‘No? So it’s just a cosy little threesome, is it?’
‘I don’t like your implication,’ Katy snapped. ‘Gemma and Gerald are engaged to be married. It was very kind of them to invite me on this holiday with them.’ She knew that kindness hadn’t entered into it, but she wasn’t about to tell this man that.
‘Gemma and Gerald!’ he taunted mockingly. ‘How nice.’
‘God, you’re sarcastic!’ She turned her back on him, hearing his throaty chuckle behind her.
What an unpleasant creature he was! But how dangerously attractive, with that wicked gleam of amusement in his blue eyes, albeit cruel amusement.
‘You lucky devil,’ Gemma told her in a fierce whisper. ‘Gerald and I have just realised who you’re sitting next to,’ she explained at Katy’s puzzled look. ‘Well, Gerald realised it first,’ she grudgingly admitted.
‘Well?’ Katy asked patiently.
‘He’s Adam Wild!’ Gemma announced triumphantly.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Katy instantly dismissed the idea. ‘He would be in the first class, not back here with the rabble.’ Adam Wild was the top photographer in England, usually specialising in photographs of beautiful women, both clothed and unclothed. He was also rich enough not to have to travel in economy class.
Gemma scowled. ‘Maybe there weren’t any first class seats left. Anyway, you were talking to him for some time just now, didn’t he tell you his name?’
‘It wasn’t that sort of conversation.’
Her sister sighed. ‘Trust you to miss an opportunity like that! Well, if he talks to you again find out if we’re right.’
‘I don’t intend talking to him again. I don’t like him.’
Gemma gave her a pitying look before turning away, and Katy knew she had gone down even further in her sister’s estimation. But surely this man couldn’t be Adam Wild? He was dressed so casually, for one thing, and as she had pointed out to Gemma, he was hardly likely to be sitting here.
Minutes later the air hostess came round with their afternoon tea, and Katy gratefully accepted the refreshing cup of tea that went with the light fare. She almost dropped her cup as she heard the girl call the man at her side ‘Mr Wild’, and as it was she spilt some of the hot liquid over her denims. It was him—Adam Wild!
She looked at him with new eyes, seeing the lines of dissipation and cynicism beside his nose and mouth, the worldly air that encircled him despite his casual clothing. God, no wonder he had coldly dismissed her; she was passably attractive, but the women he photographed were beautiful and sophisticated.
‘It’s soaking into your denims,’ he turned to her to remark patiently.
‘I—I beg your pardon?’ Katy jumped nervously as he spoke.
‘Your tea—you’re spilling it all over you.’ He took her cup out of her unresisting fingers and began mopping her up with his paper napkin. ‘Couldn’t you feel it dripping down on you?’ he asked, as if she were a particularly stupid child.
‘I—er—’ She licked her lips nervously, completely overwhelmed as he touched the inside of her thigh, purely to mop up the liquid, of course. ‘Yes,’ she nodded vigorously.
He shook his head. ‘Then why the hell didn’t you stop doing it?’
‘I—I—You see, Mr Wild, I—’
‘Ah,’ he nodded understanding, ‘you know who I am.’
‘I heard the air hostess,’ she confirmed, wishing he would stop touching her like that.
‘And you would like to take your clothes off for me.’ He finally sat back, discarding the tissue paper with a certain amount of disgust.
‘Certainly not!’ Katy gasped.
He studied her critically for several minutes. ‘You’ll never make it on the face alone. The bone structure is good, but it isn’t enough on its own. The clothes would have to come off. I’m sure that under that loose shirt and denims there’s a beautiful body just waiting to show itself.’
‘And I’m sure there’s no such thing!’ she told him indignantly, the totally assessing look in his eyes making her feel like wrapping her arms protectively about herself. ‘I’m not taking my clothes off for you or any other man!’
‘Why not?’
‘Why not? Because—well, because I—I don’t even know you!’
Once again he seemed amused by her. ‘What difference does that make? I think you could be very photogenic. Are your eyes really grey or is it my imagination?’
‘They’re grey,’ she snapped confirmation.
‘A lovely smoky grey. And hair the colour of toffee.’
