by Lucy Gordon
He'd discovered a new thrill in gambling. Her father had several times had to hand over money to cover Jimmy's spiralling debts.
The only good thing to have come out of the marriage was Sonya, born while her mother was only sixteen. For her sake Lee had clung to the remnants of her broken-backed marriage, even after Jimmy had moved on to the excitement of other women.
Whatever his faults, he'd been a loving father, and when he'd been fired from his last job he'd spent all his time with his little daughter. Lee had been able to start her own career as a photographer, leaving Sonya with him while she went out to work. She prospered, and by the time her father cut off the money supply, saying, 'That's all my dear. The rest is for Mark,' Lee was able to cope alone.
At last Jimmy had moved out to live a hundred miles away with the woman who became his second wife. Sonya stayed with her mother, but paid her father long visits in the holidays.
Sonya knew nothing of the worst details. She adored Jimmy, so Lee said nothing now, and let her chatter on about eloping as though the subject didn't give her a pang.
'Couldn't we nudge him into eloping?' Sonya was saying wistfully. 'Then we'd get rid of him.'
'Darling, that's very unkind.'
'But it's a fantasy, Mum. It's all right for fantasies to be unkind because they're the safety valve for our aggressive instincts. "It's easier to treat our neighbour with charity in real life when we've just given him a satisfying come-uppance in the privacy of our minds."'
'Who said that?' Lee demanded, for Sonya's theatrical manner made it clear she'd been quoting.
'Daniel Raife, in his newspaper column.'
'Who?' asked Lee sharply.
'Daniel Raife. Mum, whatever's the matter?'
'That was the name of the man I collided with.'
'It must be a coincidence. It couldn't be the same man because you said your Daniel Raife had a real down on women and this one's the opposite. He writes for one of the tabloids and has a page in a woman's magazine, plus a TV chat show, where he gets people talking about controversial things. And he's always arguing in favour of a better deal for women.'
'Of course!' Lee said. 'I knew I'd heard his name before. I don't think I've seen his show, though.'
'It's on during the day, when you're out.'
'So Daniel Raife is on our side, huh?' Lee asked skeptically.
'Honestly. He writes books with titles like Women Are The Best, and he talks about how brilliant his daughter is, and how he's looking forward to her being made a judge.'
'Is she anywhere near being a judge?'
Sonya chuckled. 'I shouldn't think so. She's only fifteen. She goes to my school. She's mad about clothes. She thinks it's wonderful that my mother's a fashion photographer.'
Mark had returned to hear the end of the conversation. 'She sounds like a real twit,' he observed.
'Phoebe isn't a twit.'
'What was that name?' asked Lee quickly.
'Phoebe,' said Sonya. 'She's his daughter. Why?'
Lee was staring at her. 'The man I collided with had someone with him called Phoebe. What does she look like?'
'About five foot nine, very beautiful.'
Mark vanished into the next room and emerged a moment later with a book. He showed Lee the photograph on the back cover. 'Is that who you saw?'
The picture showed a young man with handsome, regular features and dark eyes. Her professional attention was alerted to the tell-tale signs of touching up that made the face bland and uninteresting. Even so, there was no doubt that this was the man she'd crossed swords with.
"That's him,' she groaned. 'And let me tell you, he's a fraud. If you could have heard the way he talked to poor Phoebe-'
'Most people talk to their kids like that,' said Sonya wisely. 'That's not sexism. That's parentism.'
'It still doesn't justify the remarks he made about women drivers,' said Lee firmly.
'But you can't blame a man for what he says when his car's been damaged,' protested Mark. 'That's not sexism either. It's driverism. I don't suppose you were sweetness and light yourself.'
'Well, he had no right to call me a fluffy-headed little thing. I certainly wouldn't have put him down as a man who wanted his daughter to be a judge.'
'He's wasting his time. Women are incapable of being impartial,' Mark declared from the lofty heights of his age. 'They should be kept ignorant-like Sonya.'
'Well, it would be better than knowing eight languages and talking drivel in all of them,' Sonya countered.
