staircase.”

Obediently, the stallion climbed up two steps towards his handler. Tom nodded that it was enough and the woman moved out of shot.

Hattie was still just about upright in the side saddle. She’d dropped the reins and was gripping the saddle with one hand while the other was twisted into the horse’s mane.

“Lean forward,” Tom told her.

She leaned and wobbled a bit, but twisted just enough to regain her balance. As she twisted, her sharp heel dug into the horse’s side like a spur. He caught his breath as the stallion reared up. Hattie flew backwards, hands waving helplessly in the air and her scream electrifying the room.

It was the perfect shot. Nature asserting its brute force over the attempts of human civilisation. Hattie hanging helplessly in midair, lit from behind so that her silhouette was clearly outlined. Tom kept his finger on the shutter, watching the scene unfold in slow motion. Every shift of light on the shot silk gave a new drama.This could be the money shot of the whole exhibition.

Then, as if he was waking from a dream, the screams pierced through the camera. Hattie’s screams. The horse’s wild whinnying. Other people yelling in fright.

Damn it, this was no dream. This was real and that was Hattie, lying on the ground, white as the marble tiles beneath her. Too late, he dropped his camera and ran towards her.

“Unconscious,” his assistant muttered grimly. “I’ll call an ambulance. Don’t move her.”

The life had seeped out of her. Hattie, who was so vivid she could transform a room with her smile, lay still and silent. Tom rested his hand gently on her throat just to reassure himself that the blood was still pumping in her veins. Still warm, still pulsing, still breathing. She was going to be okay. She had to be okay.

By the time the ambulance had arrived, her eyes were open. They checked her over and strapped her into a terrifying neck brace and spine support so that she couldn’t move. He watched as they carried her into the back of the ambulance and drove away.

“We’re done here.” The team were standing around uncertainly. He shook his head. “You’ll be paid for the full week, but the rest of the shoot’s off. Can’t continue without her.”

“She might be back for tomorrow,” someone suggested.

Tom ran his hand over his face. “No. That’s it. Thanks for your work, everyone.”

He’d have to go and see her. She didn’t deserve to be in hospital alone. And he needed to explain. But hell, it was the last thing he wanted to do. Since Lianne he’d managed to avoid the agony of the waiting room and the disinfectant smell of the wards.

What he wanted was a stiff drink, but that wasn’t allowed if he was going to drive to the hospital. He’d just have to face up to it and be damned if it hurt.

“I brought your suitcase.”

She was awake. Alive. Extremely lucky, the doctors said. No internal injuries.

“Thanks.”

“They say they want to keep you in overnight.”

She nodded, then winced. “Sorry.”

Tom flinched. “I’m the one who’s sorry. It was my fault.”

“You said you wanted to shatter me.” She winked.

He shook his head. “I didn’t mean it like this. You know that.”

“It’s only a dislocated shoulder. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

“You’ll be bruised and sore for weeks.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m so glad you came to cheer me up.”

“God, Hattie. I thought you were dead.”

Her hand lay on top of the hospital sheets. She opened her fingers and crooked them towards him. He half-lifted his hand, then dropped it.

“I could have killed you.”

“I expect you still could if you want to.”

“Of course I don’t want to.” He took a deep breath. He shouldn’t be shouting at her. “Sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I know that. Accidents happen.”

“Accidents happen when idiots like me are allowed to get carried away with our irresponsible notions without caring about who gets hurt along the way.”

“Right. Well, don’t do it again.”

“No danger of that. I’ve cancelled the rest of the shoot.”

Hattie glared at him. “I’ll be out of here tomorrow.”

“You dislocated your shoulder. You can’t work tomorrow.”

“Back in the saddle. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you come off a horse?”

“No.” He was never letting her anywhere near another horse. He’d be happy if she spent the rest of her life wrapped up in a thick blanket of bubble wrap.

“You didn’t get the shots you wanted.”

Bile rose in his throat. “I got plenty.”

“So you don’t want me to be your model any more?”

“Sorry. I’ll do the studio pics I promised when we’re back in London.”

“No, I want you to do them at the house. Tomorrow.”

“I sent everyone home. There’s no one to set up the lights. No costume, no make up.”

“We’ll manage. I want pictures that don’t look like everyone else’s. Something to make an agent sit up and take notice.”

He owed her that much. “Fine.”

“And after that, there won’t be any reason for you not to sleep with me.”

His mouth dried. “Hattie.”

“Tom,” she mocked. “Are you turning me down again?”

“This is a very bad idea.”

“It’s just sex, Tom. I want it, you want it. We should just do it and enjoy it.”

“Your shoulder…”

“We’ll be careful. It’ll be fun. You’ll see.”

One night. He’d be careful. She’d be fun. He couldn’t say no.

Lying for the Camera: chapter 3

Chapter Three

“Hold it there. Just a bit more. Eyes on me. Focus, Hattie.”

She fixed her gaze on Tom and tried to concentrate, but it was easier said than done, what with the carpenter hammering nails into a board just inches from her head.

Hattie hadn’t known quite what to expect of the shoot but it certainly wasn’t this. Tom had whisked her off to a crumbling stately home on the Northumbrian coast where it rained every single day and the windows didn’t shut properly. She’d been cold for the past forty-eight hours and not just because of the ridiculous outfits she’d been given to wear.

Today, he’d set up one of the most dilapidated rooms with all kinds of DIY tools and traps for her to fall into.

Earlier, she’d been attached to the wall while the electrician worked in the space around her. Hattie had barely dared breathe for fear of electrocution. It wasn’t until after they’d finished the photos that she’d realised none of the cables were live. Right now she was lying on a trestle table while a wooden box was built around her. She had a horrid feeling it was a coffin. And the hammer which flashed past at the edge of her vision definitely sounded real as it thudded into the nail. She flinched.

“That’s it. Give me more. Eyes ahead.”

The hammer caught her hair as it banged down. Hattie screeched.

Tom put down the camera and sighed. “Take a break.”

She let out a long sigh of relief.

“You okay?” He came over and held out a hand to help her up.

She sat up cautiously and checked that all her limbs were still attached. “I think so.”

He nodded. “Good. Have a coffee. We’ll start again in ten minutes.”

Tom went to talk to the lighting guy. Hattie slid off the table, grabbed a cardigan to put over the ridiculously flimsy nightdress she’d been given to wear, and went in search of something more sustaining than a coffee.

In the kitchen, she blagged a huge mug of strong tea and a bacon sandwich off the chef. She took a grateful sip of the hot drink and cradled the mug in her hands, grateful for the warmth. Presumably Tom had chosen this location because it was falling down. Personally, Hattie preferred accommodation with reliable hot water and windows that actually kept the cold air outside. She’d complained about the chiffon nightie but Tom had merely shrugged and said that he wanted to see her goosebumps.

Huh. It was all right for him, wearing three fleeces and a scarf. She’d like to see him wandering half naked around Croxfield Hall’s draughty corridors. Well, okay, she’d just like to see him half naked. Or fully naked. She wasn’t fussy. Unlike Tom, who was proving irritatingly good at resisting her.

He still fancied her. She was sure she wasn’t reading the signals that badly wrong. But they were already two days into her week-long contract and so far he’d all but avoided her. Even when he was shooting, his instructions were brief and impersonal. She’d done her best to flirt with him, but it was hard work when he was so determinedly not giving her anything back.

Hattie wasn’t one to give up on a challenge. He’d said there would be no shagging. He must have known she’d go all out to prove him wrong. She just had to find the right moment to catch him.

