nose wrinkled in her exquisite face. ‘No such luck. Maud is keeping her eagle eye on us, and has already told me that if we scarper early she’ll make us pay.’
Sorcha groaned, and at that moment caught the eye of the woman in question—Maud Harriday, doyenne of the fashion industry and head of Models Inc, the agency in New York she and Kate worked for. And who was, for want of a better term, their surrogate mother.
She smiled sunnily until Maud’s laser like gaze was distracted by something else, then stifled a huge yawn. They’d both been up since the crack of dawn for work that day, albeit for different catwalk shows.
Kate grabbed a passing waiter and took two glasses of champagne, handing one to Sorcha. She didn’t normally drink the stuff but took it anyway, for appearances’ sake. Maud liked her models to look as though they were enjoying themselves—especially when they were on show right in the middle of the mayhem of New York’s Fashion Week in one of New York’s finest hotels, rubbing shoulders with some of the most important people in media, fashion and politics.
Sorcha smiled and clinked glasses with Kate. ‘Thanks. I always feel like some kind of brood mare at these functions…don’t you?’
Kate was looking around with interest. ‘Oh, I don’t know, Sorch…’ She affected the broad accents of Maud’s famous New York drawl, and repeated her pep talk of earlier. ‘“This is the one time in the year we get to promote the new faces along with the old.”’ She nudged Sorcha playfully and said, sotto voce, ‘At the grand age of twenty-five we’re the old, in case you hadn’t noticed…’ She continued with her strident imitation. ‘“…and we generate business. These are the people who invest in you, the fashion advertisers who pay your bills, so go out there and look gorgeous.”’
Sorcha threw back her head and laughed. ‘She’d kill you if she heard you.’
The contrast of their beauty side by side—one blonde, the other dark—drew many gazes in their direction. They shared an easy intimacy that came from a long friendship that had started when Kate had gone to Sorcha’s boarding school in Ireland, just outside Dublin.
Kate spoke again, bringing Sorcha’s attention back from its wanderings. Her voice was deceptively light. ‘Plenty of gorgeous guys here tonight, Sorch…’
A tightness came into Sorcha’s face. She was recalling a recent heated discussion with her friend, and she had no desire to rake over the same ground now. No desire to go back down memory lane, where a comment like that was inevitably headed.
‘Kate, let’s not get into that again, please.’ The entreaty in her clear blue eyes was explicit. Kate was her best friend—the one person who knew her like no other, who had seen her at her worst. The familiar guilt rose up, the feeling of debt. Even though she knew Kate would never mention it or use it against her. To her relief she saw her friend nod slightly.
‘Ok, you’re off the hook for now. But it’s just…you are one of the most beautiful women I know, inside and out. I just wish—’
Sorcha took Katie’s hand, halting her words. Her voice was husky. ‘Thanks, Katie…but, really, just leave it for now—OK?’
It hadn’t been hard to seek her out in the crowd. From her pictures alone she would have been easy to find, apart from the fact that she stood out effortlessly—a pale foil of beauty next to so much artifice and expensively acquired tan.
He watched the interplay between the two women covertly. He’d heard their laughter before he’d caught sight of her, and had been surprised to find that it had come from his quarry. It had floated across the room and wound its way around his senses. The sparkling smile was still on her face as she talked to her friend. He hated to admit it, but they weren’t like the other models, fawning over the men in the crowd. They looked…like two children in the corner, playing truant. Bizarrely, because he wasn’t given to such whims, it made him want to be a part of it…
She stood out in every possible way, with long wavy jet-black hair falling below her bare shoulders. In a strapless, high-waisted dress, the pale swell of her bosom hinted at a voluptuousness that was not usual for a top model, and her poise and grace screamed years of practice. The bluest of blue eyes were ringed by dark lashes, and he could see from across the room skin so pale he imagined that up close it would look translucent.
That niggle of dissatisfaction was coming back even stronger. Not usually given to any kind of introspection, Romain ruthlessly crushed it. Still watching the woman, he found his interest piqued beyond what he’d expected to be purely a quick professional once-over to confirm his own opinion…and even more so because she wasn’t trying to capture his attention. His mouth compressed. That in itself was unusual.
He’d already decided he didn’t want to use her…especially in light of her past notoriety…but, watching her now, he had to admit that on the face of it she would actually be perfect for what they were looking for. His instincts, honed over many years in the business, told him that in a second. Whether she’d contrived it or not, the smiling, sparkling animation on Sorcha Murphy’s face effortlessly held his regard. Usually within these circles models were always so careful to put on some kind of front that any real expression had long been suppressed—either behaviourally or surgically.
He felt an almost overwhelming impulse to see her up close, and before he could control himself it had generated a throb of desire that wasn’t usually prompted so arbitrarily. It was a response he couldn’t control and which took him by surprise—again. It had been the last thing he’d expected to feel when faced with her.
‘Beautiful, aren’t they? I see that you’ve found her.’
He started at the low, husky voice that came from his right and was a little shocked at how enthralled he’d become. Had he been that obvious? He quickly schooled his face, but the woman beside him wasn’t fooled, and he was thankful that he knew her well—that it was only she who had noticed his momentarily unguarded few seconds. His mouth quirked before he gave her a kiss on both cheeks, and she mock-fluttered her lashes.
‘If I was still capable of blushing, my dear Romain, then I’d be red as a beetroot.’
‘I’m sure,’ he quipped dryly. She was at supreme ease in these gilded surroundings, and he couldn’t imagine this veritable woman of steel blushing for anyone or anything.
‘So…how are you, ma chére tante?’
She patted his cheek with her fan—a trademark eccentric accessory—and smiled affectionately. ‘Very well, thank you. We are honoured to have a man of your calibre here. I’m so glad that for once our work interests have dovetailed so neatly as I never see you any more—although I don’t imagine that the promise of a room full of beautiful women would have been any incentive?’
Romain tutted. ‘First you flatter me, then you show what a low opinion you really have…’
‘Hmm,’ she said dryly. ‘With pictures of you in numerous magazines courting what would appear to be every single model in Europe, I can see why you might want to seek out new pastures.’
He was used to this affectionate, teasing banter, though he would not have tolerated it in a million years from anyone else. He looked absently around the room. His aunt’s words had hit their mark, and he had to curb a defensive desire to tell her exactly how long it had been since he had taken a lover. It didn’t sit well with him to admit that even that area of his life seemed to be suffering.
Yet