He departed without deigning to reply. Sonya murmured wistfully, 'One of these days I'm really going to enjoy kicking his shins.'
'Aren't you supposed to be working that off in your fantasies?' Lee enquired.
'Oh, no, Mum. Kicking his shins is for real life. The fantasy is boiling him in oil.'
Later that evening the phone rang. 'Lee, thank heavens I found you in,' said a relieved voice on the other end.
'Hello, Sal. What's the crisis?' Sally was an old friend who worked for a public relations firm.
'Could you possibly do an extra session tomorrow? Please, Lee. It'll save my life.'
'It's a bit difficult,' Lee said doubtfully. 'I'm fully booked. I could fit someone in at the end, but they'd have to wait a while. Who is it?'
'Daniel Raife. It's for his new book.'
'Sorry, Sal, you're wasting your time. I'm Daniel Raife's most unfavourite person since our cars collided. He'd never let me take his pic'
'But he asked for you.'
'He what?'
'We handle publicity for his publisher. They always put his picture on the back cover. At the very last. minute he's decided he wants a new photograph, and he said it has to be done by you.'
'I wish I knew what was going on,' Lee said, feeling frazzled.
'Well, if you take his picture you'll be able to ask him,' Sally said unanswerably.
'All right, but warn him he'll have to hang about. He can try his luck from four o'clock onwards.'
When she'd hung up Lee took out Who's Who, not really expecting to find a talk show host there. But Daniel Raife wasn't just a television celebrity and columnist, it appeared, but a professor of philosophy with a staggering number of degrees. At thirty-seven he'd lived a varied life in which-if his entry could be believed-he'd reluctantly exchanged the life of an academic for the bright lights of the studio.
'Him!' Lee murmured cynically. 'Fame, fortune and getting your own way all the time, but secretly you yearn for the life of the mind. Well, it may fool your public, but you're a fraud, my friend.'
She was rather looking forward to tomorrow.
CHAPTER TWO
From the moment she started work next morning Lee knew that it was going to be a bad day. One of the models was late, one had a head cold, one garment hadn't arrived when she began shooting, two accessories didn't match and the hairdresser and the make-up artist almost came to blows. By three o'clock, when she should have been near the finishing post, she'd barely started.
'All right everybody,' she called. 'Ten-minute break while tempers cool.'
Gillian, her assistant, started going round with cups of coffee. Lee regarded her own reflection wryly. She wore old jeans and a shirt, her hair was drawn well back and held by a ribbon and there was a smudge on her cheek.
Never mind, she thought. At least she looked what she was: a hard-working woman and not a fluffy-headed little thing. She went on into her office, but in the doorway she stopped, riveted by the sight of the most astoundingly lovely young woman she'd ever seen.
The stranger was tall, with a bean-pole figure and fine features. Her hair was a fiery, natural-looking red and her eyes a deep blue. Lee blinked, wondering why her visitor looked familiar. 'Was I expecting another model?' she asked. 'What agency are you from, Miss-?'
'I'm not a model,' the young woman said, smiling. 'I only wish I were. We've met before.'
'Of course we have. I didn't recognize you at first. It was a dark night, and raini
ng-'
'And you were having a shouting match with Dad,' Phoebe said, chuckling.
'Are you really only fifteen?' Lee asked, astonished. Phoebe was made up subtly, with an expert hand, and could have been twenty.
'I'll be sixteen in a couple of months. Mrs Meredith, I've really looked forward to meeting you properly. I've made Sonya tell me all about you.'
'Yes, she said you were interested in clothes.'
Phoebe Raife had a real sense of style. She wore a loose white jersey dress, and around her neck she'd knotted a silk scarf that exactly matched her eyes.
'I'm afraid I'll be about three hours,' Lee went on. 'You'd be better off going away and coming back.'
'But can't we wait if we keep very quiet and stay out of the way?' Phoebe asked anxiously.
Lee chuckled. 'I can imagine what your father would say to that.'
'No? Can you? What would he say?'
