Czytaj książkę: «The Chatsfield Short Romances 1-5»

Chapter One

‘I thought you must be one of the models when I first saw you.’

Natalja Jordan rolled her eyes inwardly at the shameless flattery and surmised that perhaps the hulking great camera around her neck hadn’t been as much of a giveaway as she might have expected.

She knew she wasn’t completely unattractive with her slimly curvaceous figure and long dark blonde hair, which was currently scraped up into a high bun for practicality. But she came nowhere near the gazelle-like golden goddess who was her model for the day and who was blithely stripping down to skimpy underwear to change behind a clothes rail on the other side of the room.

A fact that Mr Matthias Cavello, manager of the exclusive Chatsfield hotel, seemed to have just picked up on, his dark eyes bugging out on stalks now.

Dryly Nat remarked, ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence but as I’m only five foot six I hardly qualify for the modeling world.’

The manager dragged his gaze away from the gorgeous Russian model and blinked at Nat. She could have laughed and curbed a wry smile. She’d witnessed the effect supermodels had on poor hapless men for at least three years now and it never failed to amuse her.

Mr Cavello, an attractive Italian, cleared his throat. ‘Like I said, if there’s anything you need at all, we’ll look after you. It’s an honour to have F magazine shooting here at the hotel.’

Nat smiled but there was something about him that she didn’t quite trust. An element of pseudo politeness that made her uneasy. To her relief he seemed to take the hint and left, but not before his dark eyes devoured the model who was now being zipped into a haute couture creation.

They’d already done some shots and this was the first of many changes. Knowing that hair and make-up would be touching up Lenka’s look for a few minutes, Nat took advantage and slipped outside through the open french doors of the huge hotel ballroom to suck in a deep breath of fresh London spring air.

The view over the surrounding gardens was spectacular, the low rumble of traffic muted in this rare quiet city space. This was Nat’s favourite time of the year to be in London, when everything was blooming. Fresh. Starting over.

Just as she had herself in the past few years. She sighed and leant against the stone balustrade on the grand terrace. It was during peaceful civilised moments like this that the past rushed back to meet her, reminding her forcibly of the chaos and destruction she’d left behind. She could almost taste the thrill of adrenalin and danger on her tongue now, tart and strong. Just how her father must have felt. The thought made a familiar ache of grief form in her chest. Yet she knew she didn’t miss that danger and chaos.

She was slightly shocked by how close the past felt to her when she was a million miles away from it, and when she was fifteen years on from the death of her father, and her mother. An uncharacteristic sense of vulnerability washed over her and for the first time she felt a keen sense of loneliness.

She thought of the mesmerised, almost dazed look in the manager’s eyes just now when he’d stared at the model. Nat couldn’t remember the last time a man had looked at her like that, if ever. She almost couldn’t remember the last time a man had transported her with his touch, his mouth.

When he had, it had been a fellow photographer, amidst the tumult of a war-zone when life and death hung in the balance every second. It had heightened the love-making but Nat knew now that under normal circumstances her last lover would have left little or no impression at all. She could hardly recall his face.

Irritated to be thinking like this, she made a disgusted sound and turned to go back into the ballroom when her gaze snagged on a lone figure at the other end of the terrace, over the dividing wall.

It was a man, dressed in dark clothing. Something about his intense stillness caught at her. He was dark, dark enough to stand out against the lush city garden, his short thick black hair making her think bizarrely of military precision. His hands rested on the stone wall, just like hers had been, and he was looking out over the garden broodingly, much as she must have been.

A tug of something made her breath shorten. Crazy. Just because he too was looking out at the garden—to imagine he was thinking of similar things? And even though quite a distance separated them, she was aware that he was big. Well over six feet tall, broad and powerful. Instantly something sizzled to life in her belly. Something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Lust.

Without even realising she was doing it, because the camera around her neck was as familiar as an extra limb, Nat lifted it to her eye and looked through the lens, adjusting it for focus. When his face sharpened into view, she sucked in a breath. He was in profile to her but it was possibly the most beautiful male profile she’d ever seen.