“We’re waiting.”

Hattie turned to grin at the object of her desire. “I’ll be there in a second. Want half?” She lavishly squeezed tomato ketchup on the salty bacon and soft white bread that the chef had put out, then cut the sandwich in half and held out the plate towards Tom.

“Thanks.” He took the plate and picked up his half neatly.

Hattie took a large bite. Tom shook his head and waved in the direction of her bosom. She looked down.

“Oops.”

A dollop of bright red ketchup had landed on the white nightgown.

“It’s fine. You can take it off.”

“Here?” She winked. “Or shall we go upstairs?”

“We’ll get back to work. But I think we’ll try some nude shots next.”

“You know, on some film sets, when they’re doing nude scenes, everyone gets naked. Including the director.”

Tom looked at her steadily. “They do that when the actors are nervous.”

Damn. “I can be nervous.”

“Not because you’re naked.”

“Well, no.”

“So stop trying to get me out of my clothes.”

She finished her tea and followed him out of the kitchen. “Spoilsport.”

Tom uploaded the day’s shoot onto his laptop and scrolled through the pictures. He earmarked a handful of potential shots, but none of them had the spark he was looking for. The fragile vulnerability he’d detected at Hattie’s audition was missing, despite the fear in her eyes and the precarious positions he’d put her in. The nude shots were no better. He should have realised that she didn’t wear clothes as armour or disguise, the way so many women did. She dressed for adornment, but she was equally comfortable in her unadorned state and the photos showed that.

“Any good?”

He couldn’t help the smile that sprang to his lips at the sound of her voice. She’d been brilliant over the last couple of days. No whining, no complaining. Despite everything he’d put her through she was still cheerful.

“Hopeless.”

“Really? I thought it went rather well today.”

Tom swivelled on his office chair to see Hattie leaning against the doorpost. “Did you?”

“Well no one was seriously injured, and I was gorgeous. What more could you ask for?” She winked at him.

He laughed. She was irrepressible. “Nothing.”

“Have you eaten?”

He checked his watch. “No. I must have lost track of the time.”

“There are leftovers. I’ll bring you a plate, if you like.”

“I can raid the fridge myself later.”

“Can I see the pictures? Are they really hopeless?”

He hesitated. Would it help Hattie understand what he was after? She might just look at the pretty images and think everything was fine.

“Better not.”

“They’re that bad?” Her voice was light but there was a note of genuine uncertainty underneath.

“I’m sure you’ll do better tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

He hated hearing the dejection in her voice. It wasn’t fair to let her believe it was all her fault. But if it worked… “You’ll be fine. I’m sure it’s just lack of experience.”

She chewed her lip. “Should I just go back to London? You could find another model, I expect.”

Instinctively, Tom reached out to put his hand on her arm. “Stay.” He might find another model but he wouldn’t find another Hattie.

She nodded. “If that’s what you want.”

“I told you before. I want you.”

“Am I still your muse?”

“Apparently.”

“Good. So what are we doing tomorrow?”

“How do you feel about horses?”

She shuddered dramatically. Just what he wanted.

“Excellent. What else scares you, Hattie?”

“Apart from power tools being used within inches of my brain? My hair when I’ve just got out of bed is utterly terrifying.”

He tugged a lock of said hair. “Be serious for a moment.”

“Um, I’m not brilliant with spiders. Or high places. Ghosts. Horror films. I’m just your all round basic wuss, in fact.”

“You’re not a wuss.” Why had he said that? He wasn’t supposed to be reassuring her.

“Thanks. You know what really terrifies me?”

“Tell me.”

“Well.” She stepped closer. “I’m absolutely, utterly petrified–” She ran her finger down his cheek. “—that I’m losing my touch.” And then she bent over, so that her cleavage filled his vision and her lips came to rest on the corner of his mouth. “What do you think? Have I still got it?”

Thinking was well beyond his capabilities in that moment. Tom tilted his head, his lips automatically seeking hers. Warm, soft and oh so good against his mouth. Hattie kissed like a goddess demanding worship, and he was her obedient slave. She dragged every last second out of that kiss, every touch and taste and lingering pleasure.

“That’s enough,” he said, though his hands in her glorious hair didn’t seem to hear him, and his mouth was already returning for another taste of her deep velvet lips.

“Mmm,” she murmured into the kiss, which didn’t help his self-control at all.

“Hattie,” he tried again. “We have to stop.”

“You stop.” She knelt between his legs and began to undo the buttons of his shirt, pressing kisses on his chest as she went.

“No. We both have to stop.” He removed her hands firmly and did his shirt up again. He took a deep breath. “I warned you about this in London. I don’t get involved with my models.”

Hattie sat back on her heels and surveyed him. “We don’t have to get involved. We could just have sex.”

He gave a curt laugh. “It doesn’t work like that.”

She tilted her head and smiled wickedly. “I thought that’s exactly how men like it to work.”

“Don’t believe everything you read in the magazines.”

“There’s never anything about you in the magazines. Just the photos.”

“That’s the way I like it.”

“So, do you have a girlfriend?”

“Not at the moment.”

“But you are into women?”

“Yes, Hattie. I think the last ten minutes have established that I am into women.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

He pushed his office chair further back. “Stand up. You look ridiculous down there.”

Hattie glared at him. “You’ve been making me look ridiculous all day. I don’t know why you’re so worried about it now. And don’t think you can avoid the question.”

“I’ve told you before. I don’t get involved with my models.”

“I’m offering you no-strings-attached sex and you’re turning it down?”

He shrugged. “The strings are always there, even if you can’t see them.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Someone really did a job on you, didn’t they?”

“I’m not talking about this any more. I’ve got work to do.”

Hattie’s gaze slid across to the laptop. “Wow.”

He’d forgotten to close down the image he’d been working at when she came in. The best picture of the day, it was one of the nude shots, showing Hattie stretching up to the chandelier, strewn with cobwebs and dust. Sunlight reflected on the crystal drops and glowed on the spider’s web, giving the illusion that Hattie was trapped in a glittering prison of light.

“You like it?”

“It’s amazing. It felt so ridiculous, standing like that earlier, but now I understand.”

“What do you understand?”

She’d moved nearer the desk and her head was near Tom’s as they both studied the picture.

“The light… the cobweb… they’re so fragile and yet there, in that moment, they make me look powerless.”

He drew in a sharp breath. She’d got it. She’d really got it. “Show me what you mean.”

“Here.” She traced the ray of light which curved over her breasts. “It’s like it’s holding me back. Stopping me from doing something. And here.” Her finger moved up to the network of light which criss crossed her face on the screen. “It looks like I’m afraid of it. Like something in a horror film.”

“Science fiction.”

“Yes, maybe. I didn’t know my eyes could look like that.”

“So pale? I played with the exposure a little bit.”

“That’s part of it, I suppose. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like looking at myself in a nightmare.”

“Look at this one.” He scrolled through until he came to the image of her in the coffin. “What does that make you feel?”

She stared at it for several minutes. “Honestly?”

“Of course.”

“It’s ridiculous. I look like the Bride of Dracula, only fat.” She gestured at the red lipstick and the white nightgown. “The props are silly.”

He nodded. She was right. “How about this?” He skipped ahead a couple of photos.

“Oh.”

It was the same set up. She was still in the coffin but this time he’d taken a close up of her face with the hammer and changed the lighting. He could feel her tense up as she looked at the picture.

“You were a total bastard making me do this.”

“I know.”

Hattie drew a deep breath. “But it was worth it.”