‘Caramel!’ Katy corrected crossly.
He shrugged. ‘Okay, caramel. And there’s a beautiful body under all those clothes, right?’
‘Mind your own business!’
‘Beautiful bodies, female ones, are my business.’ He pulled a card out of his denim shirt pocket and handed it to her. ‘When you get back to London give me a call and we’ll try some practice sesssions.’
‘Practising for what?’ she asked spitefully.
His mouth hardened, his eyes glacial. ‘I’m thirty-six years old, give me sense enough not to chase after schoolgirls!’
‘I’m not a schoolgirl. I’m eighteen.’
‘Wow!’ he taunted sarcastically, picking up the card she had put on the arm of his seat and bending forward to put the card down the open vee of her shirt, leaving it nestling between her breasts. ‘If the rest of you looks as good as they feel,’ he removed his hand, ‘then I think I may be able to put some work your way.’
‘You can keep your work!’ She took out the card and ripped it into tiny pieces in front of him before putting it in the ashtray. ‘And anything else you have to offer.’
‘Okay,’ he shrugged. ‘If that’s the way you want it.’
‘It is,’ she told him firmly.
She didn’t know whether she was relieved or not when he finally seemed to fall asleep again. Her thoughts were much too chaotic for her to even attempt to sleep herself. No man had ever touched her so intimately, and especially so publicly. Colour flooded her cheeks as she remembered his suggestion that he photograph her nude.
‘Well?’ Gemma turned to her expectantly.
Katy didn’t even pretend not to know what her sister meant. ‘You were right, it is him.’
‘I thought so!’ Gemma’s eyes sparkled excitedly. ‘What did he give you just now?’
It had been too much to hope that Gemma hadn’t seen that interchange! ‘Just his card,’ Katy revealed reluctantly.
’Just his card?’ her sister repeated dazedly. ‘And did I see you rip it up?’
‘You did. I have no desire to be photographed in the nude.’
Gemma spluttered with laughter. ‘He wanted to photograph you?’
‘My body,’ Katy corrected disgustedly, his remark that she would never make it on her face alone still rankling.
‘And you turned him down?’
‘Of course I did,’ she said crossly. ‘I told you, I don’t want him photographing me.’ She didn’t like his totally analytical gaze, didn’t like the way he had dismissed her face and instead assessed her body as photographable. She pitied his wife if he had one—how awful to be stripped down to the bare bone, so to speak. After all, no one was perfect, and this man was more than qualified to pick out any blemish or imperfection. ‘Besides,’ she added, ‘you know it isn’t possible. And Mum and Dad would never allow it.’
‘If Adam Wild wanted to photograph me I wouldn’t let Mum and Dad stop me,’ Gemma said scornfully.
‘And Gerald?’ Katy asked dryly.
‘It wouldn’t bother me.’ He sat forward to answer for himself. ‘I might get quite a kick out of seeing my girl-friend’s picture in a centrefold.’
It was the sort of stupid remark Katy would have expected from him. Despite his fair good looks, Katy had always considered Gerald one of the silliest men she knew. Part of her dislike could be due to the fact that he had first started dating Gemma when Katy was going through th
e worst of her puppy fat and spots stage, and he had never forgotten it. He had teased her unmercifully then, his barbs often cruel and hurtful, and he still did so, every chance he could. Katy stayed away from him whenever she could.
‘Gemma didn’t get the offer,’ she reacted strongly to him. ‘And I have no intention of taking it up.’
Gerald’s brown eyes passed over her scornfully. ‘I can’t see what the man saw in you,’ and he turned away.
‘Idiot!’ Gemma snapped at her resentfully, before she too turned away.
‘Tell him I have a thing about firm uptilted breasts,’ remarked a soft taunting voice from next to Katy.
She spun round, her eyes wide with indignation. ‘What did you say?’ she gasped.
Adam Wild gave her a lazy smile, a completely relaxed look about him as he slouched down in his seat. ‘I like nicely rounded bottoms too,’ he added outrageously. ‘So you pass on both counts.’
