One Season And Dynasties Collection

Yes. Attracted. Was that so wrong? She was twenty-seven, single, presumably with working parts. Attraction was normal. Only she was a beginner and she was pretty sure he was at super-advanced level. Far too much to handle for her first real crush in a decade. She should start slow. With a man who wore tweed and liked fossils.

Thank goodness, here was her cocktail and it was time to stop thinking. With relief Hope took an incautious sip, eyes watering as the alcohol hit her throat. ‘Strong,’ she gasped.

‘They’re not known for their half measures. How are you?’

‘Choking on neat gin?’

He raised an eyebrow and she sighed. ‘I feel like I’ve been for a ten-kilometre run or something. It’s exhausting baring your soul to complete strangers.’

‘I know.’

It was obvious that he did. Either the alcohol or the knowledge he truly had seen everything she was emboldened her to push deeper. ‘What did you say? When you went up? You did go up, didn’t you? That’s how you know it’s what I needed.’ It had been, she realised. She’d needed to drain some of the poison from her soul.

Gael didn’t answer at first, fingering the rim of his glass as he stared into the distance. Hope watched his capable-looking fingers as they caressed the glass in sure strokes and something sweet and dark clenched low inside her.

‘I first went there because I was looking for inspiration. My photos felt stale, uninspired. I had just been asked to shoot a series for Fabled about the next generation of Upper East Side, all unimaginatively dressed up as Gatsby and co. There they were, ten years younger than my friends and just as entitled, just as arrogant, nothing had changed. I came to the Truth night looking for hope. I didn’t expect to be getting up on stage and bearing my soul.’ His mouth twisted. ‘It could have been professional suicide. I know it’s supposed to be confidential but if a journalist had heard me confess how much I hated my work they could have destroyed me.’

‘Is that what you said?’

‘It’s not what I meant to say but near the end it hit me. I was miserable. I needed to change, get back to what I’d originally planned to do—paint.’

‘So what did you say?’

‘I don’t know why but I wanted to tell them about the first time I went to Paris, about the effect the whole city had on me. I’d spent days in the Louvre and so when I went to the Musée d’Orsay I was a little punch-drunk.’

‘I can relate to that after this afternoon.’

He grinned. ‘Not so punch-drunk that I mixed up Renoir and Degas.’ Hope pulled a face at him, absurdly pleased when he laughed. ‘Then I saw her, Olympia. I don’t know why she struck me the way she did. It wasn’t that I found the painting particularly sexy or shocking or anything. But her honesty hit me. I didn’t know that relationships could be that honest.’

Hope set her drink down and stared. ‘But isn’t she a courtesan?’

He nodded. ‘And she’s upfront about it. There’s no coyness, no pretence. “Here I am,” she says. “Take me or leave me but if you take there’s a price.” Everyone knows where they stand, no hard feelings.’

Hope tried to put his words into a context she understood. ‘But a relationship, a real one, a lasting one, that’s based on honesty, surely.’

‘Is that what you believe?’

Was it? She was doubting herself now. ‘It’s what I’d like to believe.’ That much she knew.

‘Exactly! You’ve been sold the fairy tale and you want to believe it’s true, but you and me, we live in the real world, we know how rare true honesty is.’

‘Hey, don’t drag me into your cynical gang of two! What happened to make you so anti love?’

He smiled at that, slow and serious and dangerously sweet. ‘Oh, I believe in love. First love, love at first sight, passion, need. I just don’t believe in happy-ever-after. Or that love has anything to do with marriage. The marriages I see are based on something entirely different.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Power. Either one person holds all the power and the other is happy to concede it—that’s how the whole trophy-wife—or husband, in my father’s case, it can be equal opportunity—business works. One half pays, the other obeys. Once they stop being obedient, or they live past their shelf life, then they get replaced.’

‘In your crazy world of wife bonuses and prenups maybe, not in the real world.’

‘In every world. It may not be as obvious or understood but it’s there.’

‘But if that was the case then all marriages would fail eventually,’ she objected. ‘And they don’t. Some, sure. But not all.’

