Sweet Madness

But he interrupted her, with a small humourless laugh. ‘Do you really think,’ he began, ‘that I only ever employ people of whose lifestyles I approve?’ He rubbed his neck at a bare piece of skin, visible through the top button being open, and she found herself noticing where the tanned column of his neck became shadowed with dark whorls of chest hair. ‘If I did that, Ms Gilbert, I can assure you that I would be chronically understaffed.’ He put his head a little to one side, and stared at her consideringly, as if lining up a shot for the camera. ‘I must admit that I do have reservations about you—but the company you mix with isn’t one of them.’

Robin, her current employer, had told her bluntly that he was a difficult man, and she had been prepared to overlook that, making allowances for his genius behind the camera—but the reality of his caustic tongue had her senses sizzling with indignation. ‘What reservations?’

He gave the smallest shrug, and Sam was irritated with herself for noticing that even that slight movement drew attention to the breadth of his shoulders, giving definition to the interplay of muscle which rippled beneath. Again, she was caught in the crossfire of his gaze.

‘Well, firstly—there’s your size,’ he commented.

‘My size?’ She stared at him in bewilderment, for the briefest second experiencing every woman’s universal fear—that he was accusing her of being fat. ‘What’s wrong with my size?’

‘You’re very small,’ he said lazily. ‘Quite tiny, in fact.’

Sam unconsciously drew herself up to her full height and tossed her head back, so that the heavy bob of her mahogany hair swayed like a wheatfield in the wind. ‘I’m five feet three inches,’ she pointed out. ‘That’s hardly midget class.’

The rugged features remained unconvinced. ‘And you probably only weigh around ninety-five pounds.’

She mentally crossed her fingers. Didn’t they say that a woman was allowed to lie about her age and her weight? And if Declan Hunt had some kind of problem with petite women, then lie she would. After all, she did want the job—and she didn’t want him thinking that she was some undersized weakling, although she had to admit that standing in front of a man who was so big, and broad, made her feel decidedly more fragile than usual. ‘I’m a hundred and ten,’ she lied. ‘And my size surely has nothing to do with my ability to handle a camera. Right?’

‘Wrong. And I’ll be handling the camera mostly, not you. I need an assistant, not a partner—and certainly not a liability. Someone to carry my equipment—hump it up and down stairs, into cars, over fields. I do not want to spend valuable time when I could be assessing the light quality worrying that you’re going to give yourself a hernia, or, even worse, to find that you simply can’t hack it and manage to drop a load of valuable and very expensive equipment.’

More used now to the intensity of that stare, Sam met his gaze squarely. ‘Try me,’ she challenged.

There was a brief smile as he acknowledged the challenge, and the dark, tangled head was nodded in the direction of a large silver box. ‘Carry that camera over to the other side of the studio.’

The studio was vast and the box weighed a ton, but she would have died sooner than let him know that, and besides—her slight looks were deceptive. The squash she played twice a week had strengthened her, so that her ‘tiny’ frame—as he had called it so disparagingly—was surprisingly strong without being in the least bit sturdy. With a serene smile she accomplished his instruction. ‘How’s that?’ she questioned guilelessly.

He sat down on one of the two facing leather sofas, his long, denim-clad legs sprawled out in front of him, a careless movement of his hand indicating that she should sit opposite him. ‘Well, that’s reservation number one disposed of,’ he conceded.

‘And number two?’

He gave a small sigh. ‘Much more fundamental, and not so easy to reconcile, I’m afraid.’

She felt as though she was wandering through Hampton Court Maze, trying to follow his thought processes. ‘And it is?’

‘That you’re a woman.’

‘That I’m a woman?’ she repeated, slowly and deliberately, so that there could be no mistake, mentally composing a letter of complaint to the Equal Opportunities Commission.

‘That’s right.’

‘You don’t like women?’