Lee whirled to confront the owner of the amused, masculine voice that had come from behind her. She had to look up to see him, and only just recognized her foe of the other night. He was dramatically altered, not only by the fact that he was dry and well groomed, but because his face now bore a pleasant smile.
It was also the face of the retouched photograph, but, again, it was different. That picture had been of a bland, uninteresting boy. This was a man in his late thirties who looked as if he'd survived a battering by the world and come up still smiling.
The reality had everything the picture lacked-life, strength and character, and above all humour. The features were lean, the mouth was generous and firm, the chin resolute to the point of stubbornness. But it was the eyes that held her. They were like lights on a dark night, and they seemed to draw her towards him as though the two of them were connected by wires.
All this flashed through her mind in a second. Outwardly she retained enough composure to observe coolly, 'I think he'd probably say something about fluffy-headed little things with nothing else to think of but clothes.'
He had the grace to blush, but recovered himself quickly. 'I never said it. You imagined the whole thing, honestly.'
'In my daydreaming, you mean,' she said, through twitching lips.
'Mrs Meredith,' he pleaded, 'I throw myself on your mercy. When my daughter saw your card and realised who I'd offended, she threatened me with dire retribution if I didn't put the matter right. If you don't forgive me, she'll never speak to me again.'
'I set it all up,' Phoebe said in delight. 'I told the PR woman that the photographer had to be you.'
'And then she forced me to come early so that she could watch you work,' Daniel said. 'Naturally I warned her that you'd order us straight out…'
He spread his hands in a helpless gesture, and Lee had to smile. She knew that his apparent diffidence was no more than the easiest way of achieving his object, but his object was his daughter's pleasure, and she liked him for it.
'You don't have to go,' she said. 'But I'll be a long time.'
'You're in luck,' Daniel said to his daughter. Then, to Lee, 'We'll tuck ourselves out of sight and you'll never know we're here.'
Phoebe slipped away. Daniel stayed where he was, regarding Lee. 'I apologise, very sincerely,' he said. 'When I learned who you were I saw how idiotic my remarks had been.'
'I had a similar shock,' she admitted. 'I've discovered that you're famous as a champion of women.'
'You mean you hadn't guessed?' he asked outrageously, and they laughed together.
'Why didn't one of you tell me that Phoebe was your daughter?'
He grinned. 'I tried to, but you shut me up, and Phoebe kept quiet because she was enjoying the joke. I hope the insurers have told you that I'm accepting full liability?'
'Yes. In fact I was going to contact you and say that I can't let you do that. You were quite right. I reacted much too late, so half the blame is mine.'
He didn't answer this directly, but said, 'Had you been on a job?'
'Yes.'
'So you were tired from working. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. Am I forgiven?'
'Of course-if I am.'
'There's nothing for me to forgive,' he said simply.
'About the insurance-'
'Why don't we talk about that later? You've still got this session to finish, haven't you?'
'Goodness, yes.' With a start Lee realised that while she'd been talking to this man she'd forgotten everything else in the world.
She showed him a couple of chairs by the wall and went back to work. There were no more hold-ups and she was finished by six o'clock.
'OK, that's it,' she cried at last.
Gillian served more coffee. The chief model, a willowy blonde called Roxanne, began to remove her elegant clothes, assisted by Phoebe who was full of eager questions.
Lee remembered herself at exactly the same age, planning her elopement, never dreaming of the bitterness and disillusion that awaited her. Then she looked up and discovered that while she'd been watching Phoebe Daniel had been watching her, a questioning look in his eyes. His lips curved in a slight smile that was full of warmth, and he looked as if he could see right into Lee's heart and understand everything there. The thought made her uneasy, as though he'd invaded her privacy. She went into her office and began to remove the film from the camera.
After a moment he came in. 'I can't thank you enough for this afternoon,' he said. 'Phoebe's clothes-mad, like all girls of her age, and this has been a great treat for her.'
She smiled and thanked him, but something told her that Daniel had misread his daughter. There was nothing immature in Phoebe's sense of style, and the delicate beauty of her face was given character by firm chin. Lee wondered if Daniel Raife might yet have a shock waiting for him in the not too distant future.