Katy glared at him. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I watched you as you walked to the loo,’ he informed her calmly. ‘I’ve always thought tight denims a good figure revealer. Of course, I couldn’t see your legs, but—’
‘Leave my legs out of it!’ she said fiercely.
‘But I’m sure they’re equally curvaceous,’ he continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
‘How awful to look at every woman through the eyes of a camera,’ Katy snapped, ‘to always see the faults. I pity your wife,’ she voiced her thoughts of a few minutes ago.
Adam Wild gave a throaty chuckle, suddenly appearing younger than his thirty-six years. ‘I’m not married, Katy,’ he said with humour. ‘And never likely to be.’
‘Too choosy, I suppose,’ she said insultingly, surprised at her own vehemence towards this man. She didn’t normally take violent dislikes to people.
‘Too much choice,’ he told her insinuatingly. ‘There are too many girls only too eager to give their all if I’ll photograph them. Sometimes I take them up on that offer. So you see, I don’t always see the faults.’
Katy hated the way those deep blue eyes were laughing at her. ‘Tell me, Mr Wild, why are you sitting back here with us lesser mortals? Wouldn’t you have been more comfortable up the front with your own sort?’ Her sarcasm was unmistakable.
‘Miss Harris,’ his voice was deceptively mild, his eyes no longer laughing, ‘until the general public decided to take me to their bosoms about fifteen years ago, I belonged with the “lesser mortals”. And that was your description, not mine,’ he added hardly. ‘Besides, what does it matter where I sit when all I want to do is rest?’
‘I suppose that’s because you took one of those girls up on their offer last night!’
His eyes suddenly appeared flinty grey, and Katy wondered how she had ever thought them a deep blue. ‘I’m not so old that a night of love physically exhausts me,’ he told her harshly. ‘I just don’t happen to have slept for seventy-two hours.’
‘Three nights of love!’ she taunted.
‘Miss Harris, go to hell,’ he said calmly.
Katy was prevented from answering by the sudden request to fasten seat belts, and the dropping of the aeroplane as they approached Calgary. She had that terrible feeling in her stomach again, only this time it was worse. Her nails dug into the arm-rest, luckily not Adam Wild’s arm this time, but her panic just seemed to be getting worse.
She heard an impatient sigh beside her and a male hand, palm upwards, came into her vision. She didn’t stop to think that this was Adam Wild offering her comfort, that he was the man she had taken an instant dislike to; all that mattered right now was that he understood how she felt and was trying to help her.
Her hand crept into his much larger one, his long tapered fingers closing about hers. His thumb rubbed rhythmically over the back of her’ hand, soothing away some of her panic and making her feel secure when moments ago she had felt near to hysteria.
‘Thank you,’ she said huskily once they had come to a standstill outside the airport building. ‘I—Thank you,’ she repeated weakly.
‘Don’t mention it.’ Already he was standing up to depart. ‘I won’t ask any payment for it, so you can stop looking worried.’
Colour flooded her cheeks. ‘I didn’t think you would! And I wasn’t looking worried.’
‘Then perhaps you ought to,’ he remarked with humour. ‘Your sister and her boy-friend have just departed down the other aisle.’
Katy turned startled grey eyes to see he was in fact correct. Gemma and Gerald hadn’t even told her they were going, and now they were almost out of the plane. She scrambled to her feet, almost falling over in her panic.
A hand came out to grasp her elbow. ‘Calm down,’ Adam Wild advised her. ‘They won’t have got far. It usually takes some time to get through Customs. Come on,’ he pulled her out into the aisle beside him, ‘I’ll take you through.’
‘There’s no need—’
‘There’s every need,’ he insisted. ‘During our brief acquaintance I’ve come to realise that you’re incapable of doing anything without something going wrong.’
‘That isn’t true—’
‘I don’t have the time to argue, Katy. Nearly everyone else is off the plane. Now, come on.’
Katy let herself be led towards the exit, furious with her sister and Gerald for leaving her at the mercy of this sarcastic man.
The air hostess who had served them during their flight was standing at the doorway. ‘I hope you both enjoyed your flight,’ she smiled at them both, although the smile was brighter as her gaze rested on Adam Wild. ‘I hope you weren’t too uncomfortable, Mr Wild. I’m sorry there were no first class seats available.’
