Rules of the Game
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘I AM sorry about having to leave you in the lurch like this Van, but I really don’t have any option.’ A winning smile accompanied Gavin’s apologetic statement, and Vanessa quelled her urgent desire to tell her brother that ‘leaving her in the lurch’ as he put it, was one of the things he seemed to have a remarkable aptitude for. Even though she was the younger by two years, since the death of their parents, Vanessa had always felt a sense of responsibility towards her brother. ‘You know the sort of shots we want, don’t you,’ he called, as he opened the studio door, ‘the model’s already been told.’ He grinned at his sister, wicked amusement dancing in his deep blue eyes. ‘You can always close your eyes!’

Vanessa groaned as the door closed behind him. At times Gavin really was impossible. By rights she ought to have refused outright to help him out today, but then he had worked so hard getting the studio going, canvassing for work and building up his reputation until he was the most sought after photographer in Clarewell, but to expect her to do the photographs for this advertisement he was booked to do, simply so that he could go and hero-worship a ‘local boy made good’ who had recently returned to Clarewell!

Stifling her irritation she busied herself in the studio, checking the carefully arranged background ‘scene’, and pulling a slight face. When Gavin had persuaded the town’s largest employer to allow him to do the photography for their latest national advertising campaign they had agreed, but had stipulated a very small budget. Hardferns like many other companies were struggling to keep their lead on their competition, pruning down all extraneous costs, hence the ‘background’ depicting a lush tropical scene, instead of the real thing. Their new product was a revolutionary range of men’s toilet products, including a skin-care range, and as Gavin had told her, Hardferns were very anxious to promote their new range with a tough macho image.

It was Hardferns publicity department who had suggested using a virtually nude male model while stipulating that the advertisements had to be in the ‘best possible taste’. But it was Gavin who had dropped on her the bombshell that she was to be the photographer, and just so that he could go to the ‘Welcome Home’ celebrations at the town hall to laud the arrival of Jay Courtland, local football hero turned entrepreneur, who had astounded the press recently with his announcement that he intended to return to his home town and sponsor the ailing football team which had been responsible for his ultimate rise to fame as an England player. Now, at thirty-four, Jay Courtland had long since left the game—at least on the field, but rumour had it that he used the tactics he had developed there to assure him of a winning passage through the boardrooms he had conquered on his journey up the financial ladder. Was she the only person not to be impressed by his outwardly philanthropic gesture, Vanessa wondered sourly. Surely there were others who had drawn a parallel line between Jay Courtland’s desire to promote his fourth division home team higher in the league, and the ailing sportswear company which was the latest of his many acquisitions. Who could tell, with Jay Courtland’s support Clarewell might even make it as far as the Cup Final!

Suppressing her acid thoughts she freely acknowledged that they were partially motivated by Gavin’s desertion. He was the one who was supposed to be in charge of this morning’s session, and he knew how much she would dislike it. Her full lips pressed tightly together as she remembered the wicked amusement dancing in her brother’s eyes. ‘Twenty-two, and still a virgin!’ he had mocked her on her last birthday, and although she had wanted to deny his teasing assumption they had both known that she could not. That was the trouble about living in such a small town. Everyone knew everyone else’s business.

She glanced towards the back of the studio, frowning as her eye was caught by the portraits hanging there. They all featured the same woman. Hair like black silk hung water-straight down past her nude shoulders, her skin possessing the soft gleam of mother of pearl. Eyes the colour and depth of gentians shone out of a perfectly oval face, her nose and lips delicately carved, nostrils curled in a way that was faintly arrogant. It was a face that was intensely beautiful, holding both sensual allure and aloofness. It was in many ways the same face that Vanessa saw each morning when she glanced into her mirror, combing her dark hair back off her face, securing it into the confining clasp that kept it out of the way as she worked. But her face was all that she had in common with the girl in those portraits, she thought grimly.

As children they had been inseparable. They were the same age, she and Nadia. Their fathers had been twins which was why they were so very alike; alike enough for those who did not know them to be confused, but the likeness was only superficial. For as long as she could remember, she had been the tomboy while Nadia had been the pretty-pretty one; the one the adults always fussed and cooed over. Even her own brother had not been immune.

She sighed, as she worked steadily setting up the equipment she would need. When their parents had been killed in a climbing accident, she and Gavin had turned quite naturally to their aunt and uncle, sharing a common loss. Gavin had just started up on his own then, and it had been Nadia who had persuaded him to take the photographs of her which she later submitted to the beauty competition which had changed all their lives. With hindsight Vanessa supposed they ought to have guessed that Nadia would win. Although physically their faces were the same, Vanessa had always felt like a shadow standing next to the sun when she was with Nadia. Nadia glittered and drew people into her orbit like a flame attracting helpless moths but unlike the flame she had no warmth to give her victims. She used them to fuel her own mammoth self-conceit, used them and discarded them, as she had discarded Gavin once she had accepted the modelling contract he had helped her to obtain. That Gavin had once loved Nadia Vanessa did not doubt, but her brother was not a child. He knew what their cousin was and what she wasn’t.

