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‘You’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you?’ she threw at him in almost scornful tones.
‘I’m very sure of my abilities. So what do you say?’
‘I don’t seem to have much choice.’
‘You won’t be disappointed if you hire me. Trust me on this, Isabel.’
She half rolled her eyes again.
Trust, Rafe realised, was something else Isabel Hunt did not do easily.
‘Why don’t you look at some of my more conventional black and white portraits?’ he suggested, pushing over the album portfolio which lay on the coffee-table between them. ‘You might find them reassuring. I confess the shots on my walls are somewhat…avant-garde. Meanwhile, I’m dying for a cup of coffee. I haven’t been up all that long. Late night last night,’ he added with a wry smile. ‘Would you like one yourself? Or something else?’
‘No, thank you. I’ve not long had breakfast.’
‘Aah…late night, too?’ he couldn’t resist saying.
She looked right through him before dropping her beautiful but chilly blue eyes back to the album. She began flicking through it, insulting him with the little time she spent over each page.
He glowered down at the top of her head, and had to battle to control the crazy urge to bend over and wrench the pins out of her oh, so uptight French roll. His hands itched to yank her to her feet and shake her till her hair spilled down over her slender shoulders. He wanted to pull her to him and kiss her till there was fire in her eyes, not ice. He wanted to see that blush back in her cheeks. But not from embarrassment. From passion.
He wanted… He wanted… He wanted her!
Rafe reeled with shock. To desire this woman was insane. And stupid. And masochistic.
First, she was going to be married in two weeks. Second, she was a blonde. Third, she didn’t even like him!
Three strikes and you’re out!
Now go get your coffee, dummy. And when you come back, focus on her simply as a fantastic photographic subject, and not the most challenging woman of the century.
CHAPTER TWO
ISABEL did not look up till she was sure she was alone, shutting the photo album with a snap.
The man was impossible! To hire him as her wedding photographer was impossible! Rafe Saint Vincent might be a brilliant photographer but if he wasn’t capable of listening to what she wanted, then he could just go jump.
Truly, men like him irritated the death out of her.
And attracted the devil out of her.
Isabel sighed. That was the main problem with him, wasn’t it? The fact she found him wickedly sexy.
Isabel closed her eyes and slumped back against the sofa. She’d thought she’d finally cured herself of the futile flaw of fancying men like him. She’d thought since meeting and becoming engaged to Luke that she would never again need what such men had to offer.
Luke was exactly what she’d been looking for in a husband. He was handsome. Successful. Intelligent. And extremely nice. A man who, like her, had come to the conclusion that romantic love was not a sound basis for marriage, that compatibility and common goals were far more reliable. Falling in love, they’d both discovered in the past, made fools of men—and women. Passion might be the stuff poems were written about, but it didn’t make you happy in the long run. Mind-blowing sex, Isabel now believed, was not the be-all and end-all when it came to a relationship.
Not that Luke wasn’t good in bed. He was. If her mind sometimes strayed to her own private and personal fantasies while he was making love to her, and vice versa, then Isabel hadn’t been overly concerned.
Till this moment.
It was one thing to fill her mind with images of some mythical stranger during sex with Luke. Quite another to go to bed with him on her wedding night thinking of the likes of Rafe Saint Vincent.
And she would, if he was around all that day, looking her up and down with those sexy eyes of his.
Isabel shook her head with frustration. She’d always been attracted to the Mr Wrongs of this world. The dare-devils and the thrill-seekers. The charmers and the slick, smooth-tongued womanisers who oozed the sort of confidence she found a major turn-on.
Of course, she hadn’t known they were Mr Wrongs to begin with. She’d thought they were interesting, exciting men. It had taken several wretched endings—especially the disaster with Hal—to force her to face the fact that her silly heart had no judgement when it came to the opposite sex. It picked losers and liars.
By her late twenties, desperation and despair had forced Isabel’s brain to develop a fail-safe warning system. If she was madly attracted to a man, then that was a guarantee he was another Mr Wrong.
So she didn’t have to know much about Rafe Saint Vincent to know his character. She only had to take one look at him. Les had provided her with some brief details about him—namely that he was a bachelor, and a brilliant photographer—but to be honest, aside from the warning bells going off in Isabel’s brain, Mr Saint Vincent’s appearance said it all, from his trendy black clothes to his earring and his designer stubble. The fact he lived in a terraced house in Paddington completed the picture of a swinging male single of the new millennium whose priorities were career, pleasure and leisure, and who was never going to buy a cow when he could have cartons of milk for free. Rafe might not be a criminal or a con man, like Hal had been, but he would always be a waste of time for a woman who wanted marriage and children.
