His dimple creased deeper. “Bruce it is. Let’s go draw naked people.”
We entered the café.
And I stumbled to a halt.
There were three completely naked men and two completely naked women of various shapes and sizes perched on stools scattered around the interior. Bustling about them were wait staff dressed in the typical uniform of black pants, shirts and long, snug white aprons, delivering orders to the patrons sitting at tables circling the models. Most of those eating in the café were doing so while casting long gazes at the naked man or woman closest to them, a fork or sandwich in one hand, some kind of drawing implement in the other.
“Shit,” Raph muttered at my side, his grip on my hand firm. “We didn’t bring anything to draw with. Or on, for that matter.”
I looked up at him, caught the tension in his jaw as he looked about the café. Was he really concerned about that? Or about someone recognizing him?
Turning my attention to the diners nearest us, I walked over to one table populated by two young men who looked my age and gave them my shyest smile. “Hi,” I said, really emphasizing my accent. “I forgot to put our drawing supplies in the car and Bruce—” I flicked Raph a quick glance over my shoulder, “—is about ready to explode. Do you think you could possibly lend us some paper and a pencil or two?” I caught my bottom lip with my teeth and turned on the coy charm. “Please?”
“Give me your phone number and I will,” the guy closest to me said, smile wide.
“How about I just buy it from you?” Raph’s deep voice sounded beside me as he held out his hand. I caught a glimpse of a bright green note—Australian money is very colorful, by the way—in his fingers, and the guy with the one who’d asked for my number snatched it away.
“Done,” he said, ramming the note—one hundred dollars, can you believe it?—into his pocket and nudging his friend with his elbow. “For another you can have our table as well.”
“Deal.” Raph produced another green note from his wallet and held it out.
My belly flip-flopped. Holy crap, he’d just paid two hundred dollars.
Two hundred dollars.
The two guys jolted to their feet, scooped up their coffee mugs and sketches and, with a nod at Raph, vacated the table, leaving us with a collection of what looked like charcoal sticks, pencils and erasers.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” I said, dropping into the closest seat.
Raph lowered himself into the seat beside mine, dimple flashing again. “Me either. I must like you or something.”
His quip sent tingly heat straight to the junction of my thighs. My pulse quickened.
Thankfully, a waiter appeared, saving me from trying to stumble through a lame response.
We placed our orders—me, egg-white omelet with baby spinach and grilled tomato, Raph, banana-caramel pancakes with a side order of bacon—and then turned our attention to the model perched on his stool a few feet away.
“Wow,” I breathed before I could stop myself.
He was, umm, how shall I put this? Large. Everywhere. And I mean everywhere. And hairy. Really hairy. His man-boobs rested on his round gut, a gut that hung low over his groin, a groin that…well…I’m sure porn stars would have been envious of what hung between his legs. I couldn’t stop looking at it. Damn, it was…I don’t know what it was. Part mesmerizing, part gross, part…
“You’re staring.” Raph’s whisper jerked my gaze upward and, God help me, I discovered the model watching me.
Heat flooded my cheeks again with blush number 242 and I blinked.
“Here.” Raph thrust a charcoal stick at my hand. “Have at it.”
More than a little flustered, I looked at him. I hadn’t really thought sitting in a café studying a naked person would be so confronting, but oh boy, was it ever. Or maybe it was the fact the naked man knew I was looking at him that messed me up? I had grown up in Plenty, Ohio, after all. Naked people didn’t just sit around waiting for people to draw them in Plenty. Not in cafes, at least.
Hand shaking—this time from unsettled nerves, I’m happy to report—I took the offered stick of charcoal and gave Raph a smile in return.
He plucked a pencil from the table and, grin playing with his lips, lowered his sunglasses a little and winked at me. “Masterpiece time, American girl.”
And with that, he started drawing.
A horse.
I burst out laughing.
He’d finished his first sketch of the horse—wearing stilettoes, I might add—by the time our breakfast arrived. I was halfway through my first sketch of Mr. Check Out The Size Of That Thing. I lowered my charcoal stub, studying what I’d created so far.
