Falling For Mr. December

‘You can wear the collar and tie thingies.’

She could see in his expression that he was dying to correct her terminology—but he didn’t. Clearly he was resisting the temptation to be nit-picky and was trying to be co-operative. Teasing probably wasn’t the kindest or most appropriate thing she could do right now.

‘Thank you. I think,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘As I said, to me you’ll be simply a life model.’

But she needed him to relax so the strain wouldn’t show on his face when she photographed him. Given what he did for a living—and that he’d agreed to wear some of his court dress for the shoot—she guessed he’d be more comfortable talking about his work. ‘Talk me through the court layout, so I can decide where to put you.’ Even though she knew perfectly well where she was going to ask him to stand. She’d done her research properly, the way she always did before she took a portrait.

‘Right in front of us is the judge’s bench.’

‘Where he bangs his gavel, right?’

He laughed. ‘I think you’ve been watching too many TV dramas. English judges don’t use gavels.’

She knew that, but he didn’t need to know that she knew. It looked as if her plan to make him more comfortable was working. Except, when he laughed like that, it made him look sexy as hell—and that made it much more difficult for her to keep her part of the bargain, to be detached and think of him as a life model.

Not that Sammy was looking for a relationship right now. She was too busy with her job, and she was fed up to the back teeth with dating Mr Wrong—men who ran for the hills in panic, the second they learned about her past, or who saw themselves as her knight in shining armour and wrapped her so tightly in cotton wool that she couldn’t breathe. None of them had seen her as a woman.

Then again, she wasn’t really a whole woman any more, was she? So she couldn’t put the blame completely on them.

And after Bryn had finally been the one to break her heart, Sammy had decided that it would be much easier to focus on her family, her friends and her job and forget completely about romance.

Though the wedding she’d photographed a couple of months ago had made her feel wistful; now both her best friends were loved-up and settled. And although she was really happy for both of them, it had left her feeling just the tiniest bit lonely. And the tiniest bit sorry for herself. Even if she ever did manage to meet her Mr Right, there was no guarantee of a happy ending. Not if he wanted children of his own, without any kind of complications. She couldn’t offer that.

She pushed the thought away. Enough of the pity party. She had a great life. A family who loved her—even if they were a tad on the overprotective side—friends who’d celebrate the good times with her and be there for her in the bad times, and a job that really fulfilled her. Asking for more was just greedy.

‘No gavel, then. So what else am I looking at?’

‘OK. In front of the judge you have the clerk of the court, the usher, and the person who makes the sound recording of the trial or a stenographer who types it up as the trial goes along. They face the same way as the judge.’ He walked over to the benches facing the judge’s bench. ‘This is where the barristers sit, though we stand when we’re addressing the court. The defence barrister is nearest to the jury—’ he indicated the seats at the side of the room ‘—and the prosecution barrister is nearest to the witness box. The solicitors sit behind the barristers, and at the back is the dock where the defendant sits. Over there behind the witness box you have the public gallery and the press bench.’

‘So it’d make the most sense to photograph you where you’d normally stand in court,’ she said. Exactly where she’d always planned for him to pose—and where her equipment just so happened to be waiting. ‘OK. Can you stand there for me?’

‘Dressed like this?’ he asked.

She smiled. ‘For the moment, yes—though if you wouldn’t mind putting on your gown, that’d help with the light meter readings.’

He shrugged on his gown and went to stand at the barristers’ bench. She noticed that he was looking nervous again.

‘You’re really not going to end up on the front page of the newspapers with headlines screaming about “top barrister flashes his bits”,’ she reassured him. ‘The point of the calendar is to sell gorgeous men posed artistically.’ And Nick definitely fitted the bill on both counts. ‘If the bench doesn’t cover your modesty, so to speak, then you can hold a bunch of papers in a strategic place. Don’t you normally have a bunch of papers with you in court, tied with a pink ribbon?’

‘A brief,’ he said. ‘It’s the instructions from my client. The defence has a pink silk ribbon and the prosecution uses white.’

Though he still didn’t look convinced about the shoot.

She sighed. ‘Look, just stand there for a second.’

