Occupational Hazard: The Ultimate Workplace Romance Box Set

by Eve Langlais

  “You may.”

  “When?”

  “I’ll call you.”

  Unease gripped him as he wondered if she was just saying that to get him off her back. “Do you promise?”

  Her lips softened and she cupped her cheek with her small, sinfully soft hand. “I promise.”

  Emma and Ryan’s story continues in SECOND TOUCH,

  Book #2 of the Emma’s Arabian Nights Series

  Flirting with the Camera

  Ros Clarke

  Copyright © 2013, Rosalind Clarke

  Cover design by Ros Clarke.

  Cover photos by Alexey Poprugin and Olga Ekaterincheva.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

  First print edition 2013.

  Chapter One

  The last of the models pulled on her jacket, slung her satchel over her shoulder and grunted in response to Tom’s automatic, ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  It would be a no. He’d seen more than enough six-foot-tall sulky teenagers to know that wasn’t what he needed for this shoot. They might appear fragile with their stick-thin limbs and barely-formed features, but their eyes were hard as nails. They had to be, to survive in the fashion industry. Not all of them survived, of course.

  He cut that thought off before it could take hold. Today wasn’t about Lianne. Today was about moving on. After fifteen years photographing girls who got younger and thinner each season, Tom Metcalfe knew exactly how to find the provocative glint in the eye of the dullest coat-hanger of a model. But this wasn’t a fashion shoot. He wasn’t taking pictures to sell clothes, or perfume, or make-up, or any other overpriced and unnecessary frippery. This time he was selling himself. His own vision of the world. He had no idea whether anyone would want to buy it.

  The gallery for his first exhibition was already booked. Most of his portfolio was ready, but there was something missing. Initially, he had decided not to include any portraits. Everyone already knew he could shoot women. Where was the challenge in that? But when he had shown the preliminary portfolio to the gallery owner, she had skimmed through it and shaken her head.

  ‘It’s too pretty.’

  ‘Pretty?’

  ‘Shallow. Decorative. Pretty. But there’s nothing of you in here, Tom. You can’t just be a spectator, dispassionately observing pretty bits of the world. Not for this kind of show.’

  As soon as she said it, he knew she was right. He needed more depth, more emotion. For him, that meant people. Faces hiding feelings. Eyes telling stories.

  That was the reason Tom preferred to be the spectator. He stayed behind the camera while the attention was on the girls in shot, and that was how he liked it. No one ever interviewed the photographer, asking awkward questions or intruding into matters he would much rather keep hidden. No one could see into his eyes and find out what he really was.There was no way he would be taking any self-portraits for his exhibition, but the world he was trying to portray needed to be more than pretty and shallow. It needed to show depth. Complexity. Humanity.

  For that, he needed a model. He had to find someone with that depth and complexity in a way he could capture in a photograph. He’d advertised an open casting, hoping to find someone a bit different from the girls he usually worked with, but none of the models who’d turned up had caught his eye.

  ‘Am I too late?’

  The woman who was leaning against the door of his studio was more than a bit different. Bright, dyed-red hair, heavy dark make-up, a scarlet jacket that swirled out around her hips. She grinned at him, her blue eyes twinkling in a way that made him suspect she wore coloured contact lenses.

  ‘I had to leave work early, but I still missed the bus. Isn’t it odd how the one you miss is always exactly on time, while the one you have to wait for is always running late?’

  Tom nodded, though she didn’t pause long enough for him to speak. He watched her instead. She had a natural grace to her movements and a charm that would be a fun challenge to capture in her face. He’d take close-ups to catch the depth of expression in her eyes and the allure of that wide, mobile mouth.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I’m Hattie Bell and I’m here about the modelling job. You said you were looking for someone out of the ordinary, so I thought it was worth a shot. You wouldn’t believe the amount of castings I’ve been to where they wouldn’t even let me through the door. And the samples!’ She threw up her hands in horror. ‘Made to fit a Barbie doll. No, that’s not right. Barbie dolls have breasts and hips. So do I.’ She gestured at her body.