Can I say, as an artist, I make an awesome tree-hugging greenie.
Raph, it seemed, agreed with my self-critique. “So you’re going for an abstract approach?” he asked, mirth dancing in the question.
“Hey.” I pouted, studying my abysmal drawing. “It’s not that bad.”
He laughed.
We ate our breakfast quickly. Surprisingly, I found myself returning to my drawing often, making little adjustments to Mr. Check Out The Size Of That Thing’s image. I still hadn’t attempted to draw his schlong, a fact Raph pointed out with a smirk.
I wanted to tell him to concentrate on his own drawing, but when I looked at his page I discovered he’d not only sketched another horse—this one with a koala wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap riding on its back—yeah, I got the joke—but a really impressive drawing of our model’s large, hairy hand resting on his meaty, hairy thigh.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t be studying art?” I asked in a low voice.
Raph chuckled. “My father would kill me.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Why?”
He studied his artwork. At least, I think he did. He still wore those dark sunglasses that hid his eyes. “It’s a given I follow tradition and take my place in the family business when I finish studying.”
I didn’t miss the taint of embittered melancholy in the declaration. Nor the tension that claimed him as he spoke.
“What is the family business?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself. Raph was such an enigma. One I wanted to know more about. The fame by marriage, the lofty arrogance at university, the concern when he’d found me unstable, the playful flirting this morning, the scorching kisses…if I wasn’t careful, I’d fall for him.
And as I’ve pointed out, falling for anyone is not allowed. Not in Maci Rowling’s world.
Lifting his focus from his sketch, he tossed me a smile, one that said he was done being resentful. “Farming. Remember I mentioned all the koalas on our property a fortnight ago? When we were discussing global warming and koala mating habits? Right before you left with Osmond?”
At the mention of Brendon, my belly tightened a little. I don’t know why. Because I was messed up? Confused? Conflicted?
A skanky ho currently falling in lust with two hot guys?
Pretending not to be unsettled at all, I made an ah sound. “That’s right,” I said, nodding with mock brevity. “Maybe I should call you Farmer Bruce from now on?”
“Maybe. What have you been calling me up until now?”
“Asshole,” I answered honestly.
Raph laughed. “Yeah, let’s go with Farmer Bruce.”
“Farmer Bruce it is.” I grinned. “It suits you.”
He snorted.
A few moments of silence later, after we picked at our food and worked on our sketches, he fixed me with a contemplative gaze. “Why koalas? I’ve been meaning to ask since the underwear party. I know your dad was Australian, but is that the only reason?”
Adding some extra hair to my drawing—God, our model really was hairy—I let my lips curl in a soft smile. “When I was eight we went on a family vacation to San Diego. We spent a whole day at the zoo and almost half of that day in the Australian section. I remember Dad getting a loopy, dreamy look on his face as we walked through it, like he was home ag
ain. Mom kept giggling at him, especially when he’d tell us these long, funny stories about encounters he’d had with whatever Australian animal we were looking at. Like how he got pushed into a river by a kangaroo, or had his lunch stolen by an emu. It was awesome. But the best bit for me was when we got to the koala exhibit. They were so gorgeous. I wanted one straightaway. From that point onward, I was obsessed with them.”
Raph grinned. “Define obsessed.”
I laughed. “By the time I was thirteen, I had over fifty stuffed koalas in my bedroom.”
“Oh boy. Yeah, that’s obsessed. So I guess you’ll go a little silly if I tell you I hand-raised a koala when I was ten?”
I gaped at him. “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “I told you one of Australia’s largest koala colonies lives on our property. I found a baby koala whose mum had been killed by a feral cat and I took it home and cared for it until it was old enough to return to the wild.”
“Wow.”
Raph smiled at my awestruck response. “It was pretty cool. But boy, do those buggers have claws on them. This scar here—” he lifted his right arm above his head and pointed at a pale white line running the length of his triceps, “—is the result of Kenny trying to get away from our dog.”
