by Julie Cohen
‘Thom,’ Jonny said warningly.
‘Okay, okay. I was just saying. I get it, you’re deeper than that and you’re a decent guy who doesn’t break up relationships. I think you’re insane, but that’s nothing new. You do like her despite the fiancé, though, right? Tell Uncle Thom.’
‘I’ve wanted to marry her since I was nine,’ Jonny admitted. ‘But I’ll settle for dinner—if you give me any time off from posing for a camera.’
Thom pulled out his palm organiser and began tapping through it. ‘Well, we’ve got shoots scheduled for most of the day on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, but you should have some time free in the evening to meet your lady friend.’
‘And to do my real work. I’ve got a deadline for a book in three weeks. HTML for Utter Beginners.’
‘And to play. There are some mega parties you need to go to, especially mine on Friday. First, though, you and I are having lunch with the creative director from Pearce Grey, the advertising agency who’s hired you for the Franco campaign. Her name’s Jane Miller. You’ll like her.’
At the name, Jonny sat up straighter and smothered a chuckle.
He knew Jane Miller. And he definitely liked her.
In fact, he’d wanted to marry her since he was nine.
‘Sounds perfect,’ he said, pushing his glasses back on and clicking open his email program on his laptop. He’d already emailed Jane once today, this morning before he’d caught the train, but this called for another message.
‘Just one thing, Jonny?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Put in your contact lenses before we get to London, or I’ll call you Clark Kent by mistake.’
‘No problem,’ said Jonny, and started to type.
Subject: Today
Hey Jane, remember I said I was coming to London if you wanted to meet up? Turns out we’re meeting after all. I have something to confess to you: I’m moonlighting as a model, and you’ve got a lunch date today with my agent Thom Erikson and me.
He smiled. It felt good to come clean about his double life to someone else.
He glanced over at Thom, who was absorbed in his organiser again.
Jonny remembered Jane as a kid. She’d been vibrant, exciting and full of adventure, as outgoing as her four older brothers. She’d looked like a naughty porcelain doll, with her long wavy hair and her sparkling grey eyes.
Jane was up for a little bit of intrigue. She could keep this secret; in fact, she’d probably think it was fun.
Thing is, when I’m modelling, I’m known as Jay Richard instead of Jonny Cole. When we’re with other people, would you mind calling me Jay? It sounds weird, but I’ll explain it to you when we get a minute by ourselves. Looking forward to seeing you again. Love, Jonny.
As he hit the send button, he wondered if Jane Miller was still as adventurous as she used to be.
He hoped so.
Jane walked into the Covent Garden bistro and glanced around its trendy interior. She didn’t see Thom Erikson, or the model she’d hired through him to be the face of Giovanni Franco’s new cologne. Then again, of the two of them, she’d only met Thom in person—she’d seen the model in glossy photographs she’d gone through with her art director, so she might not recognise him in real life. From seven years of working in advertising, she knew very well that appearances didn’t always reflect reality.
It was a lesson she’d been wrestling with constantly for the past week.
At least lunch would be enjoyable, she thought as the hostess led her to the table she’d reserved. She liked Thom, and it was always interesting to meet models, as long as they weren’t chain smokers. They had odd quirks and they were good to look at, and Thom’s models tended to have a sense of humour.
Wouldn’t it just show Gary if I ended up dating a model? she thought, and snorted. She came up with crazy ideas all the time for her job, but this was probably one of the craziest. As if a model would ever notice her enough to ask her out.
Jane pulled her BlackBerry out of her briefcase, figuring she might as well use the time as she waited for Thom and Jay Richard. This morning had been hard work; she deserved a minute or two to look for an email from Jonny.
Her machine took a moment to connect, and when she looked up a man was smiling at her.
He had dark hair and he wore a loose white shirt, unbuttoned at the cuffs. His hands were in the pockets of his faded jeans. He stood casually, comfortably, looking straight at her, and his eyes were dark blue. Even across the room she could see it.
