style="font-size:15px;"> “You were,” he said, surging to his feet and towering over her. “You and that damnable cruise to Crete. I should never—” He blew out an exasperated breath and raked his hand through his hair.
“Well, don’t stop now. You never should have what?”
“Never mind! I’ve already said too much.” He strode to the door and yanked it open. “Thank you again for coming. Get some rest. You’re going to need it.”
And having stirred up memories of the most painful period of her life, he left her.
So much for leaving the past in the past….
They’d stopped in Athens en route to London and Vancouver; a two-day rest between flights only. At least, that was the original plan, until the invitation was hand delivered to their suite at the Grande Bretagne, the evening before they were scheduled to leave.
In marked contrast to Brianna’s uninterested reaction, Cecily had almost fallen over herself with glee. “It sounds divine! I want us to accept, I really do! If you won’t go for yourself, do it for me.” She’d pinned on her most beguiling smile. “Please, Brianna? Pretty please?”
“Honestly, Cecily, I’d rather not. This is the first break we’ve had in months, and I’m ready for a rest. But there’s no reason you can’t go, if you’re all that keen. We’re not joined at the hip.”
“You know full well having both of us there is the coup they’re after. One of us doesn’t have the same cachet.”
“For heaven’s sake, we’re professional models, not a circus act.”
“And all you ever think about is work.” Cecily’s tone crossed the line from wheedling to whining. “If you’re so damned eager to take a rest, why can’t you do it floating around the Mediterranean on a luxury yacht? What’s so hard to take about that?”
“We don’t know anyone else, for a start. These people so anxious to have us on board aren’t friends, Cecily, they’re collectors whose idea of scintillating dinner conversation is dropping the names of the celebrities they’ve rubbed shoulders with.”
“And we’re highly collectible!”
Brianna sighed. They’d argued this point more times than she cared to count, and were never going to agree. “We’re a couple of reasonably pretty women who look so much alike, most people can’t tell us apart. They might recognize our faces, but they haven’t a clue who or what we’re really about, and nor do they care. We’re nothing more than novelties.”
“Maybe it’ll be different this time. Maybe these hosts enjoy meeting new people and showing them a good time.”
Tired of riding the same pointless merry-go-round yet again, Brianna had welcomed the arrival of their manager, Carter Maguire, who occupied the suite next door. As usual after a successful assignment—and this last had been a triumph both on the runway and at the photography shoots—he’d brought a bottle of champagne. Her relief, though, was short-lived when he told them that he, too, was to join the yachting party. Was, in fact, largely responsible for the three of them having been invited in the first place.
“Too bad you wasted your time,” Cecily informed him petulantly, when she heard. “Brianna’s refusing to go. Thinks I should put in a solo appearance.”
“Out of the question.” Calmly he uncorked the champagne and filled three flutes, handed one to Cecily and shooed her out to the balcony. “Go enjoy the view, and leave me to talk to her.” When she was well out of earshot, he faced Brianna. “This isn’t so much an invitation as a command performance, sweet pea. These people are big names in the fashion industry and we need the contacts. You’ve been at the top for a long time now, but we’re in danger of losing that spot, and I think we both know why.” He cast a quick glance over his shoulder. “Cecily’s screwed up a few times too many, and word’s getting around that she’s not reliable. That business in Bali last month made big headlines.”
The reminder of her sister’s drunken display at a night club made Brianna blush all over again. “I know. People don’t forget that kind of thing in a hurry.”
“Especially not in this business. And not to put too fine a point on it, but time isn’t exactly on your side anymore. You’ll be twenty-four in August. The next couple of years are critical—for all of us.” He’d given her the lopsided grin she knew and loved so well. “Come to that, I’m no spring chicken myself. The way I see it, when you decide to call it quits, I will, too.”
“That’s ridiculous, Carter! You’re only fifty-three, and there are hundreds of models who’d give their right arms to have you represent them.”
“Not interested.” He shook his head. “When I’ve worked with the best, why settle for the rest? There’ll never be anyone like the two of you, Brianna—or at least, there never used to be. Now…” He shrugged and raised his eyebrows in a way that spoke more eloquently than words.
Cecily wandered back into the room at that point and helped herself to more champagne. “Straightened her out yet, Carter?”
“I’m not sure.” He turned a smiling glance on Brianna, but the message in his eyes was sobering. “Have I?”
She knew how much she and Cecily owed him. Until he came into their lives, they’d been pawns; children at the mercy of a mother who’d exploited them for their appearance, without any regard for their moral or intellectual well-being. She’d looked at her daughters and seen only dollar signs. The money they brought in, she spent. On herself.
Brianna and Cecily had grown up on a litany of familiar refrains.
I don’t care if your feet hurt in those shoes….
Forget about joining the library. Reading books isn’t going to pay the rent….
And always, as regularly as one season followed another: You owe me…. I could’ve gotten rid of you and had some sort of life for myself, but I didn’t. I carried you to term…raised you all by myself because your dumb-ass father fell off a ladder and broke his neck before you were even born, and left not a red cent of insurance to provide for his brats….
The ultimate irony, of course, was that “the brats” had inherited their father’s looks, as was evident from the one photograph, taken on his wedding day, which their mother had for some reason chosen not to throw away.
Fortunately, when the awkward teenage years had arrived and “the brats” weren’t quite as saleable, she’d handed over the job of marketing them to an agency, and Carter had come into their lives. It had taken him less than an hour to ascertain their mother’s measure and half that time to draw up a contract giving him sole control of their professional future.
Through his intervention, they’d received a decent education. He hired a lawyer and a financial consultant to protect and invest their earnings against the day when they might not be in demand as models any longer, or decided they’d rather pursue a different career. He became the family they’d never known, the one person in the whole world they could always rely on.
And now, for the first time, he was asking for something in return. How could she refuse him, especially for so small a favor?
“Yes, you’ve convinced me,” she