‘That’s all right,’ he returned the smile with lazy charm. ‘I just needed a seat, I didn’t care where.’ He manoeuvred Katy so that they departed together, striding along and pulling her with him.
‘So you did try to get in first class,’ she accused in a fierce whisper.
He shrugged. ‘I tried.’
‘You do realise that the hostess was one of those girls making an offer,’ Katy scorned, having trouble keeping up with his pace, but the hand on her arm not allowing her to lag behind.
‘Too flat-chested,’ he dismissed callously. ‘A beautiful face, charming manner, but no bust.’
Katy became angry for the other girl. ‘How would you like it if you were discarded because you had too little—too little——’ She couldn’t think of a male equivalent, at least, not one she could say to this man!
He looked down at her, one eyebrow arched mockingly. ‘Too little…?’ he prompted tauntingly.
‘If you were found lacking!’ she amended crossly.
He shrugged. ‘I’ve had no complaints so far,’ he told her calmly.
‘Well, really!’ Katy pulled away from him to join one of the queues of people waiting to pass through the Canadian passport control.
She was immediately pulled out of the queue to stand beside Adam Wild. ‘Not that one,’ he told her. ‘Not unless you have a Canadian passport. You don’t, do you?’
‘You know I don’t!’ She glared at him with angry grey eyes.
‘Then you won’t get very far standing there. It happens to be for Canadian citizens only.’
‘Well, I didn’t know that!’
‘You do now.’ He looked down at her. ‘What hotel are you staying at in Calgary?’
She eyed him suspiciously. ‘Why?’
‘So that I know which area to avoid on my way through.’ He gave a throaty chuckle at the indignation on her face. ‘You have to admit, you’re a bit of a disaster.’
‘I admit no such thing. Just because I’ve made a few mistakes—’
‘A few!’ he scorned. ‘You can’t seem to do anything without getting into trouble.’
‘I can,’ she defended. ‘But this is my first time on an aeroplane. I was nervous, frightened on occasion,’ she said with remembered embarrassment. ‘I think that’s ample excuse for those few mistake
s I made.’
He shook his head impatiently. ‘Your first time in the air and you choose to fly to Canada!’ He gave her a scathing glance. ‘You could have been sick for the whole of the flight. I suppose I would have had to cope with that too,’ he finished disgustedly.
‘I didn’t ask for your help. I could have managed perfectly well on my own.’
‘Oh sure,’ he scorned. ‘You’re the epitome of cool efficiency.’
Hot colour entered her creamy cheeks. ‘And you’re the arrogant bighead I would have expected you to be! Just because I’m a little inexperienced about dealing with airport officials and—’
‘Inexperienced!’ he mocked. ‘You’re like a babe in arms. And it looks as if your sister has already gone through. Will she wait for you?’
‘Of course she will!’ Katy was still angered by her sister’s desertion of her. Some holiday this was going to be if Gemma and Gerald were going to keep leaving her out like this!
‘I hope so,’ the man at her side said grimly, ‘because I simply don’t have the time to help you out of another disaster. I’m being met.’
‘You have friends in Canada?’
‘A few,’ he nodded.
‘Female friends,’ she said knowingly.
‘Some,’ Adam Wild smiled.
‘Will she mind my being with you?’
‘She—? Oh, I’m not being met by a she, Katy. And I’m sure Jud won’t mind seeing you with me, in fact he’ll probably enjoy it.’
‘I see.’
‘Disappointed?’ he bent his head to whisper against her earlobe. ‘Would you have enjoyed being the cause of trouble between a girl-friend and myself?’
‘I might have done.’ Katy’s head was back challengingly.
He shook his head, smiling. ‘Why on earth you were blessed with such tranquil grey eyes I’ll never know. They’re at complete variance with your stormy nature.’
‘I don’t have a stormy nature,’ she snapped, immediately contradicting the statement. Blushing, she turned away.
Once they had shown their passports and collected their luggage, Katy’s brand new case, and Adam Wild’s battered holdall, they made their way outside to the curiously empty airport.
Freedom to Love Page 2