Jane’s fingers gripped her BlackBerry hard. This was her model. It must be, he looked so familiar. But, somehow, in a different way than she’d expected. It wasn’t like recognising someone from a photo. The sight of him connected inside her stomach, making her joints ache and her breasts tighten. Her tailored suit stifled her, felt too tight across her chest.
He had perfect teeth, sculpted lips, high cheekbones, and he wasn’t just smiling at her, he was beaming.
Jane couldn’t help it. She flicked her head to the side, looking over her shoulder to see who was behind her, because men this gorgeous did not beam at her.
When she looked back he was striding across the restaurant, nearly at her table, his hand outstretched.
And then he was there. In front of her, holding her hand in his, though she didn’t remember offering it.
‘Jane,’ he said, his head tilted slightly to the side, his smile digging creases into the side of his mouth. His voice was deep, soft, and friendly.
The sound of her name in his mouth did something to her blood because she felt as if she had too much of it, heating her skin, pumping her heart harder, tingling in her fingertips and chest.
‘Yes.’ She stood on weak legs, hearing her voice shaky and realising, somewhere in the back of her boiling brain, that she should really try to control her behaviour before she made herself look like an idiot. But this man …
‘You look different from your photographs,’ she said.
‘I really hope so,’ he said, and the warmth in his eyes and his hand made her swallow, hard.
‘Dude, you found her!’
A man in a white linen suit burst out of nowhere. He clapped the gorgeous man on the shoulder and kissed Jane on both of her cheeks. ‘Hey, Jane, great to see you, babe. I see you know Jay already.’
‘Thom,’ she said, in confusion, and then realised that she was still holding the model’s hand. ‘It’s great to meet you, Jay,’ she said, giving his hand a shake, trying to inject some professionalism into the gesture that was, for her, quite frankly sensual.
His hand enfolded hers, warm and dry, and it was as if she could feel every line of his palm, every print of his fingertips against her. It was more than a handshake. She felt as if she knew him.
She met his eyes again and he was smiling as if he shared a secret with her.
He knew. He knew he made her feel this way.
‘I’m glad to meet you too, Jane,’ he said, and his voice was knowing, too. ‘It looks as if we interrupted your emailing.’ He glanced down at her BlackBerry, where her emails had loaded.
‘Oh, not at all,’ she said, dropping his hand at last and scooping up her BlackBerry to close it down. She couldn’t help glance back up at his face, though, and when she did, he winked at her.
Winked. As if they were already friends, as if he were flirting with her. He stepped behind her and pulled out her seat for her—not that she needed it, she had just stood up—and before she could sink into it, he whispered, ‘You look even better than I thought you would.’
Oh-h-h. She got it, now. He was a charmer, someone who thought that his good looks gave him the right to flatter and flirt with every woman.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and if her attraction to him meant that she couldn’t quite inject her reply with the requisite coolness, he seemed to understand some of it, because he retreated to the other side of the table and sat down next to Thom.
Her body was disappointed. Her body, traitor th
at it was, wanted Jay to sit next to her and stay close to her. Her mind, however, registered that if she was sitting across from him, she’d be able to look at him for the entire meal, which was quite bad enough.
‘Jay’s very excited to be working on the Franco campaign with you,’ Thom was saying, and if it hadn’t been so weird she would have sworn that Thom dug an elbow into Jay’s side. ‘Aren’t you, Jay?’
‘Very,’ he said, and he caught Jane’s eye again. Jane couldn’t figure it out. It was as if he were trying to communicate some other message to her, something beyond the normal chit-chat of a professional meeting, something even beyond what must be, for him, routine flirting.
But what else would he be trying to say?
‘So how long have you been modelling, Jay?’ she asked brightly.
The look he gave her was wry, almost rueful, which didn’t make sense either, because if he was a charmer who relied on his looks, wouldn’t he be into his modelling career?
‘Not long,’ he answered. ‘Thom’s an old friend and he conned me into it.’
