Unveiling the Bridesmaid Read Free Page A

times before a voice sang out, ‘Unique Models, how may I help?’
    â€˜Gael O’Connor here. It’s now...’ He glanced up at the digital clock on the otherwise stark grey walls. ‘It’s nine a.m. and the model I booked for eight-thirty has yet to show up.’
    â€˜Gael, lovely to speak to you. I am so sorry, I meant to call you before but I literally haven’t had time. It’s been crazy, you wouldn’t believe.’
    â€˜Try me.’
    â€˜Sonia was booked yesterday for a huge ad campaign—only it was a last-minute replacement so she had to literally pack and fly. I saw her onto the plane myself last night. International perfume ad, what an opportunity. Especially for a model who is...’ the booker’s voice lowered conspiratorially ‘...outsize. So we are going to have to reschedule your booking I am so sorry. Or could I send someone else? We have some lovely redheads if that’s what you require or was it the curvier figure you were looking for?’
    With some difficulty Gael managed not to swear. Send someone else? An image of the missing Sonia flashed through his mind: the knowing expression in her green catlike eyes, the perfect amount of confident come-hitherness he needed for the centrepiece of his first solo exhibition. ‘No. I can’t simply replace her, nor can I rebook. I’ve put the time aside right now.’
    After all, the exhibition was in just five weeks.
    â€˜Sonia will be back in just a couple of days. All I can do is apologise for the delay but...’
    It would help, he thought bitterly, if the booker sounded even remotely sorry. She would be—he would never use a Unique model again. He hung up on her bored pretence for an apology. Once Sonia was back she would be of no use to him. Unlike his photographs Gael didn’t want the subjects of his paintings to be known faces. Their anonymity was part of the point. He spent too much time documenting the bright and the beautiful. For this he wanted real and unknown.
    His hand curled into a fist as he faced the bitter facts. He still had to paint the most important piece for his very first exhibition and he had no model lined up. He mentally ran through his contacts but no one obvious came to mind. Most of the models he knew were angular, perfect for photography, utterly useless for this.
    Damn.
    â€˜Mr O’Connor.’
    Palming his phone, Gael directed a frustrated glance over at his unwanted intruder. ‘I thought you’d left,’ he said curtly. She was standing stiffly by the elevator, leaning towards it as if she longed to flee—although nobody was stopping her, quite the contrary. Gael allowed his gaze to travel down her, assessing her suitability. Before he had only looked at what she lacked compared to the model he was expecting to see; she was much shorter, slight without the dramatic curves, ice to Sonia’s fire. She wore her bright clothing like a costume, her dark hair waving neatly around her shoulders like a cloak. Her eyes were huge and dark but the wariness in them seemed engrained.
    She took another step back. ‘Do you mind?’
    â€˜It is my studio...’ he drawled. That was better; indignation brought some more colour into her cheeks, red into her lips.
    â€˜I am not some painting that you can just look at in that way. As if...as if...’ She faltered.
    But he knew exactly what she had been going to say and finished off her sentence. ‘As if you were naked.’
    He had lit the fuse and she didn’t disappoint; her eyes filled with fire, her cheeks now dusky pink. She would make a very different centrepiece from the one he had envisioned but he could work with those eyes, with that innocent sensuality, with the curve of her full mouth.
    He nodded at her. ‘Come over here. I want to show you something.’
    Gael didn’t wait to see if she would follow; he knew that she would. He strode to the end of the