My lips twitched. “Kenny?”
He grinned again. “Nothing wrong with the name Kenny. Well, apart from the fact Kenny was a girl.”
I threw back my head and laughed.
Our waiter returned a little after that and whisked our plates away, leaving us to focus on our sketches. An hour later, after Mr. Check Out The Size Of That Thing left, only to be replaced with Miss Holy Crap Could Those Boobs Be Any Bigger, Raph suggested we finish up.
Disappointment sheared through me. I was having fun. Lots of fun. But then that disappointment morphed into nervous excitement when he said, “Want to go climb the Harbour Bridge? They run sessions every fifteen minutes. Reckon I could pull the celebrity card and get us in for an afternoon session.”
I frowned, my belly fluttering. “Would you do that?”
He grinned. “Probably not. But if we’re lucky there might be a cancellation or no-show. Want to risk it?”
Every muscle in my body tight with nervous excitement, I nodded.
“Excellent. I’ll just go pay the bill and we can get on our way.”
He rose to his feet and strode to the counter, and I’m not ashamed to say I watched him the entire trip, my pulse fast, my heart faster.
“Is that Raphael Jones?”
The question uttered from a soft female voice on my left, drew my attention so fast I think I got whiplash.
Our new model, the one with the huge boobs and untrimmed pubic hair, was staring at me, a predatory gleam in her eyes.
“Err…” I said, startled momentarily into inarticulate stupidity.
“I knew it,” she whispered. “That explains all the photographers outside.”
The blood drained from my face. An unpleasant tension crawled up the back of my neck and over my scalp. Photographers? How long had there been photographers outside? Had they followed us? Oh boy, this wasn’t good.
“He’s so hot,” Miss Needs A Razor exclaimed, leaning towards me. “Can you introduce me?”
Behind her, someone muttered a less-than-quiet complaint about models who didn’t know how to sit still.
“I…” I began. “He’s not…”
Before I could finish denying Raph was who he really was, he returned. Freaking perfect timing, right?
“Oh my God,” our model squeed, gaping at him. “You really are Raphael Jones. Oh my God, I think you are so gorgeous. Will you sign my boobs?”
The relaxed smile pulling at Raph’s lips froze. His jaw bunched. His nostrils flared. He stared hard at the woman before turning his dark sunglasses on me. “Did you tell her?”
I shook my head, my heart an insane trip hammer in my chest.
“Raphael Jones?” I heard someone nearby say. “Is it really Raphael Jones?”
The muscle in his jaw knotted again. His lips compressed into a thin line.
“Raph,” I said, rising to my feet. “She recognized you. She said there are photographers out—”
He spun away from me, digging for something in his pocket. Pulling out his cell phone, he slid his thumb over the screen before ramming it to his ear. “We’re coming out,” he said to whoever was on the other end of the connection, the words damn near a growl.
Around us, our fellow diners and Triptych’s staff stirred, realization they had a celebrity in their midst finally sinking in.
“Raph?” I repeated his name. It was such a lame thing to do, but I was so dumbstruck by what was happening, I couldn’t grasp at anything like logical, rational thought. “I didn’t tell her. I promise. She recognized you. She said there are photographers outside.”
He turned back to me, expression bleak. Guarded. Black sunglasses even darker due to the shadow cast by the peak of his cap. “Okay, we have to go, all right?”
I nodded, feeling a cold sense of relief that he wasn’t abandoning me. I wasn’t sure if he was angry at me or the situation, but at least he was including me in his planned escape. That was something, right? “O-okay.”
He snared my hand with a strong grip, threading fingers through mine.
His name floated on the air, accompanied by more than one flash from more than one smartphone. Movement outside caught my eye just as we were approached by a man who was, I assumed, the café’s manager.
“Mr. Jones,” the man said, hand extended.
I tore my stare from the beaming man, trying to work out what was going on outside on the sidewalk.
Movement. Lots of movement. And people.
My stomach dropped.