‘It’s not my fault if the camera loves you, dude,’ Thom said.
Jane dropped her gaze briefly to look at Jay’s body, what she could see of it across the table. She could see why the camera loved him. He was all lean, strong lines. His clothes were comfortably loose on his body, but she could tell from the bit of chest exposed in the V of his shirt and his dark-haired forearms that he was slim, but packed with muscle.
Some models, even the male ones, were too skinny, but Jay had a body that looked good in real life, too. They’d chosen him partly because Giovanni Franco wanted somebody masculine, who looked more like a man than some of the boyish models on the catwalks.
‘I’m not so sure I love the camera,’ Jay was saying to Thom. ‘And you only think modelling is a great profession because you haven’t been forced to look brooding under hot lights for hours on end.’
She dragged her eyes away from that V of tanned skin at the base of his neck, and sat back in her seat, trying for a semblance of ease. ‘Don’t you think that’s a fair turnaround for the years that women have been objectified by the media?’ she said.
‘Ha!’ cried Thom. ‘She’s got you there, bud. You’re striking a blow for feminism by being a sex object. Think of that next time you’re posing in your underwear.’
Jay threw back his head and laughed, and she could see the texture of his skin. He was tanned and he hadn’t shaved this morning, so a slight rough stubble shadowed his well-formed jaw and around his beautiful mouth.
She wondered what it would feel like on her neck. Under her lips.
A menu appeared in front of her and she took it without looking at the waitress who offered it. Instead, she looked at Jay’s hands as they accepted the menu. They were as lean and strong as the rest of him.
He smiled at her over the menu and the pulse of desire that ripped through her was so strong that she nearly gasped.
‘Would you like something to drink, some wine?’ she heard a female voice say, and Jane tore her gaze away from Jay to look up at the waitress, ask for the wine menu, take charge of this situation instead of letting her libido do it for her.
And this time, she did gasp, as her body temperature went from overheated to zero.
‘Oh, crap,’ she said.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS Kathleen. Big-breasted, tousle-haired, full-lipped Kathleen.
‘You’re a waitress?’ Jane said.
‘Oh.’ Kathleen stood stock-still, the wine list in her hand. ‘This—is awkward.’
‘Thom,’ Jane said, her voice much calmer than she would have thought possible, ‘would you mind choosing the wine? I’ll be right back.’
‘Sure,’ she heard Thom reply, but she didn’t wait to see what he thought of her behaviour. Instead she walked straight across the restaurant and into the ladies’ room.
It was empty. Jane kicked the marble base of the sink. She didn’t know what to do, so she washed her hands. She wished she could wash out her mouth, too. Or wash the last five minutes away.
‘He left me for a waitress,’ she said to her reflection, and then turned the water back on to wash her hands again.
She heard a soft knock on the door. ‘Jane?’
She went around the sink to the door. It was open a crack, and she could see a hand and half a face. Blue-eyed, jaw rough with brown stubble. Jay.
‘Jane? Are you all right?’
She sighed and opened the door all the way. Fortunately the ladies’ room was in a corridor off the main dining room, so the entire restaurant couldn’t witness her conversation with a male model through the lavatory door.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I said “crap”.’
Jay shrugged. ‘I’ve said worse, and so has Thom. I can be quite an inventive swearer, actually. What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. It’s—everything is fine.’ She smiled.
The expression on his face let her know she wasn’t being convincing. ‘Okay. Listen, Thom’s sorting out the bill and getting us a table at the restaurant next door. Do you like Italian?’
Her cheeks flushed hot. Some professional she was—she was meant to be the host. ‘That’s not necessary, I’ll be—’
‘It’s necessary,’ Jay interrupted her. ‘And don’t say the word “fine” any more. I know you’ve got a better vocabulary than that, even when you’re lying.’
His words surprised a laugh out of her. ‘Okay.’