  ‘I can see that.’ She had them in abundance, along with thighs, stomach and bum, in a gloriously voluptuous shape that invited further exploration. More than that, she had presence. Personality by the bucket load. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Hattie gave him a twirl. ‘Have you already found someone? You have, haven’t you? Oh, well.’ She made as if to leave, disappointment written all over her expressive face.

  ‘I haven’t found anyone. Yet.’ He’d found her the moment Hattie had appeared at the studio door. But the cautious, professional side of him insisted that he needed to take her through the audition first, just to make sure. He hadn’t even seen her through the camera lens. He had to check that what he saw he could recreate for others.

  ‘Really? Well, great.’ She grinned at him and took off her jacket. ‘Where do you want me?’

  Tom picked up his small camera and pointed to the backdrop. ‘This is just a test. To see how you look on film. Relax. Smile. Move around. Whatever you want.’

  Under her jacket, Hattie was wearing a clingy floral top and a neat black skirt. She looked comfortable in front of the camera, smiling at Tom, blowing kisses and laughing as she posed in traditional – and some not-so-traditional – ways. He took shot after shot, entranced by her total lack of self-consciousness and her evident delight in the process.

  Sex, he realised suddenly. That was what made her different. Hattie was sexy. She wasn’t a faux-innocent teenage Lolita. She was a grown woman; she was in tune with her body, and she was intensely sexy with it.

  ‘Turn your back to me and look over your shoulder,’ he suggested. ‘Yes, like that. Smile.’

  She did more than smile. She winked. Then she laughed and tossed her head back, sending that extraordinary hair flying. Without thinking, Tom dropped his hand so that he could watch her without the filter of the lens. She was gorgeous. Sexy and alluring and incredibly sensual.

  What would she be like in bed?

  Come-to-bed eyes were such a cliché, and yet there was no other way to describe Hattie’s expression. She would only have to crook her finger and Tom would be there, kissing those luscious lips, ripping away her clothes, revelling in the generous curves of her body. It was clear that Hattie enjoyed sex as much as she was enjoying modelling for him now.

  ‘Are you just going to watch, or do you want to take more photos?’ Hattie confronted him with her hands on her hips. Tom stared down at the camera in his hand.

  He swallowed, finding his mouth unexpectedly dry. ‘I, um, I need to find a new memory card.’

  He turned back to his case, searching for the unnecessary memory card, while he took a moment to compose himself.

  ‘No problem. You know, if you’ve already decided you don’t want me, you only have to say so. No point wasting both our time.’

  He fitted the new card and stood up. ‘I want you.’ He deliberately kept his voice calm. He wanted her more than he was prepared to admit.

  ‘Really?’ A huge smile spread over Hattie’s incredibly expressive face.

  ‘Really.’ Tom nodded. She wasn’t what he’d had in mind. She was better. Different, interesting, intell
igent, unexpected. He would never have found her on a fashion shoot, but for what he was planning, Hattie was ideal.

  She threw her arms around him. ‘Thank you! I was beginning to think no one would ever give me a chance. I mean, look at me.’ Hattie stepped back and waited until Tom did as she instructed. ‘Do I look like I should be working in an office all day?’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ Tom had limited experience of working in an office, but he couldn’t imagine colourful, vibrant Hattie in that kind of bland environment any more than he could stand it himself.

  ‘Exactly. I always knew I should be in front of a camera. But I can’t act to save my life. Or sing. So it had to be modelling.’

  ‘Right.’ He knew he was shaking his head. Her logic was incomprehensible.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I don’t have the figure for modelling.’

  ‘You could do plus-size modelling,’ he offered.

  She shook her head. ‘Those castings I told you about? They were all for so-called plus-size models. When the fashion people say plus-size, they mean average in the real world. I’m too fat.’