Gael shrugged. ‘Some people are happy with the imbalance. Or they have equal power and can balance each other out, but that’s rare. Now my dad, he keeps marrying women with money. In the beginning they like that he’s younger, they think he’s handsome, it gives him status—he holds the power. But once they are used to his looks and the lust dies down and they realise their friends aren’t so much jealous as amused by their marriage then the power shifts. That’s where he is right now. Again.’

‘Does he love them? The women he marries?’

‘He loves the lifestyle. He loves that they don’t demand anything from him. My mom, she held the power because he was absolutely besotted. He tried everything to make her happy. That’s her trick. Only in her case she always stays on top. She leaves them when a better deal comes along. Although she’s been with Tony for ten years and they have two kids so who knows? Maybe this one she’ll stick out.’

‘Not all marriages are like that. Your parents were so young when they married.’

‘Like Hunter and Faith?’

‘Yes.’ She wanted to say things would be different for them but how could she when they were still such strangers? But her sister’s marriage was hers, to succeed and fail as it would. Hope would help where she could but in this her sister, for the first time in her life, was on her own. ‘But they are hardly typical either. Look, you have spent your whole life watching these absurdly rich, absurdly spoilt people play at marriage, play at love, grabbing what they want and walking away the second it gets tough. The real world isn’t like that. My parents survived seven miscarriages—seven—IVF. Me,’ she finished sadly. She was all too aware just what a strain her behaviour had been on her parents. She would give anything to go back and do it all over again. Yes to Saturday night pizza and films, yes to Sunday walks in the country, yes to that damn carousel ride.

She tried again. ‘Look, I might have little real-time experience of love or relationships. I’ve obviously never been married. But I know something about living up to expectations. If you go around believing everyone is looking to shaft everyone else then that’s what you’ll find. I don’t believe that. I won’t.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Look at that, Hope McKenzie all fired up. I like it.’

And she was. She was on fire, living, completely in the moment for the first time in nine years. Her chains loosened, her self-hatred relieved. ‘In that case,’ she said slowly, scarcely believing the words coming out of her mouth, ‘I believe we have a painting to start working on.’

Time stilled as Gael studied her, his eyes still narrowed to intense slits, his focus purely on her. Hope made every muscle still, made herself meet that challenging stare as coolly as she could. If they didn’t start this now she wasn’t sure she’d ever have the guts to go through with it. But right here, right now, she was ready.

He pushed his stool back and stood up in one graceful, almost predatory movement. ‘Yes, it’s time,’ he said and a shiver ran through her at his words. ‘Let’s get this painting started.’

The scene was set. He’d planned it all out the day he met her and it was the work of seconds to pull the chaise round to exactly the right angle and to set up the spotlights he used for his photographs to simulate the sun. ‘Here,’ he said, throwing a clean robe over to her. ‘Go and get changed. Can you screw your hair up into a high knot?’

Hope nodded. She had barely said a word since they had left the bar, since her unexpected challenge. But she’d lost that wide-eyed wariness that had both attracted and repelled him. Tonight she was filled with some other emotion, an anticipation that pulled him in. She was ready, ripe for the unveiling.

Gael swallowed. She wasn’t the only one full of anticipation. His hands weren’t quite steady as he threw a white sheet over the chaise, adding a huge pillow and a rumpled flowery shawl. The other models had brought in their own jewellery, pillows, throws to lie on, things that had significance to them, but he was painting Hope in almost identical colours and attitude to the original. The virgin posing as the courtesan.

‘Wait, take this as well.’ He handed her a bag.

Hope took it, opening it and peering at its contents. A thick gold bracelet, a pair of pearl earrings and a black ribbon to tie around her neck. Mule slippers. An orchid for her hair. ‘Okay. What about make-up?’

‘You don’t need any. You have perfect skin.’

A blush crept up her cheeks at his words and she threw him a quick smile before heading off to the small bathroom he had directed her to just three days ago. Was that all it was? He’d lost count but what he did know was that it felt like weeks, months since he had met her and he didn’t want to analyse why that might be.

It didn’t take him too long to set up his tools: paints, palette, brushes, linseed oil, rags. They evoked a fire deep inside that his camera and lenses never could; the messy, unpredictable elements appealed even as he tried to impose order on his emotions. Gael ran a hand through his hair as he took stock one last time. The setting was perfect, all he needed was his model.