Damn it, Miss Needs A Razor hadn’t lied. There were paparazzi waiting. A lot.
“Raph?” I croaked, watching the at least five guys with cameras shove and jostle for position beyond the protection of the café’s front window.
“Fuck.” His mutter was low. Barely audible. “Sorry,” he said louder, no doubt to the man trying to shake his hand. “We didn’t mean—”
A man in a suit barged through the front door, the same man in the same blue suit I’d encountered at Sydney International Airport.
I blinked. Where had he come from? Had he followed us as well as the paparazzi?
“Sir?” he said, fixing Raph with a level gaze, one arm extended toward us both. “Time.”
Raph’s fingers squeezed mine. He turned to face me, tension a stiff mask hiding whatever he was thinking. “Damn it, this isn’t what I wanted. I’m sorry but we’ve got to move quick, American girl. Can you do that?”
I nodded, guilt smashing through me. I hadn’t blown his cover, I hadn’t, but I felt like I’d fucked up when our model first asked if Raph was indeed Raph. “I can.”
An ambiguous smile pulled at one side of his mouth. “I’ll catch you if you stumble. Promise.”
And with those words, he strode toward his bodyguard, tugging me along behind him.
Say Cheese
I never made it to the car. Shooting me a look I’m sure was indifferent, Raph’s bodyguard—who goes by the name Mr. Horn—wedged his way between us and, like a hulking, glaring blanket of muscle, shielded Raph from the frenzied paparazzi and curious public amassing on the sidewalk.
My fingers slipped from Raph’s and before I knew it, I was somehow stumbling to a halt in their wake, being jostled and shoved by photographers and pedestrians alike. I think I heard Raph call my name above all the commotion. I heard him demand Mr. Horn get me. I think I heard Horn tell him he would. Given that the bodyguard didn’t come back and help me, I could be wrong. There was a lot of shouting from the paparazzi. Shouting and catcalling and general weirdness as they all tried to get Raph’s attention. I even heard one or two ask who the girl was. I assumed the girl they were referring to was me.
Raph didn’t respond to any of them. Probably because by this point, M
r. Horn had shoved him into the backseat of a shiny black SUV.
The madness grew. The paparazzi turned nasty, no doubt pissed at being denied their prey. They hurled insults at Raph’s bodyguard, who ignored them all as he hurried to the front seat door and pulled it open.
I pushed at them, trying to get to the car. Trying to get Horn’s attention. He didn’t look back at me.
The paparazzi rushed the car. They slapped their hands—the ones not holding cameras—against the back passenger window, a window tinted so dark I couldn’t see through it. If Raph was looking for me in the crowd, I had no hope of knowing it.
Shocked beyond belief, I called out to Raph. Stupid, I know, but in my defense, I’d never the need to prepare for a full-on paparazzi horde until now.
I called out to Raph, to Horn, struggling to get to the SUV. Struggling to through the melee.
Struggling in vain, it turns out.
With the roar of an engine that sounded way more powerful than a normal SUV’s should, the black car took off. Pulling away from the curb, leaving a furious, cursing, running jumble of photographers in its wake.
I was bumped into so many times I’m surprised I didn’t fall over. I probably would have if there weren’t so many people squishing around me. I bounced off more than one, muttering apologies every time even as a part of my flustered brain told me I had no damn reason to apologize. They were smashing into me, damn it. At this point, my flustered brain hadn’t figured out that I’d essentially been abandoned in an area of Sydney I knew nothing about without any real means of getting back to Mackellar House save hailing a cab.
And then the paparazzi turned to me, and my brain—flustered as it was—finally registered I was alone. Alone and utterly unprepared.
Holy. Crap.
One second they were watching the shiny black SUV speed away, the next they were spinning to face me, cameras raised, flashes exploding, questions flying.
“What’s your name?”
“Are you Raphael Jones’s girlfriend?”
“Are you part of the royal family?”
“Who are you?”
“Are you sleeping together?”
Unconditional: A Coming of Age Romance Novel (Always) Page 9