being dubbed ‘second best’ she had set out to make sure she was never, ever, taken for a poor carbon copy of Nadia.
Now they rarely saw her. She lived in London and her parents had retired to Bournemouth. She paid Vanessa and Gavin brief visits occasionally, always reducing Gavin to bitter invective, her smug smile when he hurled his acid barbs at her making Vanessa suspect that she enjoyed angering him, knowing as they all did that he was simply using his anger to mask his love and his pain. Gavin had once in a rare moment of misery confided to Vanessa that what hurt most was that he himself had been responsible for setting her feet on the path which had ultimately taken her away from him. He had never said as much, but Vanessa suspected that they had been lovers. It was hardly a secret that Nadia enjoyed the company, and caresses of the male sex. One only needed to open a newspaper or a magazine. The last time she had come home she had told them that she was hoping to break into films.
‘By doing what?’ Gavin had asked harshly, ‘Using the casting-couch route?’
Nadia had smiled sweetly at him, her long cat’s eyes slumbrous and mocking. ‘If necessary,’ she had purred back, reminding Vanessa of a cat toying with its prey, just waiting to pounce. Was her cousin’s well-publicised promiscuity the reason she herself had remained so cold and withdrawn with men? ‘Frigid’ was what more than one of her dates had called her, and although she had shrugged the slight aside her heart had ached, because she had known that they had been using her, wanting to possess her because they could not possess Nadia, wanting her merely as a substitute for her cousin, as she had been wanted all her life.
There were times when she wanted to tear Nadia’s portraits down from the studio walls. She supposed most people would have described her emotion as jealousy, but there was more to it than that. She wasn’t jealous of her cousin in so much as she wanted what Nadia had, she just wanted to be accepted for herself, not as Nadia’s shadow. Many women she knew would have been delighted to look as she did; to look exactly like a famous model. But she hated the way she looked; hated her water-straight black silk hair, her perfect features, her sapphire eyes, because they were also Nadia’s. Was her father going to be the only person who had noticed that her face had more character, that her eyes were warmer, her nature not shallow but generously giving?
What on earth had brought on that mood of introspection, she jeered, with self-mockery as she adjusted the silver umbrella reflector she was intending to use, before turning her attention to the spotlights so that they focused on the ‘sandy beach’, with the backdrop of soft supposedly South Pacific scenery and the deep blue of the water glimpsed enticingly through it. On the ‘beach’ prominently displayed were the products featured in the first of the ‘ads’. A tanning lotion with a lot of heavy emphasis on its macho appeal in the advertising blurb. The caption for the ad. she was shooting today made Vanessa shudder. It was All he needs to wear is Sunskin, and if she hadn’t known better she might have assumed that Gavin had deliberately set her up to take the session in his place.
Their father had been an explorer and both of them had learned about cameras and photography early. If her work was not quite as inspired as Gavin’s she did have an intuitive ‘nose’ for human interest work, and had sold several of her photographs to national dailies.
She glanced at her watch. Half an hour before the model was due. How would he feel when he realised that a woman would be behind the camera? All she could hope was that he was professional enough not to share her nervousness. Their budget was so slender that it would eat into their profit if Gavin had to re-schedule the session.
They had managed to keep on their parents’ home on the edge of the town and Gavin had converted the cellars into his darkroom although he rented a studio in town.
She was just about to make herself a cup of coffee when she heard footsteps on the stairs leading up to the studio. Definitely masculine they caused tremors of apprehension to flutter along her spine. Not because she doubted her ability to do the job, but simply because … Because she was going to have to photograph a nude male! She made herself conclude the sentence. What was there to be so apprehensive about? The model was the one with the right to those feelings, not her. How Nadia would laugh at her if she could see her now. Vanessa glanced at her cousin’s mocking portrait and smoothed sweat-damp palms over her shabby jeans, lifting her chin, unaware that the proud sparkle in her eyes made her look even more like the woman in the photograph, for once her features over-shadowed the made-up glamour of her cousin’s.
The studio door was thrust open, and Vanessa tried to ease the dry tension in her throat. ‘Hi!’ she said casually, turning to fiddle with the spots so that she wouldn’t have to face the newcomer and risk betraying her embarrassment. ‘If you’ll just strip off behind the screen.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the tatty wooden screen in one corner of the room. ‘I’ll just finish getting ready here and then we can make a start.’ He was earlier than Gavin had said, but at least that meant she wouldn’t have to wait around getting steadily more nervous.
‘I beg your pardon.’ His voice was deep, edged with a harshness that made her spin round, her eyes widening as she took in the lean powerful length and breadth of his body. He was older than she had anticipated, somewhere in his thirties she guessed, and possessed of such an air of physical virility that she blinked dazedly as she studied him. This man was dynamite; so potently male that he could have sold ice to Eskimo women simply by looking at them the way he was looking at her now. Her fevered, desperately nervous glance was caught and impaled by eyes of tawny gold, mountain lion’s eyes, ringed with yellow fire, pure amber when the light caught them, her own bemused image thrown back at her as she stared up at him. Tall herself, he towered over her, making her feel as fragile and vulnerable as a wind-flower in the eye of a storm.
Gradually she became aware that she was exhibiting all the classic symptoms normally associated with a massive teenage crush on some remote idol. Her heart was pumping at what felt like ten times its normal rate; her pulses racing in time. Her legs felt like the best quality feather down, and she knew, just knew, that it was only willpower that was holding a betraying blush at bay. And this was the man she was supposed to …
No! her mind shied away, and she wondered furiously if Gavin had known. For some reason she had visualised the model as blond and boyish, a beach-boy personified; not this dark-haired, golden-eyed predator whose face was as classically flawless in its way as her cousin’s, and whose eyes moved automatically over her body, assessingly, insolently, she told herself angrily when his glance came to rest on the heaving thrust of her breasts.
‘We’re wasting valuable time,’ she told him in a clipped voice trying not to betray her inner agitation. They were two professionals for heaven’s sake, hired to do a job, and here she was, mooning over him like some crazed adolescent. ‘The screen’s over there,’ she gestured to it again. ‘I hope it’s warm enough for you.’ He was dressed in jeans and a cotton shirt, open at the throat, and she had to drag her eyes away from the tawny vee of flesh exposed. Gavin had turned up the heat before he left, saying impishly, ‘we don’t want our bronzed hero covered in goosebumps, do we?’
When he didn’t move, Vanessa frowned. He was studying her with lazy insolence, tinged with curiosity as though she were something outside his normal experience. It couldn’t be embarrassment that held him immobile. She doubted that she had ever seen any man less likely to suffer from embarrassment. Far from it. He probably got a kick from knowing that millions of women would be drooling over his naked form, she thought waspishly, trying to ignore the tiny voice that demanded to know how she knew they would drool.
When he didn’t make a move Vanessa said crossly, trying to hide her nervous tension. ‘You are aware that these shots are to be in the nude aren’t you? Gavin did tell you?’ She looked pointedly at the small set. ‘I’ve put the stuff out already, we haven’t got much time, so—–’
Before she could protest he strolled over to the set and picked up the suntan cream, an amused smile curving his mouth. His bottom lip was full, and just for a moment she wondered what it would be like to feel its hard warmth against her own. She realised that while she had been daydreaming he must have said something because he had moved away from the ‘set’ and was studying the portraits on the