‘Hi.’ She appeared at the door as if summoned by his thoughts, the white robe clasped tightly around her waist, the mule slippers on her feet. She’d fastened her hair up as directed, the orchid set above one ear, the vibrant pink contrasting with the paleness of her face. Two pearls dangled from her lobes.

‘Hi.’

‘So where do you want me?’ She grimaced. ‘Stupid question.’

She walked over to the chaise, slow, small steps, obviously steeling herself as she neared the middle of the room. She halted as she reached the chaise and looked at him enquiringly. ‘Do I just...?’

Gael nodded. ‘You can drop your robe behind the chaise or hand it to me, whichever.’

‘I don’t expect it makes much difference. I’m going to end up the same way whichever I do.’ But she didn’t loosen the robe although her hands were knotted around the tie.

‘I could put on some music? If that helps?’

‘I don’t think so, thank you. Not tonight anyway. Do you need silence while you work or could we talk?’

‘I don’t mind either way unless I’m focussing on your face. Your mouth will want to stay in one position then but that won’t be for a few days.’ He usually left conversation up to the models. Some liked to chat away, almost as if they were in a therapy session, others preferred silence, lost in a world of their own. Gael didn’t care as long as he got the pose and expression he needed.

Hope walked around the chaise and stared down at the sheet, the pillow, the rumpled shawl. ‘Looks comfy.’

‘Okay, you’ve seen the painting. You’re propped up on the pillow, your head slightly raised and looking directly at me. One leg casually over the other with the slipper half on, half off—but I can adjust that for you. The arm nearest me bent and relaxed, the other resting on your thigh.’ Although she would be fully nude the pose preserved a little bit of modesty, a nod to the Renaissance nudes that had inspired the original pose.

‘Got it.’ With a visible—and audible—intake of breath Hope untied the robe and slipped it off, handing it to him as she did so. Gael turned away to place it on the floor behind him, deliberately not looking as she lay on the chaise and positioned herself. He had done this exact thing nineteen times before and not once had he had this dizzy sensation, as if the world were falling apart and rearranging itself right here in front of him. Not once had he been both so eager and so reticent to turn around and examine his model.

It’s just another model, another painting. But he knew this girl, knew her secrets and her hopes. Had coaxed them out of her so that he could capture her in oils and hang her up, exposed, for all the world to see. Only right now he didn’t want the world to see, he wanted to keep this unveiling for himself, her secrets to himself. It was his turn to take a deep breath, to push the troubling, unwelcome thoughts out of his mind and turn, the most professional expression he could muster on his face.

She was magnificent. Almost perfect, as pale as the original except for her legs, tanned to a warm golden brown. Petite and curvy with surprising large breasts proudly jutting out and the sexy curve of her small belly. Every woman Gael had dated boasted prominent ribs and a concave stomach; they looked fantastic in the skimpy designer clothes they favoured but felt insubstantial, as if the real joys in life eluded them. Not surprising when they considered dressing on a salad a treat and cheese the invention of the devil.

She was almost perfect, in a way he hadn’t even considered, conditioned as he was by the gym-going gazelles he had been surrounded by for the last fifteen years. Her only flaw was the silver scars crisscrossing the very top of her thighs. There were more lines than he could count, covering the whole thigh from the side round to the fleshy inner thigh. They stopped just where a pair of shorts would end. Where the dress she was wearing tonight had ended, hidden from the world.

She stiffened as his gaze lingered there and when he looked back into her eyes all he could see was shame mingled with hurt pride and something that might be a plea for understanding. ‘It hurt when my parents died. It hurt giving up my dreams. It hurt how much I blamed myself. Sometimes it hurt so much I couldn’t stand it.’

‘You don’t have to explain anything to me.’ He picked up the yellow ochre and squeezed an amount onto his palette before adding in some cadmium red light, the titanium white close at hand ready to lighten the blend to the exact shade of Hope’s upper half.