As he did so, she took her camera body out of its carrying case, fitted a lens so she could take a quick photograph, then came over to show him the digital picture on the screen. ‘This obviously isn’t a proper composition—for the real one I’ll be quite a bit more nit-picky about the lighting and the lens—but it should be enough to prove to you that your dignity will remain intact. OK now?’

‘Sorry.’ He blew out a breath. ‘I know I’m being ridiculous about this. I guess this just isn’t the normal sort of thing I’d do in a day’s work.’

‘That’s pretty much what everyone’s said so far.’ She grinned. ‘Well, except for the actor. He didn’t mind stripping off, but I guess he’d done it a few times before. All in the name of art, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Nick echoed, still looking uncomfortable.

‘And what you do in court—you have a persona, and that’s a bit like acting, isn’t it?’

‘A bit, I suppose,’ Nick said. ‘But, as I said, at work I’m normally wearing quite formal dress—not standing in the middle of the room, almost naked.’

‘For what it’s worth,’ Sammy said, ‘I think what you’re doing is really special. It takes guts—everyone’s happy enough to put their hand in their pocket and donate money to a good cause, but you’re doing something out of the ordinary. Something that’s going to make a lot more of a difference. And I bet whoever you’re doing this for is hugely proud of you.’

‘My sister,’ he said, ‘and my nephew.’

‘The ward treated your nephew?’ she asked softly.

He nodded. ‘Xander’s in remission at the moment.’

She guessed the bargain he’d made in his head: if he did this to help raise money, then Fate might smile on his nephew and keep him in remission. She knew her own sister had made the same bargain, and it was why Jenny had her hair cropped at the same time as Sammy did, every two years.

She wondered briefly why Xander’s father hadn’t offered to do the calendar shoot. Or maybe it was just that Nick had a more photogenic job. It was none of her business, anyway. She was just here to do the shoot.

‘OK. I’m happy with that position. Now, there aren’t any windows in here; plus we’ve got a notice on the door, so nobody’s going to walk in on us. It’s quite safe. So, while I’m setting up properly here, do you want to lose the clothes?’

* * *

No, Nick didn’t want to lose the clothes. At all.

But he’d promised he’d do it, and he wasn’t going to break his word. ‘What do you want me to wear out of the court dress?’ he asked, drawing on his usual court demeanour and trying to sound as if he was completely unflustered.

‘Wig, collar and bands, and we’ll try some shots with the gown and some without,’ she said. ‘I take it you followed my instructions to avoid marks on your skin?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Let’s do this.’

Nick felt incredibly self-conscious stripping off. Putting on the collar and bands without his tunic shirt felt weird. Though the silk gown was soft against his skin, and he gathered it in front of him to cover himself and went to stand by the bench.

‘We’ll do some shots sitting down, first,’ Sammy said. ‘I guess you need some papers spread out on the bench in front of you.’

Luckily he’d thought to bring a brief with him. He fetched it and sat down.

‘Do you wear glasses?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Pity. I should’ve thought to bring some frames with me.’

He frowned. ‘Why do you want me to wear glasses?’

‘To make you look clever.’

He wasn’t sure if she was teasing him or not. Then he looked her straight in the eye and saw the mischievous twinkle. ‘Very funny.’

‘Yes, m’lud—or should I say Your Honour?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘That’s what I’d say to the judge. You’d refer to me as My Learned Friend.’

Her mouth quirked, and heat flooded his body. That impish smile transformed Sammy Thompson to a pure beauty.

And this was totally inappropriate.

He damped his feelings down. For all he knew, she was married or involved with someone. OK, so she wasn’t wearing a ring, but that didn’t mean anything. And he wasn’t looking for a relationship anyway; the disintegration of his marriage to Naomi three years ago had put him off the idea of opening his life to someone else ever again. The one woman he’d thought was different. The one he’d thought had supported his ambitions and understood him. Yet it had all been a sham. That wasn’t a mistake he intended to repeat. Even if he did find Sammy Thompson attractive, he wasn’t going to act on that attraction. Dating seriously wasn’t something he did any more.

He focused on posing for Sammy and following her instructions. He stood up, changing position when she told him to.

‘OK. Now you can lose the gown for the next set of shots.’