Proud. Haughty. Strong. Flawed, with a bump in his nose, but still perfect. His skin was deeply olive making her wonder if he was middle-eastern. High cheekbones and a full mouth was almost ridiculously sensual in such a masculine face, but then his jaw provided a hard uncompromising line of strength and power.

And then as if sensing her intense focus, he turned to look right at her and on a shocked reflex to see him revealed face on, Nat’s finger depressed the button and a loud whirring click broke the silence, along with a flare of light that jarred her.

He moved so quickly—vaulting over the dividing wall with all the lithe grace of an animal—that he was almost upon her before Nat had lowered the camera. Suddenly she found the wall pressing into her back, breath strangled in her throat.

Nothing could have prepared her for such close proximity. He towered over her, dark, menacing. Formidably masculine. And yet, she didn’t feel scared. She felt excited, heart racing.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ His voice was low and deep, accented. And then, still struck dumb by some strange paralysis, she didn’t stop him when he reached out and lifted her camera over her head in one swoop of a big hand.

As soon as she saw it in his hands Nat came back to life, reaching for it instinctively. ‘Hey, wait a second.’

She made a grab for it but he held it out of her grasp easily. He turned her camera around, clearly looking to find the images. Eyes as black as obsidian narrowed on her. ‘How did paparazzi get in here?’

It took a second for what he said to sink in and then she said hotly, ‘I’m not paparazzi, I’m a photographer.’

He made a snorting noise. ‘That’s what they all say.’

She could see him clicking the buttons now and panic made her throat dry, as she registered the latent sense of danger that clung to him. A kind of danger she recognised but which was incongruous in this setting.

‘Give that back now,’ she demanded, ‘I’ve got at least an hour’s work on the memory card.’

He seared her with a scathing glance. ‘Work? What you do isn’t work, it’s the equivalent of a parasite sucking the life out of its host’s body.’

Just then a female voice called from the other end of the patio, something indistinct that Nat couldn’t make out. The man turned his head and then looked back to Nat. He backed away and anger flashed up Nat’s spine; she started after him. ‘Wait, you can’t take my camera. It’s worth a lot of money, it’s my work.’

The man was grim, that beautiful face etched in stark disapproving lines. She wanted to slap it.

‘We’ll see what security says.’ With that he turned away and walked back down the terrace, examining the camera, clearly busy trying to find incriminating evidence. She saw a woman in a suit waiting for him anxiously. His lover? An assistant? To Nat’s utter chagrin, something dark lanced through her to think it might be a lover.

Just who the hell was he anyway? She watched him vault easily over the dividing wall again and was about to start after him when her assistant popped out. ‘Nat? They’re ready to go again.’

Rage caught in her throat. What was wrong with her reflexes? She’d just let an arrogant stranger walk away with one of her most prized possessions—one of her father’s cameras. The stranger had thought she was paparazzi. Her skin crawled.

Torn, but knowing that the exacting fashion editor of the magazine was inside and waiting, Nat had no choice but to go back. She had another camera with her and she’d downloaded the morning’s first shots onto her laptop, a lucky force of habit from her years of knowing how useless the images were unless they were backed up.

But whoever the mysterious stranger was, she was going to find him and let him know exactly who she was and leave him in no doubt that his judge and jury act had been completely over the top and unnecessary.

* * *

Salim Segal watched the woman work with mesmeric grace. The fact that he’d been mistaken about her didn’t sit easy within him. He didn’t usually read situations wrong, but when he’d felt that prickle of awareness of someone’s eyes on him and had turned and seen the slim woman, he’d only registered the camera when the flash had gone off.

He would have thought he’d be used to that by now—the thousand flashes of light a second as his image was captured a million different ways. But for the first time, he’d understood what it was to feel as if a secret part of your soul was taken when someone took a picture.

He’d been thinking…about things that he hadn’t thought of in a long time. Dark things that he thought he’d left behind amidst the rubble of so many ruined cities he’d lost count. Under a million twisted and torn bodies. And then he’d looked and seen her, and she’d caught that feeling of rawness. He’d seen it for himself in the image she’d taken, unwittingly.