For the first time, he laughed, and for the duration of that laugh all Sam’s indignation fled. Because the effect of that laugh softened the hard angles and planes of his face into the kind of sensational, sexy look which would knock women down like ninepins, and momentarily did the same for Sam. She felt as if some invisible punch had hit her solar plexus, robbing her not just of oxygen, but of reason, too. And yet with some unerring sense of self-preservation, she didn’t show the slightest glimpse of her reaction, merely set her face into disbelieving lines as she waited for his reply.

‘On the contrary,’ he drawled. ‘I love women.’

And some! She acidly noted his use of the plural.

‘Love them, that is,’ he continued, ‘except at work.’

Not trusting her instinctive response to such out-and-out chauvinism, she forced herself to adopt logic. ‘But you work with models all day,’ she pointed out, ‘most of whom are women.’

‘Different women, and in short bursts.’

‘So what’s wrong with one woman—constantly?’

‘Every bachelor’s nightmare,’ he murmured, half to himself, before looking up, his fingers locked as if in prayer, his eyes watching her face very closely. ‘Women are emotional creatures, Ms Gilbert, don’t you agree? And they tend to let their emotions get in the way of their work. It’s a fact of life—the way they’re made.’

‘Perhaps you could be a little more—explicit,’ Sam spluttered incredulously.

‘Sure.’ The ecclesiastical attitude of his hands changed as he moved them behind him to rest his head on them. ‘Tell a man he’s made a mistake, and what does he do? He learns from his mistake. Tell a woman the same thing, and what does she do?’

‘I don’t know, Mr Hunt, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’

The firm lips gave a cool imitation of a smile. ‘She usually bursts into tears. Do you deny that?’

She could understand some women crying, especially with a man like this around to provoke them. Frankly, if she were incarcerated with Mr Declan Hunt all day long, she might just consider taking out shares in Kleenex! Not that she was likely to be incarcerated with him. She was destined for the door, no doubt, but let her leave him believing her to be a cool cookie. She mimicked his cool smile with one of her own. ‘Some women, perhaps, Mr Hunt. Not this one.’

Another cool smile. ‘So you’ve been working for Robin Squires for—how long?’

‘Nearly two years.’

‘My ex-boss,’ he observed, an indefinable note in his voice. ‘Tell me why you want this job so much,’ he said suddenly.

Did it show that much? she wondered. Was her hero-worship of this man’s work so apparent? She looked into his eyes. They had fenced for the whole of the interview; she probably didn’t stand a chance. She had lied about her weight and let him carry on thinking that she behaved as outrageously as her sister, but she respected him enough as an artist to give him her reply from the heart.

‘I want to work with you,’ she said simply, ‘because of your book—The Innocents.’

His eyes shuttered like the closing of a lens, and his features became stony-cold—as forbidding as if they had been hewn from granite. ‘I don’t do that kind of work any more,’ he said, and there was a new, harsh note to his voice.

My, but he was touchy! She wondered what she had said that was so wrong, and struggled to make amends. ‘No. I know. But you can. You’re capable of it, and that’s enough for me.’ She was aware that she had raised her voice, speaking with all the zeal that his masterpiece of a book had inspired in her when it had first been published three years ago. That book had changed her life in a way. Because of it she had gone to work for Robin—she had wanted to learn from the man who had taught Declan. And now, today, she was here with a chance of working for the man himself—if she hadn’t blown it.

There was a long silence she didn’t dare to disturb.

Still resting his head in his hands, he had tipped back so that he was now looking at the ceiling. When he lowered his head to look at her and spoke again, the harshness had disappeared, the cool drawl returned.

‘I’m a fashion photographer now, Ms Gilbert. No more, no less. If you’re looking for something deeper, something more meaningful, then you can walk out of this door right now.’

She held her breath.

‘If, on the other hand, you want to learn how to take good professional fashion shots, then I’m your man.’

This last flat statement none the less sounded so like every woman’s fantasy about Declan Hunt that Sam’s thoughts were thrown into such confusion and she thought she must have misheard him.

‘Wh-at?’

He gave her a look which might almost have indicated that he was in danger of changing his mind, so Sam forced herself to ask as casually as she could manage, ‘You’re offering me the job as your assistant?’

He nodded. ‘If you want it.’