Actually, every man Isabel had ever fancied had been a waste of time in that regard. Which was why, when she’d found herself staring thirty in the face, still without the home and family of her own she’d always craved, Isabel had decided enough was enough, and set about finding herself a husband with her head, not her heart.
And she had.
Isabel knew she could be happy with Luke. Very happy.
But the last thing she needed around on her wedding day was someone like Rafe Saint Vincent.
Yet she needed a photographer. What excuse could she give her mother for not hiring him? The black and white business wouldn’t wash. Her mother just loved black and white photographs, a hangover from the days when that was all there was. Her mother was not a young woman. In fact she was seventy, Isabel having been the product of a second honeymoon when Doris Hunt had turned forty.
No, there was nothing for it but to hire Rafe God’s-gift-to-women Saint Vincent. Isabel supposed there was no real harm in fantasising about another man while your husband was making love to you, even on your wedding night. Luke would never know if she never told him.
And she wouldn’t.
Actually, there were a lot of things about herself she’d never told Luke. And she didn’t aim on starting now!
Her eyes opened and lifted to the photographs on the wall again and, this time, with their creator out of the room, Isabel let her gaze linger.
They really were incredibly erotic, his clever use of shadow highly suggestive. Although the subjects were obviously either naked or semi-naked, the lighting was such that most private parts were hidden from view. There was the occasional glimpse of the side of a breast, or the curve of a buttock, but not much more.
Tantalising was the word which came to mind. Isabel could have stared at them for hours. But the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs had her reefing her eyes away and searching for something to do. Anything!
Fishing her mobile phone out of her bag, she punched in her parents’ number and was waiting impatiently for her mother to answer when her nemesis of the moment walked back into the room, sipping a steaming mug of coffee.
She pretended she wasn’t ogling him, but her eyes snuck several surreptitious glances as he walked over and sat down in the same spot he’d occupied before. He was gorgeous! Tall and lean, just as she liked them. Not traditionally handsome in the face, but attractive, and oh, so sexy.
‘Yes?’ her mother finally answered, sounding slightly breathless.
‘Me, here, Mum.’ No breathlessness on Isabel’s part. She sounded wonderfully composed. Yet, inside, her heartbeat had quickened appreciably. Practice did make perfect!
‘Oh, Isabel, I’m so glad you rang before we left for the club. I was thinking of you. So how did it go with Mr Saint Vincent?’
‘Fine. He was fine.’
Isabel saw his dark eyes widen over the rim of his coffee-mug. Clearly, he’d been thinking she wasn’t going to hire him.
‘As good as Les?’ her mother asked. Les had been hired by her parents before, for their recent golden wedding anniversary party.
‘Better, I’d say.’
‘That’s a relief. I’ve waited a long time to see you married, love. I would like to have some decent photographs of the momentous event.’
Isabel’s eyes flicked up to the two most provocative photos on the wall and a decidedly indecent thought popped into her mind. What would it be like to be photographed by him like that? To be totally naked before him? To have him arranging filmy curtains or sliding satin sheets over her nude body? To have to stand—or lie—perfectly still in some suggestive pose for ages whilst he shot reel after reel of film, those sexy eyes of his focused only on her?
Just the thought of it sent her heartbeat even higher.
Fortunately, Isabel was not a female whose inner feelings showed readily on her face. She could look at a man and be thinking the hottest thoughts and still look cool. Sometimes, even uninterested. Which perhaps was just as well, or she’d have spent half of her life in bed.
She didn’t flirt easily. Neither was she capable of the sort of coy sugary behaviour some men seemed to find both a come-on and a turn-on. Most men found her slightly aloof, even snobbish. They often confused her ice-blonde looks and ladylike manner with being prudish and undersexed. Which perhaps explained why most of her lovers had been men who dared to do what a gentleman wouldn’t, men who simply rode roughshod over her seeming uninterest and simply took what they wanted.
Isabel looked at the man sitting opposite her and wondered what kind of lover he’d be.
Not that you’re ever going to find out, her conscience reminded her harshly.
‘I have to go, Isabel,’ her mother was saying. ‘Your father and I were just having a bite to eat before we go down the club. When will you be home? Will you be eating with us tonight?’