“I think so.”

“Is this what the whole week is going to be like? A living nightmare?”

“Only while I’m shooting.”

“Oh, great.”

He grinned. “Be thankful I could only afford this place for a week.”

“Next time, pick somewhere with central heating.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“The fun would be in having someone else to warm my bed, but apparently that’s out of the question. What’s a girl supposed to do?”

“Hot water bottle?”

“I could use a hot toddy.”

“Come on then, I’ll make you one while I’m having dinner.”

She cradled the warm mug between her hands and watched Tom as he assembled a plateful of leftovers and nuked it in the microwave. His movements were always quick and deft. He wrapped the remains of a chicken pie in foil and replaced it in the fridge. Collecting knife and fork, he brought his heated dinner to the big scrubbed pine table where Hattie was sitting.

“This is the only warm room in the whole house. I think I’ll bring my duvet down here and sleep in front of the range.”

“Sorry you’re cold.” Tom forked up another mouthful of food. “I didn’t know it would be this bad.”

“I’ll live, I suppose. Maybe I’ll find one of the crew who wouldn’t mind warming my bed.”

He raised his eyes and contemplated her for a moment, before returning to his food.

“What, you don’t think they’d want me?”

“I think you’re trying to provoke me into sleeping with you.”

“Is it working?”

“No.”

“Pity.” She smiled and sipped at her hot toddy. “Carl, you know, who does the lights?”

“I know who Carl is.”

“He’s cute.”

“He’s married.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t going there with a married man ever again. “What about Pavel?” The electrician wasn’t to Hattie’s taste, but Tom didn’t know that.

“Gay.”

She laughed. “I don’t think so.”

Tom tilted his head to one side. “Well, maybe he goes both ways. But he certainly has a boyfriend he was giving a very loving goodbye to at the station.”

“Tom Metcalfe, are you telling me that you are the only available man on this shoot?”

He shook his head. “I keep trying to tell you that I’m not available.”

“Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

“Hattie.” He laid down his fork and his face filled with weariness. “Please just leave it, okay?”

She’d had no idea he was under such strain. During the days he was efficient and calm, patient with other’s mistakes and laughing at his own. She knew the exhibition was important to him but she had no doubts it would be a huge success.

“Okay.”

They sat in silence while Tom finished his meal and Hattie drank her hot toddy.

“Look, I know today wasn’t brilliant, but I’ll do better. Just tell me what you want and I’ll do it.”

“You were fine. It’s me that’s the problem.”

“How do you mean?”

“It’s all very well you doing everything I ask of you, but I still have to ask the right questions.”

She frowned. “But I thought you had it all planned. The props, the shots, everything.”

He sighed. “I wish it was that easy. I have ideas, sketches, storyboards. But it doesn’t guarantee the magic.”

“Magic?”

“I don’t know a better word for it. You saw it upstairs. The difference between those two shots of you in the coffin. It’s lighting and placement, expression and focus. But it’s more than that.”

“It’s chemistry.”

“Chemistry?” he said with a faint smile. “You think so?”

“I have A-level Chemistry. So I know.”

Tom laughed. “And what did you learn in A-level Chemistry?”

She pressed her lips together, suppressing a grin. “I learned how to make Jamie Taylor want to kiss me behind the bike sheds.”

He shook his head at her, but he was smiling. “You’re incorrigible.”

“I know.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“Of course it was. That’s why you picked me for this job, isn’t it?”

“Not exactly.”

“Why then?”

He looked at her for a long moment, then shrugged. “Because you were the only woman I’d seen all day.”

She frowned. “What? I was sure you’d have had hundreds of models lining up to work for you.”

“I did. Hundreds of them. Teenagers, mostly. And the ones who weren’t, doing everything they could to look as if they were. Size zero, stinking of cigarette smoke, with dark circles under their eyes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They were girls, Hattie. Kids. Fabulous clothes hangers, but no life in them. No experience. Not women. None of them spilled over with their life story before I’d even got the camera out. They stood where they were told and went through the poses they know.”

“That’s what the agencies teach them.”

“Right. That’s what sells clothes. But I’m not in the business of selling clothes in this shoot.”

“What are you selling?”

He leaned back and Hattie held her breath. She wasn’t at all sure he was going to tell her. Eventually, he closed his eyes and spoke just one word. “Myself.”

Himself? He was selling his work. His photographs. His vision of the world. Oh. “That’s scary.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What’s the rest of the exhibition like? You said it was mostly ready.”

“Landscape. Urban landscape. Some macro shots.”

She shook her head. “That tells me nothing.”

“Right. It’s, um, well it’s about fragility.”

Fragility? And he’d picked her to model for him? “So, I’m the contrast? Strength? Size? Weight?”

“No!” He slapped a hand on the table. “No. No, you’re part of it.”

“You looked at me and saw fragility?” She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“I looked at you and knew I could shatter you.”

She sucked in all her breath. “You are a total bastard.”

He shrugged, but there was guilt in his eyes. “That’s what being an artist does to you.”

“You were wrong, though, weren’t you? I’m still here and I’m still in one piece.”

He stood up and cleared his plate. “There’s still four days, Hattie. And I’m getting closer all the time.”

“Not any more. Now I know what you’re after, I’ll be on my guard.”

Lying for the Camera: chapter 2

Chapter Two

“He’s not a con artist, Mum.” Hattie repeated for the fourth time. “He’s a well-known fashion photographer and he wants to take some pictures of me.”

She tucked the phone under her chin and continued to listen to her mother’s bewilderment while she switched the oven on and extracted a dish of leftover shepherds pie from the fridge.

“But why would he do that, darling?”

She gritted her teeth. Her mother didn’t intend to be cruel. Her confusion was quite genuine. Why should anyone want to take pictures of Hattie? Hattie was the fat daughter, not the pretty one.

“He said he was looking for someone a bit different.”

“Oh, Hattie, he’s not going to make you into some kind of freak show, is he?”

“Mum! I’m not a freak.”

“No, of course not, sweetheart. I didn’t mean that. Just that you’re not, well, normal, are you?”

Counting to ten and praying for strength, she didn’t answer immediately.

“Hattie? Darling, are you still there? You know I didn’t mean anything by it. But you’ve got that job now and I wouldn’t want you to do anything foolish to jeopardise it.”

“I’m taking the rest of my annual leave,” she replied. “So the damn office will still be waiting for me when I get back.”

There was half a bottle of red wine left from the weekend. Hattie found a clean wine glass and poured herself a generous slug. She was going to need it.

“Language, dear,” her mother said automatically. “Well, that’s good. You’ll have a bit of fun, I expect, and then settle back into normal life.”

“With a portfolio from the world’s leading fashion photographer. This could be huge, Mum. This is the break I’ve been waiting for.”

“I’m just saying you shouldn’t get your hopes up, darling. You know that girls like you don’t…”

“Girls like me don’t what, Mum?” She couldn’t help letting a little of her bitterness seep into her voice.

“You know what I mean, sweetheart. You’ve never had good luck with men, have you? Perhaps if you just tried to lose a little bit of weight?”

The doorbell rang. Hattie silently gave thanks. There was only so much of her mother’s thoughtless needling she could bear.

“I have to go now, Mum. There’s someone at the door.”

“Oh, Hattie, you know perfectly well you’ll never slim down while you’re eating takeaways every night.”

“It’s not a takeaway. It’s Tom Metcalfe, actually.” She waved him in, pointing apologetically at the phone in her hand and mouthing an apology.

“The photographer? In your flat? What’s he like? Is he good looking?”