‘Every time I swore it was the last but then the pressure would get too much and the only thing that let it out was blood. For that second, when the blade sliced, I had peace. But then the blood would start to well up and I would feel sick again, hated myself, knew I was so weak. Faith used to ask why I wore old-fashioned swimsuits, you know, with skirts and I pretended it was because I liked the vintage look. In reality I couldn’t bear for anyone to see my thighs.’ She stopped. ‘They will though, won’t they? They’ll see them on this.’

‘I can’t exclude them. It would be like editing you. Not quite real.’

‘I knew that’s what you’d say.’

‘When did you stop?’

‘When I’d accepted the situation. When it became my reality and not this horrible nightmare with no escape. When I put my old self and my old dreams away and devoted myself to Faith. Then I could cope.’

‘Or you exchanged one mechanism for another? How long have you been locked in that box, Hope? How long have you suppressed who you are, what you want, what you need?’ His voice had deepened and he wasn’t even pretending to mix colours any more, the palette lying in his lap, the brush held casually in his hand as his eyes bore into hers.

‘I don’t any more. I’m at peace with who I’ve become.’ Liar, a little voice inside her whispered.

‘That teen rebel who kept a clear head on her shoulders while she did just what she wanted? The girl who had her future planned out down to where she wanted to study and when she was going to sleep with her boyfriend. The girl with dreams which took her away from the family home, away from London. Has she really gone?’ His words sent an ache reverberating through her for the lost dreams and hopes she barely even acknowledged any more.

‘I am away from London.’

‘Still anchored to your family home. To your sister. Still doing the sensible thing.’

‘This isn’t that sensible,’ she whispered.

His eyes pinned her to the pillow; she couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. ‘No.’

Hope had a sense she was playing with fire and yet she couldn’t, wouldn’t retreat. ‘I’m bored of being sensible. So very, very bored.’

‘Your hand,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I just need to position it.’

Hope’s mouth was so dry she couldn’t speak, couldn’t do more than nod in agreement as Gael put the palette down and walked towards her. He had changed into old, battered, paint-splattered jeans and a white, equally disreputable shirt, buttons undone at the neck. She could see the movement of his muscles, a smattering of hair at the vee of the low neck and something primal clenched low down inside her.

She had never been so aware of her own body before, not as a teenager, her mouth glued to her boyfriend’s as she fended off his hands, not as she’d stood in the bathroom, razor blade in hand. Every nerve was pulsing, jumping to the increasingly rapid beat of her heart. She could sense Gael over the ever shortening distance, sense him physically as if she were connected to him on some astral plane.

‘This hand.’ His voice was now so hoarse it was almost a rasp. ‘I need it here.’

The second he touched her she gasped, unable to bear the pressure building up so slowly inside her any longer. His fingers on hers, the coolness against the heat of her skin, the sight of those deep olive tones on her own pale hand, the gentle strength inherent in his touch as he moved her. It was as if she had been craving his touch without even knowing it and that one movement opened up a deep hunger inside her.

But she had no doubt, no hesitation. She might be inexperienced but she instinctively knew what to do. She half closed her eyes, watching him through her lashes. ‘Here?’ She slid her hand a little way along her thigh and, with feminine satisfaction, watched him swallow. ‘Or here?’ She slid it slightly further so the tips of her fingers met his and, almost of their own volition, caressed the roughened tips.

‘Hope...’ She didn’t know if he was uttering a warning, an entreaty or both but she was past caring. The last few days this man had laid her bare, exposed her deepest secrets and made her confront them. She was tired of confronting, tired of hiding, she just wanted to feel something good—and if her nerves were tingling like this from the mere touch of hand on hand then she had the suspicion this could get really good really soon.

‘I think here, don’t you?’ Her fingers travelled up his hand to explore the delicate skin at his wrist. Gael closed his eyes and Hope thrilled at the knowledge that one simple touch could have such a potent effect, only to draw in a breath of her own as he captured her hand in his, his thumb sliding down to return the favour. One digit, one tiny area of skin but her whole body was lit up like Piccadilly Circus and she knew she couldn’t, wouldn’t walk away.

She should feel shame or embarrassment lying here wearing nothing but a flower in her hair, a ribbon round her neck while he was still dressed but she didn’t feel either of those things. She felt powerful as she tugged at his hand, powerful as in answer to her command he sat at the side of the chaise, powerful as she raised her hand to his face and allowed herself the luxury of learning the sharp cheekbones, the dimple by the side of his mouth, the exquisitely cut lips.