Vanessa sighed, brushing grubby hands along her jeans. Tight and faded, together with one of Gavin’s discarded shirts they were her normal working uniform. She rarely wore skirts or dresses, hardly ever used make-up, and did everything she could to minimise the similarities between Nadia and herself. Her refusal to do what Gavin called ‘making the most of herself’ annoyed him, she knew. He had often asked her to model for him but she always refused. On her eighteenth birthday he had given her a dress, a misty confection of silk chiffon in shades of blue to complement and match her eyes, and she had thrown it back at him in a fit of fury. ‘You bought this for Nadia, not for me,’ she had accused him, and they had quarrelled angrily about it.

‘Why don’t you admit that where Nadia is concerned you’re suffering from one hell of an inferiority complex?’ he had accused. She had denied it vehemently, but some part of her had recognised the truth. All her life she had been compared to Nadia, to her own discredit, much as her father had been compared to his older, and more forceful twin; and in an effort to fight against being dubbed ‘second best’ she had set out to make sure she was never, ever, taken for a poor carbon copy of Nadia.

Now they rarely saw her. She lived in London and her parents had retired to Bournemouth. She paid Vanessa and Gavin brief visits occasionally, always reducing Gavin to bitter invective, her smug smile when he hurled his acid barbs at her making Vanessa suspect that she enjoyed angering him, knowing as they all did that he was simply using his anger to mask his love and his pain. Gavin had once in a rare moment of misery confided to Vanessa that what hurt most was that he himself had been responsible for setting her feet on the path which had ultimately taken her away from him. He had never said as much, but Vanessa suspected that they had been lovers. It was hardly a secret that Nadia enjoyed the company, and caresses of the male sex. One only needed to open a newspaper or a magazine. The last time she had come home she had told them that she was hoping to break into films.

‘By doing what?’ Gavin had asked harshly, ‘Using the casting-couch route?’

Nadia had smiled sweetly at him, her long cat’s eyes slumbrous and mocking. ‘If necessary,’ she had purred back, reminding Vanessa of a cat toying with its prey, just waiting to pounce. Was her cousin’s well-publicised promiscuity the reason she herself had remained so cold and withdrawn with men? ‘Frigid’ was what more than one of her dates had called her, and although she had shrugged the slight aside her heart had ached, because she had known that they had been using her, wanting to possess her because they could not possess Nadia, wanting her merely as a substitute for her cousin, as she had been wanted all her life.

There were times when she wanted to tear Nadia’s portraits down from the studio walls. She supposed most people would have described her emotion as jealousy, but there was more to it than that. She wasn’t jealous of her cousin in so much as she wanted what Nadia had, she just wanted to be accepted for herself, not as Nadia’s shadow. Many women she knew would have been delighted to look as she did; to look exactly like a famous model. But she hated the way she looked; hated her water-straight black silk hair, her perfect features, her sapphire eyes, because they were also Nadia’s. Was her father going to be the only person who had noticed that her face had more character, that her eyes were warmer, her nature not shallow but generously giving?

What on earth had brought on that mood of introspection, she jeered, with self-mockery as she adjusted the silver umbrella reflector she was intending to use, before turning her attention to the spotlights so that they focused on the ‘sandy beach’, with the backdrop of soft supposedly South Pacific scenery and the deep blue of the water glimpsed enticingly through it. On the ‘beach’ prominently displayed were the products featured in the first of the ‘ads’. A tanning lotion with a lot of heavy emphasis on its macho appeal in the advertising blurb. The caption for the ad. she was shooting today made Vanessa shudder. It was All he needs to wear is Sunskin, and if she hadn’t known better she might have assumed that Gavin had deliberately set her up to take the session in his place.

Their father had been an explorer and both of them had learned about cameras and photography early. If her work was not quite as inspired as Gavin’s she did have an intuitive ‘nose’ for human interest work, and had sold several of her photographs to national dailies.

She glanced at her watch. Half an hour before the model was due. How would he feel when he realised that a woman would be behind the camera? All she could hope was that he was professional enough not to share her nervousness. Their budget was so slender that it would eat into their profit if Gavin had to re-schedule the session.

They had managed to keep on their parents’ home on the edge of the town and Gavin had converted the cellars into his darkroom although he rented a studio in town.

She was just about to make herself a cup of coffee when she heard footsteps on the stairs leading up to the studio. Definitely masculine they caused tremors of apprehension to flutter along her spine. Not because she doubted her ability to do the job, but simply because … Because she was going to have to photograph a nude male! She made herself conclude the sentence. What was there to be so apprehensive about? The model was the one with the right to those feelings, not her. How Nadia would laugh at her if she could see her now. Vanessa glanced at her cousin’s mocking portrait and smoothed sweat-damp palms over her shabby jeans, lifting her chin, unaware that the proud sparkle in her eyes made her look even more like the woman in the photograph, for once her features over-shadowed the made-up glamour of her cousin’s.

