Sweet Madness

They were shooting a costly diamond necklace for a leading diamond merchant’s advertisement, and the model arrived along with a security guard who was carrying the jewellery, the art director of the advertising agency which was producing the advert, and an executive from the company which cut the gems. Sam made everyone coffee.

The model was called Nicki, a breathtakingly lovely creature of just seventeen, and Sam recognised that she had that indefinable quality about her which spelt stardom. She had the classic model combination of extreme height—most of it in her legs—waist-length curls, pouty lips and superb bone-structure. She made Sam feel like one of the seven dwarfs.

Determined to put Declan and her personal animosities aside, Sam set about making herself useful, rearranging light reflectors and positioning the wind machine which would make Nicki’s glorious golden curls billow magnificently.

But Nicki was new to the business, and perhaps she was intimidated by Declan’s reputation, because she was nervous as hell, Sam quickly realised, and her facial expressions became accordingly wooden. Sam sensed the assembled group holding their breath in anticipation, because they all knew that the success of the shoot depended on the model, and if she was unable to relax and Declan couldn’t get the pictures he wanted then the whole shot would have to be rescheduled using a new model, both costly and time-consuming.

Declan looked up from his camera, a lock of dark hair falling over his forehead, and smiled. It was, thought Sam, a lethal and devastating combination. All that blatant masculinity coupled with blue eyes which could have melted ice. He smiled at Nicki.

‘Is this your first job?’

His tone was nothing but kind and interested and perhaps the girl had been expecting censure, thought Sam, for she visibly relaxed in the sunshine of Declan’s charm.

‘My second, actually.’

He smiled again. ‘You’re doing well. This advert is going to appear in Vogue. Not bad for a second job.’ He cupped his hands over an imaginary crystal ball and bent over it. ‘I see great things ahead,’ he intoned, in a trance-like voice, and Nicki giggled.

The chat continued, and Sam watched, fascinated, as he managed to wrest from her the rather astonishing fact that she was a keen gardener, and he even kept an intensely interested face when she proceeded to tell him all about the caterpillars which were attacking her camellia leaves! And he wasn’t even flirting, Sam realised; he was far too clever and experienced to do that. In fact, Nicki herself was blooming because he was doing what probably no man had done since her youthful beauty had developed—he was treating her as an intelligent person, and not as a sex-object.

Seconds later he said to her, very casually, ‘Right, are we ready to go?’

Nicki nodded, her eyes shining with hero-worship. You and me both, thought Sam regretfully. He doesn’t even have to try. No wonder he’s so arrogant.

He went back to the camera and began to focus in on the girl’s face, while the dazzling diamonds sparked ice-fire at her neck. Sam knew without looking at any contact sheets that the pictures would be a masterpiece.

At six he said, ‘It’s a wrap.’ And the jewels were packed away, the art director and the executive and Nicki all took their leave, all supremely satisfied with the day’s work.

Sam cleared the studio, and when she’d finished she found Declan in the outer office, Michael long gone, leaning over the desk, lost in thought, silhouetted against the fading light.

As she stood silently behind him on the deep-pile carpet of the office, she thought that she had never seen someone standing quite so still. Was that a life-saving skill he’d learnt out in the East, while the battles raged all around him?

Sam stood for a moment studying him, a great rush of unwilling admiration washing over her as she imagined him remembering those days of trial and tribulation. Was he regretting them now, glad of the safety of his new world? Or did he miss the adrenalin coursing through his veins, the kind of feeling which no jewellery shoot—no matter how prestigious—could ever inspire?

And then her foolish imaginings disintegrated as her eyes were drawn to the focus of his attention. Lying to one side of the desk was a large buff-coloured envelope—the hard-backed kind used to send photos. It was marked ‘confidential’, and Michael had obviously left it for Declan to open.

But it was the content of the envelope which filled her mouth with a bitter taste. It was a large portrait-shot of Gita.

Misty and provocative, she gazed lovingly at the camera. And even from where she stood, Sam could see some message scrawled in the corner, followed by a long line of kisses. She drew in a breath and he turned round instantly, before she had a chance to disguise the distaste on her face. What was Gita doing sending him signed photos with loving messages? Were her suspicions founded in fact?

She saw his eyes harden like chips of sapphire. He looked angry, as watchful as a cat. ‘What is it?’ he snapped.

It was an abrupt, forbidding tone, and she wondered if it was provoked by his guilt at coveting another man’s wife.

