These days she rarely ventured near Robin’s studio, and on the few occasions that Sam had met her she had found her stunning, aloof—and very slightly terrifying.
Sam frowned. ‘I had no idea that Gita did photography before she started modelling.’
‘Why should you have known? It was way before your time, and it’s not something that I particularly broadcast. Anyway, she wasn’t his assistant for very long. Declan saw her potential, decided she was wasted behind the lens—he took some shots and the rest, as they say, is history. They became overnight successes, and never looked back. In the beginning, she wouldn’t let anyone else photograph her, which only added to his, and her, mystique.’ He shot her another glance. ‘You knew that they were involved, didn’t you? Emotionally, as well as professionally?’ He spoke the words quickly as if to get them over with, like a child gulping down a particularly nasty dose of medicine.
Sam shook her head, surprised by the sudden, inexplicable lurching of her heart. ‘No. No, I didn’t.’ She was curious to know more, and yet, at the same time, strangely reluctant to hear it. ‘Was it—serious?’
Robin gave a laugh which sounded forced. ‘Very. The beautiful couple with the world at their feet. They could have been the Taylor-Burton combination of the photographic world.’
‘But I don’t remember reading anything about it,’ said Sam slowly.
‘You wouldn’t have done. Declan is a man who guards his privacy well. He managed to keep the affair out of the tabloids, much to Gita’s chagrin. She is—’ he gave a rueful smile ‘—a keen self-publicist.’
‘So what happened between them?’ Sam was bursting with a need to know, then realised that Robin might consider it prying. ‘Unless you’d rather not talk about it?’
But he shook his head. ‘Our hero became disillusioned with the glitzy world of glamour photography and decided to do something meaningful with his life. This caused fireworks with Gita. She wanted a man at her side, not on the other side of the world. She gave Declan an ultimatum, which basically boiled down to if he did go and work in a war zone then it was all over between them.’
‘And he . . .?’ asked Sam tentatively.
Robin laughed. ‘Declan’s not a man you can tame, or bribe. He went right ahead with his plan. Naturally, being Declan, he excelled at photo-journalism, too. As you know, he became something of a national hero, when his war photographs were taken up by news agencies all around the world and were credited with achieving peace negotiations, where everything else had failed.’
‘And—Gita?’ probed Sam hesitantly.
‘Oh, Gita.’ He paused. ‘I’m afraid that the war lost him Gita, because while he was out getting shot at she decided to marry me.’
‘But—why?’ said Sam, without thinking, then saw his face and could have kicked herself. ‘I’m sorry, Robin—I didn’t mean—’
He shook his head. ‘I had something which Gita wanted.’
‘What do you mean?’
He laughed. ‘Oh, come on, Sam! A title. She’s an ambitious lady, is my beautiful Gita, and marriage to me meant instant entry into the English aristocracy.’
‘But wasn’t Declan your—friend?’ she asked haltingly.
Robin gave a wry smile. ‘In as much as anyone could be a friend to Declan. He isn’t like other people. There’s something that sets him apart. Even Gita said that. You mean did I feel bad about stealing his girl?’ He laughed again, that same empty laugh. ‘Oh, I didn’t feel great about it; I should have resisted, but Gita is a fairly irresistible lady. She wanted me, and what she wants she usually gets.’
‘And did Declan—I mean—do you still speak?’
Robin looked at her in surprise. ‘Oh, Declan isn’t a man to bear a grudge. “The best man won” was what he said at the time. But whether Gita would agree, now that he’s back, I’m not sure,’ he finished in an undertone which Sam had to strain her ears to hear.
She set about making coffee for them both, still puzzled by what Robin had let slip. Had he been implying that Gita was still carrying a torch for Declan? And what of Declan’s feelings for Gita?
Sam shook her head and sipped her coffee. It’s none of your business, Sam Gilbert, she told herself sternly, as she went into the dark-room to develop a film.
She started work exactly a fortnight later. The journey from her flat in Knightsbridge was not exactly long, or arduous, but she took care to rise at least an hour earlier than she needed, and caught the Tube to Declan’s studio.
She had been back there just the once, when he had given her a key, and introduced her to the one other permanent member of his staff, and she had been amused to note that his reservations about working with women were backed up by fact, since his secretary-cum-receptionist was a man! Michael Hargreaves was a couple of years younger than his boss, well-spoken, and exceedingly polite—he probably had to be to compensate for his boss’s shortcomings she thought. He also, according to Declan, spoke four languages with ease, and had a heftily impressive Classics degree from Oxford. So quite what he was doing in a rather dead-end job as secretary she couldn’t imagine.
She had thought that she’d be there before Declan, but as she pushed the door open she was greeted by the sight of his undeniably attractive posterior, clad in clinging black denim, as he fiddled around with a maze of thick black wires on the floor, and she was startled by the tingling as the little hairs at the back of her neck prickled in response to him. For Sam, it was an entirely new and not very welcome sensation, this blatantly physical response to a man she neither really knew nor particularly liked.
‘Get me a screwdriver from out of the tool-box, would you?’ he ordered abruptly, without turning round.
He obviously didn’t believe in the red-carpet treatment, she thought crossly, as she draped her satchel over the back of a light-stand. A ‘Good morning, Sam—welcome to your new job’ wouldn’t have cost him much. ‘Where is it?’
‘Believe it or not, it’s the large box in the corner, cunningly marked “tools”,’ he returned sarcastically.
She walked over to the tool-box, opened it, and extracted two screwdrivers which she thought would do. ‘But “tools” could mean anything, don’t you think?’ she answered, matching his sarcasm, with a sudden need to show him that she could give as good as she could get. ‘For all I know it could be where you keep your supply of beer.’
‘Come over here,’ he said, completely ignoring her last remark, and indicated the space next to him. ‘I need you to hold this wire for me.’
She crouched down beside him, and took the wire he’d pointed at, aware suddenly, and almost painfully, of his closeness. He was so close that she could detect some faint scent of lemon—soap, probably; somehow she could not imagine a man like Declan Hunt splashing aftershave all over that impressively shaped neck. So close, in fact, that she could see a minute scar which traced a thin line down one cheek, and just below it his razor had just slightly nicked a tiny spot of blood at the curve of a jaw which was both strong and sensual. A newly shaved jaw, but one where the shadow of the new beard would shortly reappear. He looked, she thought, like the kind of man who would probably shave twice a day and
