Stripped Bare Read Free Page A

too busy working for the Debussy family to have a love life. Walter keeps me busy.”
    Rachel’s snort echoed down the line. “That bloody twat?” Rachel might be Americanised but she’d spent enough time in the UK to still use the vernacular. “You’re still working for him? Honestly Matthew, surely you can find a job where your boss isn’t a prick like that man. I don’t know how you stomach him. He always looks down his nose at you because you’re gay.”
    Matthew felt a prickle of annoyance. “You know why Walter and I put up with each other. For me it’s a very well-paid job, and I work from home so I don’t see him all that often. For him, he doesn’t have an ‘outsider’ coming in and prying into his financial affairs. I know everything about his business from working with Dad, so he’s comfortable with me. Having a gay lawyer is obviously the lesser of the two evils.”
    Matthew had been subjected to the occasional snide remark or eye roll when Walter was about, but he was used to that attitude from some people.
    Rachel sniffed. “The man is a nasty prat. He treats David like crap.”
    Matthew sighed. He knew exactly. David was his best friend. “Like I said, I know his business and I do my job well.” He huffed, wanting to change the subject. “I’m not a model like you, getting paid shitloads of money to take my clothes off and have men ogle you.”
    “But you could, sweetie,” Rachel said, ignoring the acid tone of his voice. “You know that Klaus would just love to see that fine backside of yours in swimming trunks showing off your package.”
    Matthew blushed pink. “Christ, Rachel, leave my “package” out of this. And Klaus is nothing but a bloody lecher who’s been trying to get into my pants since I was sixteen and of legal age.”
    Klaus Brandenberg was Rachel’s manager, a bisexual man with an innate sense of picking models who were meant to be stars. He’d built Rachel from a willowy and beautiful seventeen-year-old into the sought-after model she was today. He’d had his eye on doing the same to Matthew, but that had not been a path Matthew wanted to follow.
    Matthew had given modelling a go once with Klaus, when he was eighteen, just to shut his mother and Rachel up. He hadn’t liked it at all. He didn’t like being told what to do, pose this way, walk this way, wear this, turn this way, stick that cock of yours out so those men who want to ogle you can see it.
    And Klaus had been grabby and had no idea of personal boundaries. Matthew’s backside could attest to that, having had Klaus’ groin pushed into it at every opportunity the man could find.
    His sister giggled. “Klaus is rich, not bad looking, swings both ways and just adores you. You could do worse.”
    “Hmm. Thanks but no thanks.”
    Rachel sighed. “I think you made the right choice. Modelling is absolute chaos and everything’s spontaneous. You wouldn’t last a day in my world. And oh my God, sharing a dressing room with a bunch of other models would take that OCD of yours and make you into a gibbering idiot.”
    Matthew frowned. “I do not have OCD, Rach. I just like things in their place.”
    “Uh-huh. You call it what you want, little brother.” Her voice softened. “Anyway, I have to go. It’s six a.m. here and we’re on our way to some mountain or other to do a photo shoot. Matthew, darling, let loose. Find a man and have some fun. I know you loved Sam, sweetie, but it’s time to let go.”
    Matthew kept quiet. Rachel sighed. “Go to bed. Have your cry and think of Sam. Give him a kiss from me.”
    Matthew’s throat choked up. “I will. Night, Rach. Thanks for the call. I love you.”
    “I love you too, little brother. Sweet dreams.”
    The phone went dead. Matthew shook off the feelings that threatened to overwhelm him and entered his bedroom. That was another thing. It was no longer “theirs.” Now it was just his alone. He’d never get used to that. Before, they’d had plans for a