‘Are you quite sure about this?’ he asked, wishing he were a hundred miles away.

‘Tell you what, shy boy,’ she drawled. ‘Do the rest of the shoot for me without making any more fuss, and I’ll buy you dinner.’

He blinked. Was she asking him out? ‘Dinner? Why?’

‘Because I’ve already shot two other models for the calendar today and I didn’t have time for lunch, which means that right now I’m starving—I’ll apologise now in case my stomach starts rumbling during the shoot. So I think we should have dinner while we look through the shots and you tell me which ones you approve to put forward to the Friends of the Hospital,’ she said. ‘Unless you have a girlfriend or a wife who’d have a problem with that, in which case please call her now and ask her to join us, because I really don’t want to have to wait for too long before dinner.’

He shrugged slightly. ‘No wife. No girlfriend.’ And this was feeling more and more like agreeing to a date. Something that pushed him even further outside his comfort zone. He paused. ‘Would it be a problem for your partner if you ate with me?’

‘Not if I had one, because this is my job.’

So she was single. Available...

He squashed those thoughts. No, no and no. He didn’t date any more. Not seriously.

‘The quicker we get this done, the quicker I get food,’ she continued, ‘and the less likely it is that I’ll get grumpy with you. You need to focus, m’learned friend. Lose the gown. And think yourself lucky.’

‘Lucky?’ He very nearly had to shake his head to clear it. Was she talking about him getting lucky?

‘You’re Mr December. I could’ve made you wear a Santa hat. Or pose holding a bunch of mistletoe. Or—’ She flapped a dismissive hand. ‘Insert a cheesy Christmassy pose of choice.’

Ah. That kind of lucky. Nothing to do with sex, then.

And would his head please, please start playing by the rules and stop thinking about lust and other inappropriate things? Because right now he was naked, and it would be impossible to hide his physical reaction to her.

‘Noted,’ he said dryly. He took off his gown, folded it neatly, and set it on the bench where it would be out of sight of her camera.

* * *

Wearing just his barrister’s wig, collar and bands, Nick Kennedy was spectacular, Sammy thought. Broad shoulders, beautiful biceps, enough hair on his chest to be sexy without him looking like a total gorilla, and a definite six pack.

Mr December was going to be the best page on the calendar. He could probably sell the calendar all by himself.

But now he’d said there was no wife or girlfriend, she couldn’t help wondering: how come a gorgeous man with a good brain and kind eyes was single? Was it because he was a workaholic and his girlfriends tended to get fed up waiting for him to notice them? Or had she missed some major personality flaw?

‘What?’ he asked, clearly noting that she was staring at him.

‘Nothing,’ she said, embarrassed to discover that her voice was slightly croaky. She really had to get a grip. The last thing she needed was for her skittish model to work out that she was attracted to him. And Nicholas Kennedy was bright. He couldn’t be more than five or six years older than Sammy’s own thirty years, and he was at the top of his profession. Scratch bright: that kind of background meant he had to be super-bright. So he’d be able to work it out quickly.

She got him to do a few more poses. To her relief, he’d relaxed enough with her by now to trust her, even when she moved round and took some shots from the side and some others from the back. And, oh, his back was beautiful. She’d love to do some proper nude studies of him. In a wood, looking for all the world like a statue of a Greek god.

Not that he’d agree to it. Not in a million years.

But a girl could dream...

‘OK. That’s a wrap. You can get dressed now,’ she said, ‘and by the time I’ve loaded everything on to my laptop we’ll be ready to go to dinner.’

‘The stuff I was wearing is hardly dressy enough for going out,’ he said.

She laughed. ‘As I wasn’t planning to take you to the Dorchester or Claridge’s, I think you’ll be just fine.’

She put the memory card in the slot on her laptop and downloaded the photographs while she packed away the rest of her equipment. Once she’d finished downloading the pictures, she saved the files. ‘Is it OK for me to turn round now?’ she asked with her back still towards Nick.

‘Sure.’

Rather than putting on the ratty T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms again, he was wearing the white tunic shirt—without the collar—the waistcoat and his court trousers.