“Mum!” She looked round swiftly hoping that Tom hadn’t heard her mother’s piercing whisper.

“I’m just asking, darling. No need to be like that.”

“Huh.”

“Anyway, be careful, darling. Remember what happened with Alex.”

She turned away from Tom, instinctively hiding her face from his keen gaze. “I’m not likely to forget, Mum.”

There was a brief pause at the other end of the phone. “No, I suppose not. I just don’t want you to go through that again.”

“Honestly, I’m fine.” She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, willing back the tears that threatened to belie her words. “He’s only here to look at a picture of me. The one from my business cards.”

“Not that dreadful one where you’re naked, darling? I don’t know why you use that picture. You can see everything.”

Outrage was not nearly so disarming as tenderness. “Not everything.”

“Near enough. Couldn’t you show him the photos from Claire and Marc’s wedding? You looked so pretty in that dress.”

“He doesn’t want to see family wedding snaps, Mum. Look, I’ve really got to go now. I’ll ring you tomorrow.”

She pressed the button to end the call before her mother started worrying about whether her flat had been cleaned recently and was she wearing nice underwear. She slammed the phone down onto the sideboard, then took a deep breath to calm herself.

“I’m sorry about that. My mother can’t decide whether I’m so repulsive no man will ever lay a finger on me or so attractive that I’m in danger of being ravished by every man she’s never met.”

“Mothers aren’t always rational about their children.” His voice was grave but around his dark eyes there were laughter lines.

Hattie shook her head in amused despair. “Well, mine certainly isn’t. Come on, I need another drink after that. Will you have a glass of wine with me? Or there’s some gin somewhere, I think. No beer, I’m afraid.”

“If you’re having wine, I’ll join you.”

Tom leaned against the counter in her kitchen while Hattie searched for a second glass. In the faded jeans and dark blue shirt he’d had on earlier, he looked relaxed. He looked gorgeous.

“Have you come straight from the studio?”

He nodded. “I had some work to do after the casting finished.”

“Haven’t you eaten?” As much as she found her mother incomprehensible, Hattie had definitely inherited her impulse to feed people. “I’ve got a shepherds pie in the oven and there’s easily enough for two.”

“I don’t want you to go to any trouble.”

“No trouble. I’ll just do some carrots and peas to go with it. Not very sophisticated, I’m afraid. I don’t really do gourmet cooking.”

“Neither do I.”

Hattie gave up pretending there might be another glass in the cupboard and went to extract one from the large pile of dirty dishes waiting to be washed up. Aware of Tom’s gaze on her, she felt a strong urge to apologise. She resisted. She was a grown woman and she could make her own choices about when to do housework. Mostly she chose to do it tomorrow. Or the day after that.

“That’s better,” she said, after they both had a glass of wine in hand and she had taken a fortifying gulp. “Sorry about before. My mum always manages to set me on edge. She means well enough but she just doesn’t get it.”

Tom sipped cautiously at his glass. “So why don’t you want me to see your family wedding snaps?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You can see them if you like. Why would you want to?”

He shrugged. “I want to get to know you better. A picture of your family could be a good place to start.”

“Well, okay, I suppose. I’ll go and hunt them out. You can peel a few carrots while I’m looking.” She plonked the bag of carrots on the counter and found the peeler. “There. I won’t be long.”

Tom ignored the carrots and instead poured most of his undrinkable wine down the sink, then wandered back into the sitting room. Hattie’s furniture was crammed into the tiny space. Bookshelves filled with novels had been pushed up against DVD racks, and all of them were spilling their contents into heaps on the floor. The side table and the sofa, squashed in against one wall, were similarly laden. An eclectic mix of brightly coloured pottery, an empty coffee cup, several dog-eared invitations and cards, and a small silver trophy cluttered up the mantelpiece. Tom picked up the trophy and grinned at the inscription: “Harriet Bell, Community Service Award, St Mary’s Grammar School, 2005.” He’d have to ask her about that later.

A pile of glossy magazines was stacked haphazardly on the coffee table, weighed down with a bowl of fruit. Tom flicked through them, pleased to find all his most recent cover photos. She must have been doing her homework. His gaze fell on a bright pink folder with her name printed on the front. He hadn’t thought to ask for her portfolio in the studio earlier but now he was curious.

“What do you think?”

She was watching as he turned the pages.

“Who took these for you?”

She sighed and came to sit beside him on her saggy floral sofa. “They’re terrible, aren’t they? I knew as soon as I saw them but I couldn’t afford to get them redone by anyone better.”

Tom grimaced. “They’re not the worst I’ve ever seen.”

“But?”

“They don’t give anyone a reason to book you. There’s no personality in these at all. And, frankly, personality is the biggest asset you’ve got, Hattie.”

She winced. “Right. All the big girls have great personalities. I get it.”

He laid a hand on her thigh. “No, they don’t. But you do. You light up in front of the camera, Hattie, I saw it today. The idiot who took these clearly never did.”

“To be fair, he didn’t have much chance. I only booked an hour and we had to get through a lot of shots.”

“Do you always do that?”

She met his gaze, a question in her eyes.

“Make excuses for the way other people treat you,” Tom explained.

“I don’t do that,” she replied too quickly.

“Yes, you do. Why?”

“I don’t know.” She had stopped looking at him and started flicking through the portfolio again.

“Hattie.” Tom took the folder away from her and waited until she turned her face up again. “If you’re going to be my muse, you have to be honest with me.”

Her expressive eyes began to twinkle. “Your muse? Is that what I am?”

He shrugged. “Of course. My mind’s been sparking with ideas ever since you walked into my studio this afternoon.”

Hattie’s jaw dropped. “Really? I’m your muse. How fabulous. I feel like I should be draped in a 1920’s dress and wafting around your studio with a cigarette holder.” She picked up an apple from the fruit bowl and held it as if she were offering it to an invisible god. “Muse, with apple in her hands.”

Tom grinned. “Or in a grecian gown, holding an urn?”

“I haven’t got an urn.” She looked around for a subsitute and found one on the kitchen counter. “Will a colander do? Muse, holding colander aloft.”

She held her pose for an instant, then collapsed into giggles. “Are you sure you want me? I’m not very good at being serious.”

He laughed and took the colander out of her hands. “Muses aren’t chosen, Hattie, they’re born. And you, it seems, are mine.”

Her eyes narrowed as she held his gaze. Then she nodded. “I’m glad.”

When Hattie had left the studio earlier, Tom’s mind had exploded. New ideas crashed into each other like waves against a cliff, too fast for his pencil to keep up as it flashed across the pages of his sketchbook. He wanted her falling from a cliff, dodging a fast car, facing the venomous tongue of a snake. He wanted fear in her eyes, masked with courage and determination. He wanted Hattie, grasping at life with both hands while fate threw up every unimaginable danger in her path. He wanted her open, vulnerable and fragile.

As he looked down into her eyes now, he found it again. Naked honesty under a cracking surface of bravado. He could make those fissures deepen and split, exposing the desperate soul underneath.

Her body would provide its own incongruity in the images Tom envisioned. Her earthy voluptuousness gave the appearance of invincibility. It seemed that nothing should be able to harm a woman like Hattie. She had her own defences, internal and external.

His mouth twisted. Where were the chinks in Hattie’s armour? Not the body image issues that dogged most women in the fashion industry, he thought. But there was something that made her eyes flicker when he held her gaze. Something made this self-confident woman doubt herself. Some part of Hattie that she wanted to cover up and hide. He needed to find that part of her. He needed her soft, trusting, and vulnerable, spilling out her deepest secrets to him.