‘Hope,’ he said again, capturing her hand once again, this time holding it still while he looked deep into her eyes. She saw concern and chafed at it. She saw need and fire and thrilled to it. ‘This isn’t right. It’s been an emotional evening. I can’t take advantage of you...’

‘Right now I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.’

A primal fire flashed in his eyes and her whole body liquefied as his mouth pulled into a wolfish grin. ‘You believe that if you want, sweetheart.’

‘Would you be pulling back if I was any other woman?’

‘I wouldn’t be here if you were any other woman.’ The admission was low, as if it had been dragged from him.

Oh.

‘That’s not what I meant and you know it. If I wasn’t a virgin, if you knew I’d been swinging from the chandeliers with a whole regiment of lovers, then would you be pulling away?’

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘But you are and the first time, Hope, it should be special. With someone you love. I don’t do love, I don’t do long term and I don’t want to hurt you. You deserve better.’

‘How very teen drama of you. I’m twenty-seven, Gael. I don’t know how to flirt or date or be in that way. The way things are going I’ll be a thirty-eight-year-old virgin and you holding my hand will be the single most erotic thing that’s ever happened to me and it would be most unfair of you to condemn me to that. I’m not holding out for a knight on a white charger, you know that. If things were different I’d have lost it to Tom Featherstone nine years ago, in his parents’ bed with a White Musk candle to create the mood and James Blunt on the speakers telling me how beautiful I was. I liked Tom. I liked him a lot. I wanted to sleep with him, but I didn’t love him and I promise not to fall in love with you. I know you think you’re good but you can’t be that good.’

His mouth curved into a reluctant smile. ‘That sounds like fighting talk.’

‘It was supposed to be seductive talk.’

The virgin seducing the playboy. It was completely the wrong way round but it turned out that this playboy had scruples. Hope respected them, she just wanted him to get over them already and respect her choice.

Gael studied her for a second longer and Hope stared back more brazenly than she ever had, allowing all her need and want and desire to spill out until, with a smothered groan, he leant in, arms either side of her head, his face close to her, mouth within kissing distance, almost.

Hope moistened her lips.

‘Let’s get this straight,’ he said. ‘If there’s going to be any seducing tonight then I’ll be the one who’s doing it.’

Her body liquefied again, every bone melting so she felt as if she could simply slide off the chaise to lie in a puddle on the floor—and he wasn’t even touching her. Only then he was, one hand tilting her chin up before he claimed her mouth with his and the last coherent thought Hope knew was that when it came to seduction Gael was right: he was definitely the one in control.

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT WAS ALMOST like a relationship. Almost. The doorman let her straight up without even buzzing first, she had a bag with hot bagels and two coffees in one hand and a Bloomingdale’s bag in the other, her toothbrush and a change of underwear in the handbag slung over her shoulder, just in case.

But it wasn’t a relationship. When the lift doors opened and she walked into the studio Gael looked up and smiled—which was an improvement on his old non-greeting—but he made no move to come over and kiss her. They didn’t kiss, or hold hands, or feed each other titbits or cuddle. They had sex. Every night for the last week and a couple of times in the day as well—after all, she was spending most of the day naked—but they weren’t affectionate.

It was as if life was in two halves: the normal half filled with wedding planning, painting, archive sorting and anything else that needed doing—and the secret half. The half when Gael’s eyes darkened to a steely blue and just the look in them made her stomach swirl and her pulse speed up. And the two halves were totally disconnected.

That very first night, afterwards, he had asked if she was okay. Probably still worried that she was going to transfer twenty-seven years of singledom into one giant, all-encompassing ‘thank you for the first orgasm I didn’t sort out on my own’, wholly inappropriate crush. Obviously all the serotonin and oxytocin had been a little overwhelming; she’d wanted to be completely absorbed in and by and round him while her heartbeat returned to its normal pace and her breathing slowed. Hope completely understood, for the first time, how knee-weakening, chest-tightening, dry-mouthed lust could be mistaken for love.