boundaries were disappearing like ice melting into water. She could no more walk away from this man now, than she could stop breathing.
‘Ok, I’d like that.’
‘So, tell me more about yourself, Natalja. Have you always worked in fashion?’
Nat shook her head, hiding a frisson of pleasure to hear him call her that. Only her mother had ever used her full name. She felt drunk on the sumptuous surroundings, delicious food and wine. And on the man who lounged as indolently as a jungle cat on the other side of the table. Almost as if mere solid furniture couldn’t contain him. Her hands played semi-nervously with the stem of her wine glass. ‘No. I’ve only been working in fashion for the last three years or so. Before that…I’d followed in my father’s footsteps.’ She grimaced self-deprecatingly, ‘Without half of his talent or acclaim I’m afraid.’
Salim’s eyebrows snapped together and she could feel him tense. It had an effect on her body, making awareness skitter over her skin. Awareness? She mocked herself, awareness was too ineffectual a word for what she was feeling. Down and dirty lust. That was more appropriate.
‘You worked in war zones?’
She nodded and forced herself to look at him, dimly aware that there were only a few people left in the restaurant. ‘Yes. I worked in Eastern Europe, Afghanistan and most recently in the Middle East.’
‘Why did you leave it behind?’
Nat fought back the reflex of pain whenever she thought of that time and looked at him. ‘I got injured…I was shot.’
She heard his intake of breath, a hiss between his teeth and it made her heart flip-flop unsteadily. As if he cared?! Quickly, to cover up how his reaction made her feel, she said, ‘I was incredibly lucky, it was just a flesh wound, my thigh. But it was a wake-up call. My father had died in similar circumstances and I think I realised in that moment that I was somehow searching for him, trying to maintain a connection. The truth is that I never loved that world as much as he did. It terrified me.’
‘You were close to him?’ Salim’s voice was hypnotic.
Nat nodded, battling down the surge of emotion to think of her tall gorgeous father, lifting her high in the air and hugging her close enough to hurt. No wonder he’d hugged her close, he’d known the risks he took.
‘Very close. And my mother…she fell apart when he died. She couldn’t cope. He’d taken her out of a small town in Russia and he was her world. Six months after he died, she killed herself.’
Salim just looked at her, those dark dark eyes like bottomless wells. Simply but with obvious empathy he said, ‘I’m sorry.’
And she knew that he knew, because she sensed the same deep well of tragedy within him.
‘Your father would be proud of you.’
Nat huffed a tremulous laugh. ‘Really? For taking pictures of a nineteen year-old girl in a dress worth thousands of dollars?’
He shook his head minutely, ‘Because you had the balls to get out before that world consumed you.’
His words went straight to her gut. Nat looked at him. She’d never revealed so much in such a short space of time, to a relative stranger. And no-one had ever got her like this before.
She cocked her head slightly. ‘What about you—what army were you in? The French one?’
Now it was Salim’s turn to laugh quietly. He stared into his glass of wine for a moment before catching her eye again. She almost shivered at the hardness she glimpsed in those depths.
‘I was in the French army no-one likes to mention. The Foreign Legion.’
Nat sucked in a breath. The Legionnaires were legendary for their brutal training regime, their fearlessness and their incredible loyalty to each other. And their mystique that was riven with equal parts controversy and myth.
‘How did you end up there?’
He took a sip of wine, for all the world a civilised man, but Nat could see the blunt edges not far beneath the surface.
‘I grew up in the banlieu, the suburbs of Paris. My father was Algerian, my mother French, there are six of us in my family, there wasn’t much time for looking out for us individually. I’d been dyslexic in school and was never diagnosed, so grew up being labelled stupid. I was running with a gang, up to no good. Petty crimes that were about to get much worse. I saw your father’s photos in a window of a gallery, and for the first time I felt a sense of purpose. I knew about the Legion…and so I went straight to the recruiting office in Paris and that was it, for ten years.’
Nat reeled. This man wasn’t stupid. Not remotely.
‘Did you have another name, in the Legion?’
Salim smiled and it knocked the breath out of her belly.
‘They called me Steven Seagal, after the actor, a play on my own name. And the ribbing I still get, especially now, is worse than any 30km forced run under the African midday sun that I ever endured.’
Nat let out a laugh at his rueful admission. ‘And how did you go from that to this?’
He toyed with his glass, his eyes hooded. ‘When I left I was spotted on a street one day, they were looking for models…’ he made a self-deprecating face, ‘Who looked like men. I couldn’t believe how easy the work was. It was a world away from where I’d come from, the other end of the spectrum. But perversely, I think its very silliness and superficiality helped me to readjust to living normally again.’
He looked at her and shrugged minutely, ‘And the acting…I like it. I took another name, another persona, while I was in the Legion, so it’s not that hard to play someone else.’
Nat absorbed this insight, she could empathise with that need to pretend to be someone else. She’d tried to be someone she wasn’t for her father’s memory. ‘Do you still see some of the men you served with?’
Salim nodded and finished his wine. ‘One of my closest friends is from the family who own this hotel actually. Marco Rossi as he was in the Legion—Antonio Chatsfield as he is really. We were in the parachute regiment together. I’m in London to promote the movie, but also because I’m going to invest in his security business and offer my expertise. We’re meeting tomorrow to discuss it.’
His mouth tipped up on one side, ‘Let’s just say that movies and modeling are easy, fun, but not exactly…fulfilling.’
Nat was impressed. The parachute regiment of the Legion was one of the most elite forces of trained soldiers in the world. And then she thought of what he’d just said and felt a little breathless. ‘What kind of fulfilment are you looking for?’
Salim leaned forward, eyes glinting. ‘Right now?’
Nat nodded.
‘Right now I’d really like to take you dancing.’
Visions