The easiest way would be to seduce her. It wouldn’t be a hardship. He wanted Hattie. She was gloriously sexy with her silky smooth skin, her inviting eyes and her infectious smile. Most of all, her unselfconscious ease with her own body. She would be an incredible lover and it would be the easiest thing in the world to take her to bed, to make love to her, to win her trust and discover her secrets.

She was looking at him expectantly. She wanted him to kiss her. Maybe more. Definitely more, by the way her eyes gleamed and her body shifted subtly towards him. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Maybe he was the world’s biggest bastard but even he had his limits.

He didn’t kiss her.

Hattie bit her lip and turned away, embarrassed to have read things wrong. Usually she had no difficulty in knowing when a man was attracted to her. She would have sworn that Tom was interested in her as more than an artistic muse. Earlier, in his studio, there had been real heat in his gaze and enough sexual tension between them to power her flat for a week.

He’d drawn back then, too. Pretended he was only interested in seeing the picture of her, not the real thing. Well, this time she would call his bluff.

“Here.” She handed over a large black folder which contained the few life drawings she’d liked enough to buy from the students.

He opened it carefully, smoothing out the paper with strong, controlled hands. The first was a simple sketch from a two minute pose. Strong and fluid, a couple of charcoal lines brilliantly captured a favourite pose of Hattie’s. She lay on her side, knees slightly bent and one hand supporting her head. Tom examined it for a few moments then moved on.

The next picture was a full-frontal pose of Hattie standing with one hand on her hip. Nothing was hidden from view. Not her wide thighs and hips, nor her well-rounded stomach. But the portrait drew the viewer to Hattie’s face. This artist had managed something that very few of the students even attempted. She had painted Hattie as a person, not merely a model. When Hattie looked at her painted eyes, she saw herself looking back.

She glanced across at Tom. His eyes roamed across the page, predictably lingering on her breasts. But then he, too, looked at the model’s face. He saw it. He saw her. She sighed with relief she hadn’t anticipated. He’d said earlier that her personality was her greatest asset and now she knew for sure he meant it. In Hattie’s experience, men all too often said she had a great personality when what they meant was that she had great tits.

Tom laid aside the watercolour and picked up the pastel drawing he’d seen part of earlier. She heard his intake of breath.

“It’s stunning,” he told her. “How much did you pay for it?”

“Fifty quid. More than I could afford, really, but I had to have it.”

“Yes. You got a bargain.”

“I thought so.”

He looked at the picture in silence for several minutes. Hattie looked at him. It was only fair, she decided, if he was going to keep looking at her. Mid brown hair, neatly cut and minimally styled. No jewellery. A plain leather watch. All as unobtrusive as his clothes. In fact, everything about his appearance was designed to deflect attention away from him.

It might almost work, if he weren’t so attractive. If his faded jeans didn’t cling quite so nicely to his thighs. If his hair didn’t curl up in just that way at his collar. If his eyes didn’t crinkle into amusement when he was trying not to laugh.

Yup, she still wanted to kiss him.

Judging by the way he was all but drooling over her picture, he felt the same. Hattie leaned forward, gently turning Tom’s head to face hers. She bent down and found his lips with her own.

For an instant, she thought he was going to pull away. Hattie pressed a little harder, wanting him to know she was quite sure. And then he relaxed. His mouth opened under hers, and suddenly, she wasn’t kissing him after all. He was kissing her and it was every bit as glorious as she had imagined it could be.

“So beautiful,” he murmured as his hand came up to tangle in her hair.

“Mmm,” Hattie agreed. “Kiss me again.”

Tom obliged. Again and again, until they both lay breathless and half naked on her sofa.

“Well,” she said, smiling down at him. “That was nice. Are you suitably inspired?”

“Inspired?” He frowned.

“Isn’t that what a muse is supposed to do? Inspire you?”

He sat up, pulling his shirt back together and fumbling with the buttons that Hattie had painstakingly undone just minutes earlier.

“Hattie, I think there’s been a mistake.”

“If you’re getting dressed now, there’s certainly been a mistake.” She watched him cautiously from the other end of the sofa.

“Please put your top back on,” he said, as calmly as he could manage.

“I thought you liked the way I look without it,” she retorted.

“I do but put it on anyway.” Because there was no way he could have this conversation while so much of Hattie was on display.

To his relief, she complied.

“Look, we need to talk,” he said. “But I’m starving and you did say something about shepherds pie. Can we discuss this over dinner?”

“I expect it’s burnt by now.”

He laughed. “If it’s burnt, I’ll order takeaway. My treat.”

“You know, you’re not doing a lot for my self esteem,” she grumbled.

“I don’t think there’s much wrong with your self esteem, Hattie. You’re gorgeous and you know it.”

“Hmm.”

She didn’t sound wholly persuaded, so he reached across to put a hand on her knee. “This isn’t about whether or not I find you attractive, Hattie. Because I do.”

“So, what is it about? Because I find you attractive, too. And since we’re both adults, freely consenting, I’m struggling to see the problem.”

Tom took a deep breath. “We’re going to be working together.” Which was true enough.

“So?”

“So it makes things complicated.”

“You’re telling me you’ve never slept with one of your models before?”

If only. “It’s never worked out well when I have.”

“Oh.”

“So, now that we have things clear, you can feed me shepherds pie and disgusting wine. And I am going to tell you how I became the most famous fashion photographer in the world, while you tell me why you dye your hair red and make excuses for the way people treat you. Okay?”

Hattie pulled away and regarded Tom with an earnestness he hadn’t expected from her. “No way. If you get to decide what I tell you, then I get to say what you tell me.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Why you hide behind the camera.”

“I don’t hide behind the camera. I’m a photographer. There is a difference.”

“Okay, then. Why are you a photographer?”

Tom paused. It was a question he’d been asked many times over the years by journalists who didn’t care what the answer was so long as they could print it in their magazines. He normally gave the same reply about wanting to show the world to itself. Which was true, so far as it went.

He liked to watch the world. He always had. Even as a child, he was the one on the edges of the playground, watching the others in their games. Teachers who assumed he was lonely had tried to involve him. But they hadn’t understood. He wasn’t lonely, he just liked to be alone.

An uncle had given Tom his first camera one Christmas and he had immediately fallen in love. Looking through the camera, he didn’t have to join in. He was separate, isolated by the lens. He could watch and observe and listen to his heart’s content.

“What other job lets a man stare at beautiful, half-naked women most of the day?”

Hattie rolled her eyes at him.

He laughed, reluctantly. “I like taking pictures.”

“You’re very good at it.” She waved a hand towards the magazines. “I can always tell when the cover shot is one of yours.”

“Thanks.”

“But I still don’t know why you chose to do it as a career.”

“It pays pretty well. I get to travel. Meet interesting people.”

She shook her head. “Fine, don’t tell me. But don’t expect me to give up all my secrets either.”

“I already know your secrets.”

Hattie snorted inelegantly. “What, that I like shepherds pie and crappy wine?”

“That you don’t do housework.” He glanced around the flat. “Ever, apparently.”

“That’s no secret. Even my mother knows that.”

“What doesn’t your mother know? About the life-modelling?”

“She knows.” Hattie dished up the meal and indicated where Tom should sit. “She doesn’t tell her friends about it but she knows. She’s seen the business cards.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “This is delicious, by the way. Your mother didn’t approve of the business cards?”

