a way, she’d been glad, because she had a plan and the element of surprise was a big part of the plan.
Except, the day had now arrived and the courtyard was buzzing with cameramen, the make-up crew, the director, producer and all the other people whose roles were, quite frankly, bewildering. And where was Javier? Nowhere to be seen.
It was today or it was not at all.
She dropped the curtain and turned to the full-length mirror which the stylist had installed in the bedroom because the small one on the dressing table ‘just won’t do, darling!’
The brief which she had agreed on with Javier would have her standing next to a gleaming articulated lorry bearing the company logo, in dungarees, a checked shirt and a jaunty cowboy hat on her head.
Sophie had decided to take it up a notch and the reflection staring back at her had dumped the dungarees in favour of a pair of shorts with a frayed hem. The checked shirt remained the same, but it was tied under her breasts so that her flat stomach was exposed, and there was no jaunty cowboy hat on her head. Instead, she had slung it on her back so that her hair was wild and loose.
Javier had vaguely aimed for something wholesome and appealing, a throwback to the good old days of home-baked bread and jam, which was some of the cargo transported in the lorries. He’d suggested that it would be a nice contrast to the new face of the business, which was streamlined and fully up to spec on the technological front, which it hadn’t been before. Something along the lines of the home-baked bread getting from A to B before it had time to cool from the oven and Sophie’s image was going to sell the absolute truth of that.
She had taken it up a notch from wholesome to wholesome and sexy.
It had been her brainwave when she had sat there, numbly recognising that she would never, ever get over him if she didn’t sleep with him, if she didn’t seduce him into bed. He’d been in her head for years and she couldn’t think of another way to make sure that he was knocked off the position he occupied there.
She’d never seduced anyone in her life before. Just thinking about doing something like that was terrifying, but when it came to her emotions, she had to be proactive. As proactive as she had been dealing with the mess she’d been left to clear up in the company.
She wasn’t a simpering teenager any more, seeing the future through rose-tinted specs and believing in happy-ever-after endings.
She was an adult, jaded by experience, who would be left nursing regret for the rest of her life if she didn’t give this a shot. And so what if she failed? What if he looked at her get-up and burst out laughing? So, she might have a moment’s humiliation, but that would be worth the lifetime she would have had thinking about an opportunity that had passed her by, an opportunity to claim what she knew could have been hers all those years ago.
The time had come to take a chance.
Except, it didn’t look as though the wretched man was going to show up!
Her nerves were shot, her pulses were racing and she hadn’t eaten since lunchtime the previous day because of the shot nerves and the racing pulses...
She was a mess and it was all going to be for nothing because Javier had obviously had his brainwave and then allowed his minions to realise it while he stepped back from the scene of the action.
She slunk down to the courtyard with a white bathrobe over her screamingly uncomfortable outfit and was immediately appropriated by a host of people whose only function seemed to be to get her ready for the shoot.
She allowed herself to be manoeuvred while disappointment cascaded through her in waves.
No Javier. No big seduction. It had taken absolutely everything out of her. And there was no way she was going to do this again. She wasn’t going to set herself the task of staging seductive scenes in the hope of igniting something that probably wasn’t there for him anyway, whatever stupid signals she thought she’d read!
A mirror was brought for her to inspect herself. Sophie barely glanced at the fully made-up face staring back at her. After the tension of the past couple of days, and the nervous excitement of earlier this morning as she had got dressed, she now felt like a balloon that had been deflated before it had made it to the party.
She was aware of orders being shouted and poses she was being instructed to adopt.
No one had questioned the slight change in outfit. She was Javier’s personal pet project and no one dared question her for fear that she would report unfavourably back to their boss.
She was supposed to turn up in denim and a checked top with a cowboy hat and they knew what the direction of the shoot should be. The outfit was daring, though, and the poses were therefore slightly more daring than perhaps originally choreographed.
She had her back to the camera team, one hand resting lightly on the shining lorry, looking over her shoulder with a smile, when she heard his roar from behind her.
She’d given up on Javier coming.
But before she’d clocked his absence, she had somehow imagined him standing amongst the crew, goggle-eyed as he looked at her, wanting her as much as she wanted him and knowing that he had to have her. She’d pictured him waiting impatiently until the crew had packed up and gone and then...
Her wanton thoughts had not formulated much beyond that point. There would be a lot of ground to cover before the scene shifted from impatient seduction to the satisfied aftermath.
‘What the hell is going on here?’
Sophie stumbled back against the lorry and the entire assembled crew stared at Javier in growing confusion, aware that they had done something wrong but not quite sure what.
Javier strode forward through them like a charging bull, face as black as thunder.
‘You!’ He pointed to the director of the shoot, who jumped to attention and began stammering out his consternation, puzzled as to what the problem was. The shoot was going very well. Indeed, if Javier wanted, he could see what was already in the bag. It was going to do the job and sell the business like hot cakes straight from the oven. Sophie was a brilliant model. No temper tantrums and no diva pouting. She was perfect for the job and the fact that she was part-owner of the company was going to be a nice touch. They’d make sure they got that in in the backdrop...
Javier held up one cold, imperious hand. ‘This was not what I wanted!’ he snapped. He looked across to Sophie with a scowl and she folded her arms defensively.
‘They have no idea what you’re going on about, Javier,’ she said sweetly, strolling towards him although she was quaking inside, unable to tear her eyes away from his strident masculinity. He dominated the space around him, a towering, forbidding figure who clearly inspired awe, fear and respect in equal measure.
It was an incredible turn-on to think that this was the guy who had once teased her, told her that she made him weak, the guy whose eyes had flared with desire whenever they had rested on her.
The guy she wanted so much that it hurt.
The guy she was prepared to risk humiliation for.
‘Consider this shoot over for the day.’ He directed the command at the director but his eyes were focused on Sophie as she moved to stand right in front of him.