‘What is it?’ he repeated. ‘Do you always make a habit of sneaking up behind people like that?’

‘I didn’t “sneak up”—you just seemed very lost in thought,’ she retorted, and she knew that her voice contained a quiet accusation, because his mouth twisted with rage.

They stood staring at one another, Sam rooted to the spot. There had been an intensity to the brief exchange which seemed to spark off something in him. Something very raw and basic. He was very angry—with her? Or with Gita? But suddenly all his outward sophistication fell away. She saw the man beneath, who had lain in insect-ridden, sweaty jungles, getting shot at. His very maleness seemed to emanate from him in waves which were almost tangible, and she knew such terror and excitement that she took an unconscious step away from him. He saw the movement, and with lightning speed clamped his hand about her wrist and brought her up against him, so close that she could feel every tensed muscle like solid steel pressing against her soft curves.

The impact of his touch was explosive; she felt her body spring into instant clamouring response—as though he had somehow managed to place an electric charge deep inside her.

She stared up at him, both bewitched and petrified, and she saw his lips curve into a smile which was nothing whatsoever to do with happiness.

‘Don’t look so surprised,’ he mocked softly. ‘You must know by now what it does to a man when you gaze up at him with those big brown eyes. Like Bambi,’ he mused, ‘only not so innocent,’ and he drew one thoughtful finger slowly down a cheek that she knew was drained of all blood. And that single contact, innocuous though it was, caused her insides to melt like butter on a hot day, and a shiver turned the skin beneath her clothes into icy goose-bumps. She was speechless and spellbound as she stared at him helplessly. She had never dreamed, never, that a man could make you feel like this. To feel so much, from so little . . .

He laughed then, almost ruthlessly, and let her go, turning to pick up the photo, sliding it back smoothly into its envelope, Gita’s exquisite face mocking her as he did so.

Ignore it, she thought. Act flip—that’s what he’d expect of you. Pretend it was nothing. Nothing. ‘Will you be needing me for anything else tonight?’ she asked coolly.

He gave her a quizzical look. ‘In view of what just happened, I’d advise you to make your questions a little less ambiguous in future—a man could get quite the wrong idea.’ He made for the door, then paused. ‘As a matter of fact, I do—will you get those films developed tonight, before you go? Or is there a man waiting?’

If only he knew—and if he knew he’d never believe it in a million years. Let him think what he liked—anything rather than have him harbour fears that she had no life of her own, that he was going to become the main feature in it. She gave a little shrug. ‘Kind of,’ she prevaricated.

‘Well, make sure he doesn’t keep you out all night—we’re out on location tomorrow, and it’s an early start. We have to be in Sussex by eight, so I’ll pick you up at six.’

Her brain must still be fuddled from that embrace, else why would she be stuttering out scarcely coherent replies? ‘You mean—from my flat?’

His mouth twisted. ‘Unless you’ll be staying somewhere else?’

The implication was clear, and she shook her head, her eyes flashing with anger. ‘I’ll be at home.’ Her voice was chilly.

He had his hand on the door-handle. ‘Well—don’t forget to lock up. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’ Sam’s stomach was churning as she took the film into the dark-room. What in heaven’s name was happening to her? She snapped the light off and, by touch alone, wound the films on to their metal spirals and plunged them into developing fluid.

Her heart was racing like a piston. It was sexual attraction, nothing more, and she was going to have to hide it. Nothing had happened, and nothing would.

But her heart continued to race as she thought of tomorrow. Of a long drive to Sussex. Alone in the car with Declan.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_b3a0c9c9-3805-5024-b11c-e46bec328d7e)

BY THE time Sam had finished at the studio, it was getting on for eight, and she had to dash like mad to get over to the youth club where she had been helping out on a weekly basis ever since she’d first arrived in London, almost eight years ago.

The club was in a dingy part of the city where the houses were small, grey and narrow, piled on top of one another with back-yards the size of pocket handkerchiefs. Her flat in Knightsbridge seemed almost palatial in comparison to the overcrowded tower blocks here, and had caused her a pang of guilt on more than one occasion.

Sam pushed open the door of the youth centre, to find that John had already arrived.

‘Hi,’ he smiled. ‘How was your first day?’

She smiled back, pleased that he’d remembered. ‘Don’t ask.’

‘That bad, huh?’

‘I suppose there’s a price to pay for being a genius,’ she observed.

‘The genius being Declan Hunt?’

‘You’ve got it in one!’ She began to fill the giant urn with water.