Sammy’s heart skipped a beat. Right now, with his formal dress very slightly dishevelled, he looked as sexy as hell. She could imagine him with the shirt undone, especially as she’d actually seen his bare chest. If his hair was ever so slightly longer and someone had ruffled her hand through it to suggest that he’d just been thoroughly kissed, he’d look spectacular. In fact he’d go straight to number one in the Sexiest Man in the World list. She itched to get her camera out again. And this time she’d make him pose very differently.

‘OK?’ he asked.

No. Not OK at all. She was all quivery and girly, and that really wasn’t good.

So she’d have to fall back on acerbic humour to hide how she really felt. ‘Sure. Lucky, lucky me—I get to have dinner with a half-dressed man.’ Her mouth quirked. ‘Are you really so vain that you couldn’t go out to eat in an old tracksuit and T-shirt?’

‘I’m not vain,’ he protested. ‘I just feel a little more comfortable in this than I do in the scruffy stuff.’

‘It’d serve you right if I took you to a fast-food burger restaurant now—and then you’d really look out of place,’ she teased.

‘I’ll bluff it. There’s nothing wrong with burgers.’

Did he really expect her to believe that? She’d just bet he was the kind of guy who went for fine wines and Michelin-starred dining. ‘When was the last time you went to a fast-food place?’ she challenged.

‘Last weekend, with my nephews,’ was the prompt reply. ‘Next question?’

Ouch. She’d forgotten about his nephews. If they were teens, like her own nephews, then she knew he’d be very familiar with fast-food places. She screwed up her face. ‘OK, now it’s my turn to apologise. Blame my rudeness on low blood sugar. Because I am a grumpy, starving photographer right now.’

He smiled, and she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Stuffy and uncomfortable, she could deal with, but relaxed and sexy was another kettle of fish entirely.

Right now, Nick Kennedy could be very dangerous to her peace of mind.

‘Let’s go and eat,’ Nick said, ‘and you can show me how much of an idiot I’ve made of myself.’

He hadn’t made an idiot of himself at all. He was utterly gorgeous and he’d be the star of the calendar—even more so than the actor and the musician who’d posed for her earlier in the week, because they were aware of how pretty they were and Nick wasn’t. But Sammy knew she needed to keep her libido under control. She’d learned her lesson well, after Bryn.

No.

More.

Relationships.

Make that underlined and with three exclamation marks. And covered in acid yellow highlighter to make sure she didn’t forget it.

‘My car’s outside,’ she said.

‘So is mine.’

She took a coin from her purse. ‘Let’s toss for it. The winner gets to drive. Heads or tails?’

‘Heads.’

It was heads.

‘My car, then,’ he said.

‘Do you mind if I bring my equipment with me?’ she asked. ‘I’d prefer not to leave it unattended, even if it’s locked out of sight in my car.’

‘It would make more sense,’ Nick said, ‘if we got a takeaway and ate it at my place. Then neither of us would have to worry about leaving expensive work equipment unattended in the car.’

‘Why your place and not mine?’

He coughed. ‘Because I just won the coin toss.’ He paused. ‘You can ring my sister and ask her to vouch for me, if you’re worried about going to a stranger’s flat.’

‘A stranger who’s willing to put himself out of his comfort zone to help raise money for an oncology ward, and whose day job means he skewers the baddies in court and gets them sentenced for their crimes? I think I’ll be safe enough with you,’ Sammy said. Plus all her instincts were telling her that Nick was one of the good guys, and her instincts—except when it came to dating—were pretty good. ‘But I’ll follow you in my car. That makes more sense than getting the Tube back here afterwards.’

‘You won’t have to get the Tube back here. I’ll give you a lift.’

‘So you’re going to drive home, then back here, then home again? That doesn’t make sense either.’ She took her phone out of her bag. ‘Give me your address, just in case I get stuck in traffic and can’t follow you over a junction or something, and end up having to use my satnav.’ She tapped in the details as he dictated them. ‘Great. Let’s go.’

‘Can I carry anything for you?’ he asked.

She indicated his armful of boxes and carriers. ‘I think you’ve got enough of your own, and anyway I’m used to lugging this lot about.’

‘Fair enough.’