  Tom didn’t bother to contradict her. None of the plus-size models he’d worked with had breasts like Hattie’s. They didn’t have double chins, either, or fat which spilled over the top of their skirts. On the other hand, none of them had ever fizzed with energy the way Hattie did. And none of them had ever made him want to break through the invisible barrier of the camera lens to touch them. But now his fingers were curled into fists against their longing to stroke the ivory-pale skin exposed by the deep ‘V’ of Hattie’s neckline. She’d be soft and warm... And just that one, relatively innocent thought was enough to make him catch his breath.

  He dragged his brain back to the conversation. ‘What about life modelling?’ She’d make an incredible model for an artist. Renoir or Rubens would have killed to have a Hattie as their inspiration. She could have been a Venus for Botticelli, or… Oh God, Titian would have made her his Eve, an irresistible temptation of red-gold hair and creamy skin, embodying all the pleasures of the flesh.

  ‘Done that. It’s not bad, though it doesn’t pay too well. I couldn’t make the rent. Besides, they don’t like you to talk while you’re doing it and I’m not very good at keeping quiet for hours on end.’

  ‘I can see that,’ he said wryly. A chattering Venus would ruin the image.

  ‘But I just knew that I would get a break eventually. And now I have.’ She beamed at him.

  ‘Look, Hattie.’ Tom ran a hand through his hair. ‘Don’t get too excited. I can only offer you a few days work. A week at the most.’

  ‘Brilliant. I’ve got some holiday left. Just let me know when. And with this on my CV, who knows what could come of it? I mean, you’re seriously famous, right? All the girls want to have a shoot with Tom Metcalfe. Vogue, Marie-Claire, Elle…’ She waved expansively. ‘The sky’s the limit.’

  ‘I’ll do you some portfolio shots, if you like,’ said Tom. ‘But this isn’t going to be a fashion shoot.’

  ‘What kind of shoot is it? The advert didn’t say.’

  ‘Art.’ Tom cringed inside as he said it. The decision to expand outside his commercial work had been a hard one and he still hadn’t quite got used to the idea of calling himself an artist.

  ‘Does that mean naked?’

  ‘No!’ Tom stared at Hattie, a vision of her naked form burning itself onto his brain. ‘No, it doesn’t. Probably not. It just means art. In an exhibition. At a gallery.’

  ‘Okay. But just so you know, if it did mean naked, that would be fine with me.’

  ‘Right.’ He took a deep breath and tried not to think of Hattie reclining on a couch, one arm flung back and the other pretending to cover her breasts but actually drawing the eye directly to them. She’d make men’s jaws drop and the rest of them rise to attention. ‘Right.’

  ‘I did life modelling, remember.’

  ‘So you did.’ Tom busied himself with packing his camera gear away. He wasn’t going to bother with any more shots today.

  ‘I’m not embarrassed by my body.’

  ‘Good to know.’ None of the models Tom worked with were. At least, not after their first shoot. It was hard to hold onto any modesty when make-up artists were brushing bronzer in every crevice of your body.

  ‘You know, you’re nothing like I was expecting.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ Neither was she.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask what I was expecting?’

  ‘No.’ The deflection came instinctively after all these years. He didn’t get into conversations about himself.

  Hattie laughed. ‘You don’t give a lot away, do you?’

  ‘There’s a reason I like to be behind the camera.’

  She stepped closer, head tilted to one side, and examined him. ‘I wonder if you’ll ever tell me the reason, Tom Metcalfe.’

  He drew a sharp breath and his eyes narrowed. She’d obviously hit a raw nerve. Hattie desperately wanted to ask him again, but she didn’t dare take the risk. Not when the man had just offered her the biggest break of her life. There was still time for him to change his mind, after all.

  ‘So,’ she said, stepping back. ‘When do you want me?’

  He eyed her measuringly, his cool grey pupils dissecting every inch of her. She felt a strong impulse to step backwards, away from the intensity of his inspection, but she forced herself to stand her ground. No one ever looked at her like this, not like they wanted to see her from the inside out, and it was scary. There were things in there she’d much rather he didn’t find out.