Isabel had been living with her parents during the last few weeks leading up to the wedding. She’d quit her flat, plus her job as receptionist at the architectural firm where Luke worked, content to become a career wife and home maker after their marriage. She and Luke were going to try for a baby straight away.
‘As far as I know,’ she told her mother whilst she continued to watch the man opposite with unreadable eyes. ‘Unless Luke comes back today and wants to go out somewhere. If he happens to ring, you could ask him. And tell him I’ll be back home by one at the latest.’
‘Will do. Bye, love.’
‘Bye, Mum.’
She clicked off the phone then bent down to tap it against the album on the coffee-table. ‘Very impressive,’ she said, giving him one of her super cool looks, the ones she fell back on when her thoughts were at their most shocking. Pity she couldn’t have rustled one up earlier when his barb about her wearing white at her wedding had sent a most uncharacteristic flush to her cheeks. Still, she was back in control now. Thank heavens.
She put down the phone and opened the album to a page which held a traditional full-length portrait of a woman in an evening gown. ‘I liked this portrait very much. If you feel you could reproduce shots like this, then you’re hired.’
‘I don’t ever reproduce anything, Isabel,’ he returned quite huffily. ‘I’m an artist, not a copier.’
Isabel’s patience began to wear thin. ‘Do you want this job or not?’ she threw at him.
‘As I said before, I’m doing this as a favour to Les. The question is…do you want me or not?’
Isabel’s eyes met his and she had a struggle to maintain her equilibrium. If only he knew…
‘I suppose you’ll have to do,’ she managed to say.
‘Such enthusiasm. When and where?’
How about here and now?
‘The wedding is at four o’clock at St Christopher’s Church at Burwood, a fortnight from today. And the reception is at a place in Strathfield called Babylon.’
‘Sounds exotic.’
It was, actually. Isabel had a secret penchant for the exotic. Though you’d never tell by looking at her. She always dressed very conservatively. But her favourite story as a child had been Aladdin, and she’d often dreamt of being a harem girl, complete with sexy costume and gauzy veils over her face.
‘Do you want me to come to your house beforehand?’ he asked. ‘A lot of brides want that. Though some are too nervous to pose well at that stage. Still, when I was doing weddings regularly, I developed a strategy for relaxing them which helped on some occasions.’
‘Oh?’ Isabel tried to stop her wicked imagination from taking flight once more, but it was a lost cause.
‘I’d give them a good…stiff…drink,’ he said between sips of his coffee.
How she kept a straight face, Isabel would never know.
‘I don’t drink,’ she lied.
‘Figures,’ he muttered, and she almost laughed.
He obviously thought she was a prude.
‘Don’t worry,’ she went on briskly. ‘I won’t be nervous. And, yes, I’m sure my mother will want you to come to the house beforehand. I’ll jot down the address and phone number for you.’ She pulled out a pen from her bag, plus a spare business card from her hairdresser, and wrote her parents’ details on the back.
‘What say you arrive on the day at two?’ she suggested as she handed it over to him, then stood up.
He put down his coffee, stared at the card, then stood up also.
‘Is this your regular hairdresser?’ he asked.
The question startled her. ‘Yes, why?’
‘Did they do your hair today?’
‘No. I did it myself. I only go to a hairdresser when I want a cut. I like to do it myself.’ Aside from the money it cost, she wasn’t fond of the way some hair-dressers had difficulty following instructions.
‘So you’ll be doing your hair on your wedding day?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not like that, I hope,’ he said as he slipped the card into his shirt pocket.
Isabel bristled. ‘What’s wrong with it like this?’
‘It’s far too severe. If you’re going to have it up, you need something a little softer, with some pieces hanging around your face. Here. Like this.’
Before she could step away, or object, he was by her side, his fingers tugging at her hair and touching her cheeks, her ears, her neck.
It was one thing to keep her cool whilst she was just thinking about him, quite another with his hands on her. His fingertips were like brands on her skin, leaving heated imprints in her flesh and sending quivery ripples down her spine.
‘Your hair seems quite straight,’ he was saying as he stroked several strands down in front her ears. ‘Do you have a curling wand?’
‘No,’ she choked out, knowing she should step back from him but totally unable to. She kept staring at the V of bare skin in his open-necked shirt and wondering what he would look like, naked.
‘I suggest you buy one, then. They’re cheap enough.’