Hattie forked up her dinner. “No. Well, you can see why. She thinks it makes me look like a prostitute.”

“I’ve never seen a hooker’s card with a pastel drawing on it before.”

“Nor has she. Mind you, I don’t suppose she’s seen many hooker’s cards at all.”

Tom couldn’t help smiling. Hattie was like no one he’d ever met before in her honesty and her unconventional view of life.

“So you had a strict upbringing? Miss Community Service 2005.”

She groaned. “I can’t believe you found that.”

“It’s in the middle of your mantelpiece.”

“I knew I should have hidden it. My sister brought it with her last time she came. It had got into her box of stuff by mistake. I stuck it on the mantelpiece to keep it out of the way of my nephew. Not,” she said with a stern look at him, “as a display of my achievements.”

“What did you do to win it?”

“Modelled for a life drawing class at the local old people’s home.”

He choked on his mashed potato. “You didn’t!”

Hattie laughed and went to get him a glass of water. “No, I didn’t. I helped out with lots of their other activities, though. Bingo calling, quizzes, jigsaw championships, gardening. There was a drawing class but they wouldn’t let me sit for them.”

“I bet they loved you.”

She shrugged slightly. “I enjoyed it. Besides which, I told my mum that I was supposed to be there until dinner time. It got me an unaccounted hour twice a week.”

“Which you used for?”

“Kissing, mostly. Occasionally a bit more than kissing.”

“Hattie Bell, do you always say things to try and shock people?” He wasn’t falling for it again.

“No, that one’s true. My parents didn’t approve of my boyfriend when I was seventeen. That was the only time I could see him. It worked for months, until I found out that he had several other girls as part of his schedule. After that, I just used to hang out with my friends at the shopping centre.”

“Did he break your heart?”

“Nick? No way. My pride was a bit bruised but nothing else.”

She picked up their empty plates and dumped them in the sink.

“So who did?”

“Break my heart? Why should you assume anyone has?”

Tom leaned back in his chair, admiring Hattie’s bottom as she bent to look into the fridge.

“I’ve got some yoghurts, if you’d like one. Black cherry or peach.”

“Neither for me. So have they?”

Hattie emerged with a yoghurt and a spoon. “You don’t mind if I have one?”

He shook his head. “Well?”

“No. Not really.”

“Tell me.”

“About my tawdry love affair? Okay, but we’d better go back to the sofa. This could take a while.”

She made coffee for him and tea for herself. Sitting cross-legged at the other end of the sofa, Hattie looked pensive as she sipped from her mug.

“He was… not exactly my boss, but senior to me at work. He was a few years older, straight out of university while I’d only just left school.”

“Did he seduce you?”

Hattie smiled. “I seduced him, of course. That was my first mistake.”

“How was that a mistake?”

“He assumed I was easy. He never respected me. I can see it now, but then, I was just so overwhelmed that someone like him would want to go out with someone like me. I never thought about it at all. He was beautiful, you see, with cheekbones you could cut glass on and a knowing sort of smile that sent shivers down my spine. It wasn’t just me. Everyone in the office fell for him. The girls used to fight over who would take his coffee in.”

“I bet you won.”

She shook her head. “I never bothered. I just went over to his desk one day and asked if he wanted to go for a drink after work.”

“Brave.”

“Stupid. I’d unbuttoned my shirt enough so that when I leaned over to talk to him, he could see everything.” She stared down at her mug. “I was such an idiot.”

“You were young,” he pointed out gently.

“Old enough to know better. Anyway, we ended up in bed that first night and any night he felt like it.”

“For how long?”

“A year, nearly. I was working round to suggesting that we move in together.”

“What happened?”

“The usual. I got pregnant. I was scared but I thought we would be fine if we handled it together.”

“He didn’t want to?”

Her eyes were squeezed together in an attempt to keep tears in.

“No, he didn’t. His wife wouldn’t have liked it.”

“Oh, Hattie.”

“Everyone else at work knew. They all assumed I did too. That’s why they never said anything.”

“What did you do?”

“He gave me some money and told me to deal with it. So I did.”

She was staring at him fiercely, daring him to pity her. Or judge her.

“And you’re telling me he didn’t break your heart? You’re a strong woman, Hattie Bell.”

“He didn’t and I am. Thank you for noticing.”

“How long ago was it?”

She frowned, working it out. “It’ll be five years in October.”

“You haven’t been single for five years.”

She smiled. “No. Do you want a list?”

Tom laughed. “No. Unless any of the others were heartbreakers?”

“Not even close.”

“I’m glad.” He was. He didn’t like to think of Hattie miserable and alone. She should be laughing her way through life with her bright smile and even brighter hair. “When did you start dyeing your hair?”

“When I was 15. Mostly because it annoyed my mother so much. They hated it at school but short of shaving it off, they couldn’t do much about it.”

“Does it still annoy your mother?”

Hattie grinned. “Probably, though she’s stopped going on about it so much. Unless she’s telling me all the reasons why I haven’t found anyone to marry me. It usually gets a mention then.”

“Why haven’t you found anyone to marry you?”

“For the one reason my mother just can’t understand. I’m not looking.”

Tom nodded. “He broke your heart. Thought so.”

Hattie glared at him. “That is such a typical response.”

“What?”

“You just assume that the only reason a woman doesn’t want a husband is because she’s pining after some other guy. For your information, I’m happy with my life the way it is. I have a job, a place to live, and money in the bank. I get to decide when I go out and with whom. I have no problem finding men to spend time with me if that’s what I want, and no problem telling them to get lost when I’ve had enough.”

“That sounds… pretty selfish to me.”

She was on her feet in an instant, standing in front of him, hands on hips and eyes flashing with rage. “You hypocrite!”

“What?”

“Well, you’re not married, are you?”

“No, but…”

“Are you pining over a woman you can’t have?”

Tom shook his head silently. He was not pining over Lianne. The situation was completely different. And Hattie did

not need to know about it.

“So just what, exactly, is more selfish about my life than yours?”

He opened his mouth but there was no answer.

Hattie’s stance relaxed and her eyes began to twinkle. “Go on,” she told him. “Admit it. I’m right.”

Reluctantly a smile tugged at the corner of Tom’s lips. “Fine. You’re right. I’m every bit as selfish as you are.”

“I never let anyone else touch the TV remote,” she challenged.

“I take up all the space in the bed,” Tom countered.

“I don’t wash up unless I run out of plates.”

“I noticed. I work until four o’clock in the morning if I feel like it.”

“I pick all the prawns out of the takeaway curry.”

“I do that too.” He grinned.

“We’d better make sure we never agree to share an Indian, then.”

“Or just order twice as much.”

“Good idea.” She sank down into the sofa again, looking at him curiously. “Did you mean to make me fly off the handle like that?”

“Why would I do that?”

She shrugged. “To see what I look like when I’m angry.”

“Sexy,” he said. “You look very, very sexy when you’re angry.”

“You do know that women hate it when you say that?”

“Do they?” he answered mildly.

He watched in fascination as Hattie’s expression simmered again then settled into a knowing look.

“If you want to get me into bed, you don’t have to go to all this effort. You could just ask.” She paused. “Or you could just kiss me again.”

“I told you before, I don’t get involved with my models.”

“Right. Silly me. It’s just that you were looking at me like you couldn’t wait to rip my clothes off and shag me senseless.”

His jaw dropped. She wasn’t supposed to have noticed that. He turned away and picked up his jacket, taking a moment to recover his composure. When he looked back, Hattie was still reclining on the sofa. “I’m going now. And next time I see you Hattie, I might well ask you to take some of your clothes off. But there will be no shagging. Ever.”