'You'll have to tell me what kind of portrait you want,' she said.
'Just show me as I really am.'
'But how are you? How do you see yourself? That's what people really mean when they say "as I am". I'll be honest, Mr Raife-'
'Don't you think we've advanced to the first-name stage by now?' he asked. 'After all the other names we've called each other?'
She laughed. 'All right-Daniel. I'm not happy with this assignment. I've seen the current picture on your covers and I couldn't do anything like it.'
'Thank heavens!' he said fervently. 'I loathe that monstrosity. It's touched up till I look like some damned matinee idol. People expect me to look like that and when they see me they say, "My God, hasn't he aged?'' I want you to make me look middle-aged, and if possible a little bit raddled. Then, when people see me, they'll say, "By Jove, he's worn well!"'
Lee stood back and regarded this madman who'd erupted into her studio like the breath of life. She took in the lines of his lean, yet muscular frame, the length of his thighs in a pair of well-cut trousers, the breadth of his shoulders. She saw the healthy look of his brown skin, the laughter lines of his face, the gleaming dark eyes with a hint of the devil in their depths, the aura of controlled yet powerful masculinity that made her office seem suddenly more cramped than usual.
'I might,' she said at last, with an air of making concessions, 'manage distinguished-'
He pulled a face.
'But not middle-aged-'
His mouth went down at the corners.
'And definitely not raddled.'
He eyed her as if assessing the strength of the opposition. Then inspiration seized him. He pulled out a pair of glasses with thick black frames and put them on.
'Raddled,' he said firmly.
She shook her head. 'Distinguished. That's my best offer.'
'What kind of a rotten photographer are you?' he demanded, outraged. 'I'm not asking for very much.'
'You're asking for the moon. Michelangelo couldn't make you seem raddled. You don't look middle-aged even with the glasses on. You've got all your hair, and it's kept its colour.'
He ran a hand distractedly through his shiny dark locks. 'You can blame that on Phoebe,
' he said. 'I wanted to use a bit of flour at the sides, but she wouldn't let me.'
'Good for her,' Lee said. 'She has, if I may say so, a lot of common sense that she plainly did not inherit from her father.'
He grinned. 'She gets her savvy from her mother.
'Then give my compliments to her mother,' Lee said tartly.
'That lady has been out of my life for years,' Daniel said in a changed voice. 'Something I'm very glad of at the moment.'
Suddenly it wasn't funny any more. His eyes were on her and there was no doubt about his meaning. It was ridiculous. Discounting their first meeting, they'd known each other only a few minutes, and they'd spent those minutes having a laughing, idiotic conversation. But there'd been another conversation going on beneath it, communicating their mutual attraction.
She took a slow breath. She distrusted this man. Not that she knew anything about him, but she distrusted all men, especially those with charm. Jimmy Meredith had been the most charming man in the world-for a time.
'I'll take you in the glasses,' she said.
He didn't seem to hear her. 'Phoebe says you're divorced,' he said quietly. 'Is she right?'
She looked away and began searching a shelf where she kept stacks of film. 'Is that a professional enquiry?' she asked.
'You know quite well what sort of enquiry it is.'
'I'm divorced,' she said shortly.
'For very long?'
'Three years.'
"That's long enough for you to have found someone else. Is there anyone else?'
'No.'
'Will you come out with me?'
'No.'
'Why? Because of the way I behaved when we met?'
'Of course not. It's just that I don't know you.'
'That's no reason. But you're not going to tell me the real reason, are you?'
'No.'
She turned back to him and found him studying his fingernails. 'All right,' he said. 'I'm ready if you are. Let's get started.'
He left the office and after a moment Lee followed him, slightly startled by his abruptness. The last five minutes might never have been.
They started work. Lee seated him on a high stool and moved round him, this way and that, seeking angles. In the past she'd adjusted the subject's head with her hands, but with Daniel she contented herself with saying, 'Look here-now over there-turn to me- lift your head a little-'