Jay rested his shoulder against the wall beside him, the same sort of casual, comfortable stance he’d had when she’d first seen him. It brought him a little bit closer to her. She’d expect a model to wear some sort of cologne, especially as he was advertising it, but he smelled of warm cotton.
‘Do you want to tell me what’s wrong, Jane?’
For a split second, she was tempted.
It would be a relief to tell someone what was going on. She’d kept it in and kept it in and sometimes she felt as if she were going to explode. Jay was looking at her with concern in his blue eyes, a slight furrow between his eyebrows. And he looked so damn familiar, as if she’d known this stranger all her life.
But she didn’t know him.
‘Did you see her shoes?’ she asked instead. ‘The waitress’s?’
He nodded, seemingly not put off by the change in topic at all.
‘Were they cheap, or expensive?’ A model would know these things, she was sure.
‘Cheap,’ he said without hesitation. ‘Needed resoling. If she stands in those all day she’s headed for corns.’
Her laughter this time wasn’t quite so unexpected, and it relaxed her a little bit.
‘Jane,’ he said, leaning closer to her, his voice lower and sincere, ‘I don’t know who that waitress is, but if it helps you to know this, you are about a million times prettier than she is. And you have a better job, and I’m certain you have a better personality.’ His gaze dropped downward, taking her in. ‘And you have much better shoes.’
Jane’s skin heated, because, although he was discussing her shoes, he hadn’t just looked at her feet. He’d looked at her body on the way down. Just a look, but she was pretty much melting.
Wouldn’t it show Gary if I went out with a model? she thought again, and then again brushed the thought aside. She’d already mixed up her personal and her professional life, and it was a very bad idea.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I guess we’d better get back to—’
Jay touched her arm, the bare skin of her wrist, and she stopped, arrested by the feeling of his flesh on hers again.
‘You’re doing wonderfully, by the way,’ he said. ‘I appreciate it.’
That was an odd thing to say, but she supposed it was meant as some sort of encouragement. ‘Thank you. I’m usually a very professional person.’
‘I know.’
His fingers were still wrapped around her wrist. He could probably feel every beat of her heart. As if he were touc
hing, somehow, her life force.
Everything about him felt as if she’d known him for so, so long, maybe in a neglected corner of her mind where she paid attention to dreams and desires.
‘Will you have dinner with me tonight?’ she blurted out.
She could see the mild surprise in his eyes. ‘I would love to. Do you mean just the two of us, or—?’
‘Just the two of us,’ she replied, before she could think through what it was she had just done, or the probability that he would reject her. When she’d first started out in advertising, she’d learned to let her impulses loose, even the crazy ones, even the ones that would never work in a million years. Because sometimes they did work.
But she hadn’t let her impulses loose for some time, now.
‘I mean, don’t worry if you don’t want to, I know you’re busy, and—’
‘I would love to.’
That brought her up short. ‘Oh.’ She swallowed, put some more poise into her voice, and said, ‘Well, that’s wonderful. How about eight o’clock?’
‘Fantastic.’ His smile was both genuine and perfect. He nodded back towards the restaurant. ‘Shall we go and be professional now?’
‘Definitely.’ She stepped through the ladies’ room door and joined him, walking back across the restaurant, wondering with every step what the hell she had just got herself into.
Four and a half hours later, she was still wondering. Except this time she was pacing the living room of her high-ceilinged, brick-walled loft, wringing her hands.
Half of her was remembering Jay at lunch that afternoon. How he’d smiled when he’d said yes to her date, his hand curled intimately around her wrist. And then the rest of the meal, where they’d stuck safely to talk about modelling and the campaign and more general chat, and Jane had felt more like herself.
Except for the moments when she’d watched him eat. Knife and fork, held in his long-fingered hands. It was silly to be aroused by watching somebody cut his food. But she was. His movements were economical, the tendons on the back of his hand flexing, his fingers agile.
Whenever he took a bite of his risotto, she had to consider his mouth. How his bottom lip was fuller than the top. How both lips curved upwards at the corners, in a sexy near-smile. How white and even his teeth were.