  ‘How long will it take for the hair to grow out?’

  Hattie blinked in surprise. ‘Um, about a month, I guess. You don’t like the red?’

  ‘Not for this shoot. I want you as nature intended. You’ll need to lay off the make-up, too. And the contacts.’

  Her eyebrows shot up. ‘How could you tell?’

  Tom’s lips quirked up a little at one corner and she wondered what it would take to make him smile properly. ‘I’ve been in this industry for fifteen years. I can tell all the tricks. What colour are they underneath?’

  ‘Still blue.’ She reached up to remove one of the lenses. ‘Just not quite so blue. And, actually, my hair’s red, too. If by red you mean the full carroty orange.’

  ‘Better,’ he said. ‘Much better. I want the real you, not the fake one.’

  Hattie nodded slowly. She could do real. At least, on the outside. ‘Fine. If that’s what you want.’

  ‘If you need any make-up or styling on the shoot, I’ll sort it out.’

  ‘Of course. So what kind of pictures will you be taking? I mean, I’ve seen all the editorials you’ve done and the ads and things, but you said this was art.’

  Tom hesitated. He folded his arms across his chest. He was nervous, she realised suddenly. His lips had tightened and a muscle was twitching in his jaw. She put out a hand to reassure him, but he spoke before she made contact.

  ‘It is. I’m having an exhibition and I need something different.’

  ‘So?’ Hattie smiled encouragingly. ‘What sort of different?’

  ‘I haven’t decided exactly. Part of it will depend on you. How you react in different settings. How I can get the camera to go more than skin deep.’

  She bit her lip to hold back her grimace. ‘More than skin deep? That sounds painful.’

  And unlikely. Hattie didn’t let anyone see beneath her carefully constructed surface image. Even she didn’t look very often, not much liking what she knew was hidden there. But it was only one week. How many layers could he peel back in one week? There were people she’d known for years who’d never gone beyond skin-level, after all. She would smile and flirt with him, and the camera would love her like it always did, and he’d forget to look for anything but the surface. It would be fine. No, it would be fantastic.

  ‘You’ll be adequately compensated,’ he said dispassionately.

  He laid out the ter
ms of the contract he was offering. Hattie nodded happily, pleased with the generous fee.

  ‘If you give me your contact details, I’ll send it along in a couple of days for you to sign.’

  Hattie handed him a business card with her details on the back. Tom turned it over, as she knew he would. She waited a heartbeat; then, on cue, his jaw dropped.

  ‘Like it? One of the artists at the life class did it. I bought it from her, scanned it in and had the cards done.’

  For the small business card, she had cropped the image, so that it only showed hints of her figure: her cleavage, her waist, her thigh. But the artist’s clever use of coloured pastels gave an extraordinary depth to the picture which Hattie had responded to. It wasn’t erotic and it wasn’t even especially revealing. It was, however, incredibly sensual and very intimate.

  Hattie sucked in her breath as Tom stroked a finger across the card.

  He was thinking about touching her like that.

  She was thinking about him touching her like that.

  ‘I want to see.’ His voice was deeper than before, a little husky. It suited him.

  Hattie nodded and reached for the hem of her top.

  A warm hand closed firmly around her wrist. ‘I meant the picture, Hattie. I want to see the picture.’

  She blushed. Which was unnerving. She couldn’t actually remember the last time she had blushed. But with Tom’s hand warm against her own, and the embarrassment of her misunderstanding, not to mention the flood of desire, she blushed.

  ‘Oh,’ she managed. She let the fabric drop and he took his hand away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said with another of those half smiles that didn’t quite deliver. ‘I should have been clearer.’

  And she shouldn’t have presumed.

  Hattie forced a breezy smile and waved her hand dismissively. ‘Of course. I’ll bring it with me to the shoot, shall I?’