Lying for the Camera: chapter one

Chapter One

The last of the models pulled on her jacket, slung her satchel over her shoulder and grunted in response to Tom’s automatic, “I’ll be in touch.”

It would be a no. He’d seen more than enough six-foot-tall sulky teenagers to know that wasn’t what he needed for this shoot. They might appear fragile with their stick-thin limbs and barely-formed features, but their eyes were hard as nails. They had to be, to survive in the fashion industry. Not all of them survived, of course.

He cut the thought off before it could take hold. Today wasn’t about Lianne. Today was about moving on. After fifteen years photographing girls who got younger and thinner each season, Tom Metcalfe knew exactly how to find the provocative glint in the eye of the dullest coat-hanger of a model. But this wasn’t a fashion shoot. He wasn’t taking pictures to sell clothes or perfume or make up or any other overpriced and unnecessary frippery. This time he was selling himself. His own vision of the world. He had no idea whether anyone would want to buy it.

The gallery for his first exhibition was already booked. Most of his portfolio was ready but there was something missing. Initially, he had decided not to include any portraits. Everyone already knew he could shoot women. Where was the challenge in that? But when he had shown the preliminary portfolio to the gallery owner, she had skimmed through it and shaken her head.

“It’s too pretty.”

“Pretty?”

“Shallow. Decorative. Pretty. But there’s nothing of you in here, Tom. You can’t just be a spectator, dispassionately observing pretty bits of the world. Not for this kind of show.”

As soon as she said it, he knew she was right. He needed more depth, more emotion. For him, that meant people. Faces hiding feelings. Eyes telling stories.

That was the reason Tom preferred to be the spectator. He stayed behind the camera while the attention was on the girls in shot, and that was how he liked it. No one ever interviewed the photographer, asking awkward questions or intruding into matters he would much rather keep hidden. No one could see into his eyes and find out what he really was.

There was no way he would be taking any self-portraits for his exhibition, but the world he was trying to portray needed to be more than pretty and shallow. It needed to show depth. Complexity. Humanity.

For that he needed a model. He had to find someone who with that depth and complexity in a way he could capture in a photograph. He’d advertised an open casting, hoping to find someone a bit different from the girls he usually worked with, but none of the models who had turned up had caught his eye at all.

“Am I too late?”

The woman who was leaning against the door of his studio was more than a bit different. Bright, dyed-red hair, heavy dark make-up, a scarlet jacket that swirled out around her hips. She grinned at him, her blue eyes twinkling in a way that made him suspect she wore coloured contact lenses.

“I had to leave work early but I still missed the bus. Isn’t it odd how the one you miss is always exactly on time, while the one you have to wait for is always running late?”

Tom nodded, though she didn’t pause long enough for him to speak.

“Anyway, I’m Hattie Bell and I’m here about the modelling job. You said you were looking for someone out of the ordinary, so I thought it was worth a shot. You wouldn’t believe the amount of castings I’ve been to where they wouldn’t even let me through the door. And the samples!” She threw up her hands in horror. “Made to fit a Barbie doll. No, that’s not right. Barbie dolls have breasts and hips. So do I.” She gestured at her body.

“I can see that.” She had them in abundance, along with thighs, stomach and bum.

“So, what do you think?” Hattie gave him a twirl. “Have you already found someone? You have, haven’t you? Oh, well.” She made as if to leave, disappointment written all over her expressive face.

“I haven’t found anyone.”

“Really? Well, great.” She grinned at him and took off her jacket. “Where do you want me?”

Tom picked up his small camera and pointed to the backdrop. “This is just a test. To see how you look on film. Relax. Smile. Move around. Whatever you want.”

Under her jacket, Hattie was wearing a clingy floral top and a neat black skirt. She looked comfortable in front of the camera, smiling at Tom, blowing kisses and laughing as she posed in traditional – and some not-so-traditional – ways. He took shot after shot, entranced by her total lack of self-consciousness and her evident delight in the process.

Sex, he realised suddenly. That was what made her different. Hattie was sexy. She wasn’t a faux-innocent teenage Lolita. She was a grown woman, she was in tune with her body, and she was intensely sexy with it.

“Turn your back to me and look over your shoulder,” he suggested. “Yes, like that. Smile.”

She did more than smile. She winked. Then she laughed and tossed her head back, sending that extraordinary hair flying. Without thinking, Tom dropped his hand, so that he could watch her without the filter of the lens. She was gorgeous. Sexy and alluring and incredibly sensual.

What would she be like in bed?

Come-to-bed eyes were such a cliché. And yet there was no other way to describe Hattie’s expression. She would only have to crook her finger and Tom would be there, kissing those luscious lips, ripping away her clothes, revelling in the generous curves of her body. It was clear that Hattie enjoyed sex as much as she was enjoying modelling for him now.

“Are you just going to watch, or do you want to take more photos?” Hattie confronted him with her hands on her hips.

Tom stared down at the camera in his hand.

“Sorry.” He swallowed, finding his mouth unexpectedly dry. “I, um, I need to find a new memory card.”

He turned back to his case, searching for the unnecessary memory card while he took a moment to compose himself.

“No problem. You know, if you’ve already decided you don’t want me, you only have to say so. No point wasting both our time.”

He fitted the new card and stood up. “I want you.”

“Really?” A huge smile spread over Hattie’s incredibly expressive face.

“Really.” Tom nodded. She wasn’t what he’d had in mind. She was even better. Different, interesting, intelligent, unexpected. He would never have found her on a fashion shoot, but for what he was planning, Hattie was ideal.

She threw her arms around him. “Thank you! I was beginning to think no one would ever give me a chance. I mean look at me.” Hattie stepped back and waited until Tom did as she instructed. “Do I look like I should be working in an office all day?”

“No. No, you don’t.” Tom had limited experience of working in an office but he couldn’t imagine colourful, vibrant Hattie in that kind of bland environment.

“Exactly. I always knew I should be in front of a camera. But I can’t act to save my life. Or sing. So it had to be modelling.”

“Right.” He knew he was shaking his head.

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I don’t have the figure for modelling.”

“You could do plus-size modelling,” he offered.

She shook her head. “Those castings I told you about? They were all for so-called plus-size models. When the fashion people say plus-size they mean average in the real world. I’m too fat.”

Tom didn’t bother to contradict her. None of the plus-size models he’d worked with had breasts like Hattie’s. They didn’t have double chins, either, or fat which spilled over the top of their skirts.

“Life modelling?”

“Done that. It’s not bad, though it doesn’t pay too well. I couldn’t make the rent. Besides, they don’t like you to talk while you’re doing it and I’m not very good at keeping quiet for hours on end.”

“So what did you think you would do?”

“I don’t know. I just knew that I would get a break eventually. And now I have.” She beamed at him.

“Look, Hattie.” Tom ran a hand through the back of his hair. “Don’t get too excited. I can only offer you a few days work. A week at the most.”

“Brilliant. I’ve got some holiday left. Just let me know when. And with this on my CV, who knows what could come of it? I mean, you’re seriously famous, right? All the girls want to have a shoot with Tom Metcalfe. Vogue, Marie-Claire, Elle…” She waved expansively. “The sky’s the limit.”

“I’ll do you some portfolio shots, if you like, but this isn’t going to be a fashion shoot, Hattie.”

“What kind of shoot is it? The advert didn’t say.”

“Art.” Tom cringed inside as he said it. The decision to expand outside his commercial work had been a hard one and he still hadn’t quite got used to the idea.