She took the notice off the court door, told the security team that it was fine to lock up, and packed all her equipment into her car. And all the time she was berating herself mentally. She must be crazy. Why hadn’t she just done what she’d agreed with her other models and emailed him a choice of half a dozen photographs that she could go on to present to the calendar committee? Why was she letting him review the whole shoot with her?

The truth was because she wanted to spend more time with him. Because she was attracted to him.

But she also knew that her relationships were a disaster area. She had a three-date rule, because agreeing to more than that risked her having to tell the truth about her past—and in her experience men reacted badly to the information. Besides, she was pretty sure that Nick Kennedy was a total workaholic who wouldn’t have time for a girlfriend—that was still the only reason she could think of why someone as gorgeous and good-hearted as him would be single—so it was better not to start anything. So she’d be sensible and professional when they looked at the photographs. They’d grab some food; and then she’d say a polite goodbye and never see him again.

Pity.

But, since Bryn, Sammy had learned to be sensible. It was the safest way.

And she was never getting her heart broken again.

CHAPTER THREE

AS HE DROVE back to his flat, Nick wondered if he’d just gone completely crazy. Why on earth had he invited Sammy Thompson back to his flat?

Then again, she’d had a fair point about not leaving expensive equipment unattended in a car. Horsehair wigs and silk barrister gowns weren’t exactly cheap, either, and he wouldn’t want to leave them in his car—just as she clearly hadn’t wanted to leave her camera equipment in hers.

Out of the few dates he’d been on since the end of his marriage, he hadn’t invited a single one of his girlfriends back to his flat. And he was far too sensible to invite a complete stranger back to his flat.

Yet that was exactly what he’d just done. Today was the first time he’d met Sammy. He knew practically nothing about her, other than that she was a photographer and she’d been commissioned to shoot the calendar by the Friends of the London Victoria.

Then again, he had good instincts—except perhaps where his ex-wife was concerned, he admitted wryly—and he’d liked Sammy immediately. She was business-like and capable, and she had a sense of humour that appealed to him.

And he was going to have to ignore the fact that she was utterly gorgeous. Slender yet with curves in all the right places, maybe six inches shorter than his own six foot one, and she was strong enough to carry heavy boxes of photographic equipment around without it seeming to bother her. Her bright blonde hair—which he was pretty sure was natural rather than dyed—was cut in a short pixie crop that framed her heart-shaped face, and her sea-green eyes were serious when she was working and teasing when something amused her.

Then there was her mouth. A perfect cupid’s bow. A mouth that he’d wanted to trace with the tip of his finger before exploring it with his own mouth...

This was bad. He hadn’t waxed poetic over anyone like this for years—maybe not since he was a teenager. So he’d better get it into his head that Sammy Thompson was simply the photographer who was working on the charity calendar, and he’d probably never see her again after today. Except maybe if the ward held some kind of launch event when the calendar went on sale and they both happened to attend it, and then they could just be polite to each other.

Be professional, he told himself. Treat her as if she’s a client, or a colleague. Keep it business-like, choose the photographs, and then you can just let her walk out of your life and go back to what you normally do. Work, being there for Mandy and the boys, and more work. A perfectly balanced life.

* * *

Sammy was glad that she’d taken Nick’s address and put the postcode into her satellite navigation system before they left the court’s car park, because as she’d half expected she ended up losing him at a junction. Following the satnav’s directions, she ended up driving through one of the prettiest tree-lined streets in Bloomsbury, where the five-storey town houses all had wrought iron railings, tall white-framed sash windows that would let huge amounts of light flood into the rooms, and window boxes full of bright, well-manicured geraniums. She could see Nick’s car towards the end of the street, and thankfully there was a parking space on the road behind it. Nick himself was waiting for her by his car.

When she climbed out of her car, Nick handed her a parking permit to place inside her windscreen. ‘I’m sorry I lost you at that junction,’ he said. ‘I did slow down, but I couldn’t see you behind me.’

‘No worries,’ Sammy said with a smile. ‘That’s precisely why I took your address.’

‘Come in,’ he said.

‘And you don’t mind if I bring all my stuff in?’

‘That’s fine.’ He was still laden with his own cases, but even so he picked up the heaviest of her boxes and took it to the door of the Georgian house on the corner.