you want me to wear out of the court dress?’ he asked, drawing on his usual court demeanour and trying to sound as if he was completely unflustered.
‘Wig, collar and bands, and we’ll try some shots with the gown and some without,’ she said. ‘I take it you followed my instructions to avoid marks on your skin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Let’s do this.’
Nick felt incredibly self-conscious stripping off. Putting on the collar and bands without his tunic shirt felt weird. Though the silk gown was soft against his skin, and he gathered it in front of him to cover himself and went to stand by the bench.
‘We’ll do some shots sitting down, first,’ Sammy said. ‘I guess you need some papers spread out on the bench in front of you.’
Luckily he’d thought to bring a brief with him. He fetched it and sat down.
‘Do you wear glasses?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Pity. I should’ve thought to bring some frames with me.’
He frowned. ‘Why do you want me to wear glasses?’
‘To make you look clever.’
He wasn’t sure if she was teasing him or not. Then he looked her straight in the eye and saw the mischievous twinkle. ‘Very funny.’
‘Yes, m’lud—or should I say Your Honour?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘That’s what I’d say to the judge. You’d refer to me as My Learned Friend.’
Her mouth quirked, and heat flooded his body. That impish smile transformed Sammy Thompson to a pure beauty.
And this was totally inappropriate.
He damped his feelings down. For all he knew, she was married or involved with someone. OK, so she wasn’t wearing a ring, but that didn’t mean anything. And he wasn’t looking for a relationship anyway; the disintegration of his marriage to Naomi three years ago had put him off the idea of opening his life to someone else ever again. The one woman he’d thought was different. The one he’d thought had supported his ambitions and understood him. Yet it had all been a sham. That wasn’t a mistake he intended to repeat. Even if he did find Sammy Thompson attractive, he wasn’t going to act on that attraction. Dating seriously wasn’t something he did any more.
He focused on posing for Sammy and following her instructions. He stood up, changing position when she told him to.
‘OK. Now you can lose the gown for the next set of shots.’
‘Are you quite sure about this?’ he asked, wishing he were a hundred miles away.
‘Tell you what, shy boy,’ she drawled. ‘Do the rest of the shoot for me without making any more fuss, and I’ll buy you dinner.’
He blinked. Was she asking him out? ‘Dinner? Why?’
‘Because I’ve already shot two other models for the calendar today and I didn’t have time for lunch, which means that right now I’m starving—I’ll apologise now in case my stomach starts rumbling during the shoot. So I think we should have dinner while we look through the shots and you tell me which ones you approve to put forward to the Friends of the Hospital,’ she said. ‘Unless you have a girlfriend or a wife who’d have a problem with that, in which case please call her now and ask her to join us, because I really don’t want to have to wait for too long before dinner.’
He shrugged slightly. ‘No wife. No girlfriend.’ And this was feeling more and more like agreeing to a date. Something that pushed him even further outside his comfort zone. He paused. ‘Would it be a problem for your partner if you ate with me?’
‘Not if I had one, because this is my job.’
So she was single. Available...
He squashed those thoughts. No, no and no. He didn’t date any more. Not seriously.
‘The quicker we get this done, the quicker I get food,’ she continued, ‘and the less likely it is that I’ll get grumpy with you. You need to focus, m’learned friend. Lose the gown. And think yourself lucky.’
‘Lucky?’ He very nearly had to shake his head to clear it. Was she talking about him getting lucky?
‘You’re Mr December. I could’ve made you wear a Santa hat. Or pose holding a bunch of mistletoe. Or—’ She flapped a dismissive hand. ‘Insert a cheesy Christmassy pose of choice.’
Ah. That kind of lucky. Nothing to do with sex, then.
And would his head please, please start playing by the rules and stop thinking about lust and other inappropriate things? Because right now he was naked, and it would be impossible to hide his physical reaction to her.
‘Noted,’ he said dryly. He took off his gown, folded it neatly, and set it on the bench where it would be out of sight of her camera.
* * *
Wearing just his barrister’s wig, collar and bands, Nick Kennedy was spectacular, Sammy thought. Broad shoulders, beautiful biceps, enough hair on his chest to be sexy without him looking like a total gorilla, and a definite six pack.
Mr December was going to be the best page on the calendar. He could probably sell the calendar all by himself.
But now he’d said there was no wife or girlfriend, she couldn’t help wondering: how come a gorgeous man with a good brain and kind eyes was single? Was it because he was a workaholic and his girlfriends tended to get fed up waiting for him to notice them? Or had she missed some major personality flaw?
‘What?’ he asked, clearly noting that she was staring at him.
‘Nothing,’ she said, embarrassed to discover that her voice was slightly croaky. She really had to get a grip. The last thing she needed was for her skittish model to work out that she was attracted to him. And Nicholas Kennedy was bright. He couldn’t be more than five or six years older than Sammy’s own thirty years, and he was at the top of his profession. Scratch bright: that kind of background meant he had to be super-bright. So he’d be able to work it out quickly.
She got him to do a few more poses. To her relief, he’d relaxed enough with her by now to trust her, even when she moved round and took some shots from the side and some others from the back. And, oh, his back was beautiful. She’d love to do some proper nude studies of him. In a wood, looking for all the world like a statue of a Greek god.
Not that he’d agree to it. Not in a million years.
But a girl could dream...
‘OK. That’s a wrap. You can get dressed now,’ she said, ‘and by the time I’ve loaded everything on to my laptop we’ll be ready to go to dinner.’
‘The stuff I was wearing is hardly dressy enough for going out,’ he said.
She laughed. ‘As I wasn’t planning to take you to the Dorchester or Claridge’s, I think you’ll be just fine.’