She stood up now from her crouched position on the floor in front of the blonde model who had been pouting moodily, and said something in Russian to her and the girl smiled in response, looking like a teenager again. Salim caught the gist of it, something like, good job, we’re done.

His gaze skated over the model, dismissing her. She was beautiful, yes, but too young, too skinny. Still a person who was forming.

Her on the other hand…he’d been able to tell from his first glance at her earlier, that she was a fully formed woman with all her mysteries and allure. His gaze traveled up over slim legs encased in soft leather, cupping a curvy backside. As he watched from where he stood in the shadows near the door she stretched to ease out kinks, arms over her head, lifting her loose top up to reveal the naked indentation of a small waist and just like that, blood throbbed in his veins, like it had earlier when he’d noticed how huge her eyes were and that they were the most unusual shade of gold and green. Tawny. Like a lioness.

She pulled something out of her hair and it tumbled down now, thick and messy around her shoulders, golden lights glinting among darker strands. She massaged her skull and Salim wanted to replace her hands with his. Lust was so urgent within him that he almost turned and walked out, not liking to be in the grip of anything out of his control.

But then someone said something to her and she turned and looked. He’d been spotted. And now he couldn’t move, as she walked towards him. For a man whose reflexes were honed enough to melt out of sight in an instant, this was not welcome.

The crew behind her were packing things away, the model had disappeared, presumably to change.

She stopped in front of him and those stunningly unusual eyes caught him again. Her gaze fell on the camera in his hand, against his chest. Relief was visible in her expression and then it hardened again and she looked at him, holding out a small hand. ‘My camera, please.’

She had an American accent, with a touch of something more foreign. Intriguing.

Salim held on to the camera. ‘I owe you an apology.’

Her eyes flared, as if she was surprised. He could see the pulse point in her neck beating hectically and his arousal wound tighter in his body.

She crossed her arms over her chest, pushing up the swells of her breasts. He could see the voluptuous curves just under the V of her top.

‘You do,’ she agreed. ‘I told you I wasn’t paparazzi.’

Salim dragged his gaze back up and was quickly sucked deep into those golden depths. ‘So why were you taking a picture of me?’

She blushed, looked away, tension oozing from every line of her body. When she looked back her eyes glowed. Hesitantly she said, ‘I don’t know. I was looking through the lens before I even realised…I hadn’t intended to take a picture.’

He remembered turning to look and then the flash. Had it been a reflex? Something in him loosened a bit.

‘Please,’ she said now, undoing her arms, holding out her hand again, her voice husky, ‘Can I have my camera back? It’s got sentimental value for me.’

He could tell she hated the admission, as if it might be a weakness. He could understand that. Instantly he felt remorse, but asked as he handed it over, ‘Why?’

He noted how she relaxed and cradled it to her chest, avoided his eye. ‘It was my father’s. He was a well-known photojournalist who covered conflicts all over the world.’

Salim tensed as unwelcome images automatically came to mind. ‘Who was he?’

She looked at him. ‘Bruce Jordan.’

Salim’s body went still. ‘Bruce Jordan?’

She nodded. Salim reeled. He knew of her father. He shook his head, ‘Incroyable.’

She frowned, ‘What is?’

Salim felt as if he was losing his footing. ‘You…here. This.’ He could see that she got what he meant. This bizarre and palpable chemistry between them. ‘How long are you staying here?’

Her face flushed again, eyes widening imperceptibly. ‘I leave tomorrow to go home to New York.’

Someone pushed past them at the door to take equipment out and Salim could see her look around, distracted. A kind of panic lanced him. He reached out and took her arm, she looked at him. Her scent tickled his nostrils; earthy and musky.

‘I’m sorry about earlier, you caught me…off-guard. Please, let me make it up to you. Have dinner with me this evening?’

Her pupils dilated, drowning out some of the gold in her irises, but after a long moment she shook her head, hesitant. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea.’

Salim’s hand tightened around her arm as if he could drag her bodily from the room. He wanted to. So badly it scared him. So he let her go, because he wasn’t sure it was a good idea either. But still, he couldn’t stop himself from saying, ‘If you change your mind I’ll be in the bar at seven. I won’t wait for long.’