Lying for the Camera: Chapter Five

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Of all the ridiculous things Tom had made her do, this was the one she felt self-conscious about? Hattie knew she was being stupid. 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 manage to 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.

“I’ll have the 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 lasagne 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 half-empty 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.”