“Does that mean naked?”

“No!” Tom stared at Hattie, for an instant imagining her naked. “No, it doesn’t. Probably not. It just means art. In an exhibition. At a gallery.”

“Okay. But just so you know, if it did mean naked, that would be fine with me.”

“Right.” He took a deep breath. “Right.”

“I did the life modelling, remember.”

“So you did.” Tom busied himself with packing his camera gear away. He wasn’t going to bother with any more shots today.

“I’m not embarrassed by my body.”

“Good to know.”

“You know, you’re nothing like I was expecting.”

“Uh huh.”

“Aren’t you going to ask what I was expecting?”

“No.”

Hattie laughed. “You don’t give a lot away, do you?”

“There’s a reason I like to be behind the camera.”

She stepped closer, head tilted to one side, and examined him. “I wonder if you’ll ever tell me the reason, Tom Metcalfe.”

He drew a sharp breath. She’d obviously hit a raw nerve. Hattie desperately wanted to ask him again but she didn’t dare take the risk. Not when the man had just offered her the biggest break of her life. There was still time for him to change his mind, after all.

“So,” she said, stepping back, “When do you want me?”

He eyed her measuringly, his cool grey pupils seeming to dissect every inch of her. “How long will it take for the hair to grow out?”

Hattie blinked in surprise. “Um, about a month, I guess. You don’t like the red?”

“Not for this shoot. You’ll need to lay off the make up, too. And the contacts.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “How could you tell?”

Tom’s lips quirked up a little at one corner. “I’ve been in this industry for fifteen years. I can tell all the tricks. What colour are they underneath?”

“Still blue.” She reached up to remove one of the lenses. “Just not quite so blue.”

“Better,” he said. “Much better. I want the real you, not the fake one.”

Hattie nodded slowly. “Fine. If that’s what you want.”

“If you need any make up or styling on the shoot, I’ll sort it out.”

“Of course. So what kind of pictures will you be taking? I mean, I’ve seen all the editorials you’ve done and the ads and things, but you said this was art.”

Tom hesitated. He folded his arms across his chest. “It is. I’m having an exhibition and I need something different.”

“So?” Hattie smiled encouragingly. “What sort of different?”

“I haven’t decided exactly. Part of it will depend on you. How you react in different settings. How I can get the camera to go more than skin deep.”

She bit her lip. “More than skin deep? That sounds painful.”

And unlikely. Hattie didn’t let anyone see beneath her carefully constructed surface image. Even she didn’t look very often, not liking what she knew was hidden there. Still she had spent so many years hiding herself in plain sight that one week with Tom Metcalfe couldn’t be too difficult to manage. She would smile and flirt with him and the camera and he’d forget to look for anything but the surface.

“You’ll be adequately compensated,” he said dispassionately.

He laid out the terms of the contract he was offering. Hattie nodded happily, pleased with the generous fee.

“Great, so if you give me your contact details, I’ll send it along in a couple of days for you to sign.”

Hattie handed him a business card with her details on the back. Tom turned it over, as she knew he would. She waited a heartbeat then, on cue, his jaw dropped.

“Like it? One of the artists at the life class did it. I bought it from her, scanned it in and had the cards done.”

For the small business card, she had cropped the image, so that it only showed hints of her figure: her cleavage, her waist, her thigh. But the artist’s clever use of coloured pastels gave an extraordinary depth to the picture which Hattie had responded to. It wasn’t erotic and it wasn’t even especially revealing. It was, however, incredibly sensual and very intimate.

Hattie sucked in her breath as Tom stroked a finger across the card.

He was thinking about touching her like that.

She was thinking about him touching her like that.

“I want to see.” His voice was deeper than before, a little husky. It suited him.

Hattie nodded and reached for the hem of her top.

A warm hand closed firmly around her wrist. “I meant the picture, Hattie. I want to see the picture.”

She blushed. Hattie couldn’t remember the last time she had blushed. But with Tom’s hand on hers and the embarrassment of her misunderstanding, not to mention the flood of desire, she blushed.

“Oh,” she managed. She let the fabric drop and Tom took his hand away.

“I’m sorry,” he said with half a smile. “I should have been clearer.”

And she shouldn’t have presumed.

Hattie forced a smile. “Of course. I’ll bring it with me to the shoot, shall I?”

“I’d like to see it before then, if I may.”

“It’s at my flat. You can come and pick it up whenever you like. Or I can send it. Whatever’s easiest.”

She would have agreed to anything he asked. Tom Metcalfe was going to photograph her, Hattie Bell, for an exhibition. In a gallery.

This was her chance to really prove them all wrong. Everyone who had told her not to be so ridiculous, girls like her didn’t become famous. This, now, with Tom Metcalfe smiling at her and offering her a job, this was Hattie’s dream and she was grabbing it with both hands and never letting go.

“This evening?”

“Sure. Give me a ring when you’re on your way.”

After Hattie had gone in a swirl of colour, kissing his cheek and bubbling with excitement, Tom sank down at his desk. She was… extraordinary.

Which was a good thing, he reminded himself. He wanted extraordinary. He needed it for what he had in mind.

He slid the memory card into his laptop and began to flick through the images of Hattie. There was warmth in every shot. Warmth, humour, and sizzling sensuality. Just looking at them made Tom smile again. Hattie could teach the models he usually worked with a thing or two about being comfortable in your own body.

His finger paused over the mouse button for an instant. He flicked on, then back again. He zoomed in, so that her face filled the entire screen.

There it was.

The key to the whole exhibition lay in Hattie’s eyes. Behind the blue contact lenses there was something he hadn’t expected to find. The make up, the dyed hair, the confident chatter were all a mask. In her eyes, Tom saw the fragility she was trying to hide.

His mind whirred, reviewing all the pictures he’d already taken. That was the theme he hadn’t been able to find in amongst the pretty, decorative images: the fragility of life. All those delicate soap bubbles glistening with the colours of the rainbow, ready to burst as soon as they came into contact with anything else. The unfurling buds of a rare orchid. The moment of a sunrise, transient, fleeting, fragile.

Now Hattie. Bold, cheerful, confident Hattie with eyes that told a very different story. He would dress her in strong, powerful clothes, and then capture the chink in her armour. He would make her a modern-day Cleopatra, facing down her Marc Antony, then seduced by the snake that would be her destruction. He would give her walls to build and let an intruder in through the back door. Those pale blue eyes would open in shock and the lurking fear he had glimpsed earlier would betray her.

Someone had hurt her. Badly. He didn’t know how or why but he could see that Hattie was scared of being hurt again. Tom knew all about being hurt. He hid his own vulnerability behind the lens of a camera. Disappearing into the background, deflecting attention onto others, he’d perfected his own protective techniques over many years. Hattie had her own way of covering up her weaknesses with her make up and clothes, and her proud appropriation of her own body. Yet her fragility still showed if you looked hard enough, behind the glossy smile and the flirty wink.

The photos Tom had in mind were going to strip away that façade. It would be his job to break down every barrier she had. With the click of a camera he was going to expose her very soul. He held Hattie in his hands, as delicate as a glass bauble. He could ring her now. Tell her he’d changed his mind. Protect her, even though he was certain she wouldn’t see it that way.

Or he could go ahead. Take the photos that would cement his reputation as a true artist, and in the process, destroy all Hattie’s protective barriers. The cruelty of art had never been clearer to him.

Tom took a deep breath. He was going to have to break her. She was going to hate him for it.