The studio door was thrust open, and Vanessa tried to ease the dry tension in her throat. ‘Hi!’ she said casually, turning to fiddle with the spots so that she wouldn’t have to face the newcomer and risk betraying her embarrassment. ‘If you’ll just strip off behind the screen.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the tatty wooden screen in one corner of the room. ‘I’ll just finish getting ready here and then we can make a start.’ He was earlier than Gavin had said, but at least that meant she wouldn’t have to wait around getting steadily more nervous.

‘I beg your pardon.’ His voice was deep, edged with a harshness that made her spin round, her eyes widening as she took in the lean powerful length and breadth of his body. He was older than she had anticipated, somewhere in his thirties she guessed, and possessed of such an air of physical virility that she blinked dazedly as she studied him. This man was dynamite; so potently male that he could have sold ice to Eskimo women simply by looking at them the way he was looking at her now. Her fevered, desperately nervous glance was caught and impaled by eyes of tawny gold, mountain lion’s eyes, ringed with yellow fire, pure amber when the light caught them, her own bemused image thrown back at her as she stared up at him. Tall herself, he towered over her, making her feel as fragile and vulnerable as a wind-flower in the eye of a storm.

Gradually she became aware that she was exhibiting all the classic symptoms normally associated with a massive teenage crush on some remote idol. Her heart was pumping at what felt like ten times its normal rate; her pulses racing in time. Her legs felt like the best quality feather down, and she knew, just knew, that it was only willpower that was holding a betraying blush at bay. And this was the man she was supposed to …

No! her mind shied away, and she wondered furiously if Gavin had known. For some reason she had visualised the model as blond and boyish, a beach-boy personified; not this dark-haired, golden-eyed predator whose face was as classically flawless in its way as her cousin’s, and whose eyes moved automatically over her body, assessingly, insolently, she told herself angrily when his glance came to rest on the heaving thrust of her breasts.

‘We’re wasting valuable time,’ she told him in a clipped voice trying not to betray her inner agitation. They were two professionals for heaven’s sake, hired to do a job, and here she was, mooning over him like some crazed adolescent. ‘The screen’s over there,’ she gestured to it again. ‘I hope it’s warm enough for you.’ He was dressed in jeans and a cotton shirt, open at the throat, and she had to drag her eyes away from the tawny vee of flesh exposed. Gavin had turned up the heat before he left, saying impishly, ‘we don’t want our bronzed hero covered in goosebumps, do we?’

When he didn’t move, Vanessa frowned. He was studying her with lazy insolence, tinged with curiosity as though she were something outside his normal experience. It couldn’t be embarrassment that held him immobile. She doubted that she had ever seen any man less likely to suffer from embarrassment. Far from it. He probably got a kick from knowing that millions of women would be drooling over his naked form, she thought waspishly, trying to ignore the tiny voice that demanded to know how she knew they would drool.

When he didn’t make a move Vanessa said crossly, trying to hide her nervous tension. ‘You are aware that these shots are to be in the nude aren’t you? Gavin did tell you?’ She looked pointedly at the small set. ‘I’ve put the stuff out already, we haven’t got much time, so—–’

Before she could protest he strolled over to the set and picked up the suntan cream, an amused smile curving his mouth. His bottom lip was full, and just for a moment she wondered what it would be like to feel its hard warmth against her own. She realised that while she had been daydreaming he must have said something because he had moved away from the ‘set’ and was studying the portraits on the wall. He glanced from them to her and said suavely, ‘Quite a change. When did you decide you preferred being behind the camera to being in front of it? From these …’ he tapped the portraits, ‘I would have thought you had already found your forte.’

‘Please hurry up and get undressed,’ Vanessa snapped, too on edge to correct him and tell him that she wasn’t Nadia.

‘So impatient,’ his golden glance mocked her, encompassing her flushed face, and the sparkling anger of her sapphire eyes, ‘and so very flattering. Women are seldom so direct!’ His eyes continued to mock her, and Vanessa had to clench her fingers into her palms to prevent herself from snapping a hostile retort. ‘Okay,’ he drawled when he saw her expression. ‘I get the message.’ He picked up a board carrying the slogan the company were using to launch the product and his eyebrows rose, laughter gleaming in the amber depths of his eyes, before he strolled across to the screen.

Vanessa busied herself checking her Nikon, steadily refusing to admit the increasing tension building up inside her, trying to blot out the brief rustling of clothes.

‘Ready?’ He walked towards her as nonchalantly as though he were still wearing his jeans and shirt instead of only … With a tremendous effort of will Vanessa dragged her eyes away from his lithe body, telling herself she was a coward for being relieved that he had not dispensed with his clothing entirely, but had retained a pair of very brief briefs. His body was tanned and supple, his ribcage and stomach hard and flat. His body struck her as being that of an athlete rather than a man who spent hours in the gym building unflatteringly overdeveloped muscles. Rich colour stung her face as he drawled, ‘Where exactly do you want me?’ And she sensed that he was amused by her embarrassment. Stifling it, she pointed to the small ‘beach’ watching professionally as he sat down on it.

The set was designed for a reclining shot and she suppressed a sigh as she asked him stiltedly to move. She had worked with several male models but he was the most physically over-powering she had ever come into contact with—and the least professional … He seemed to have little or no idea of what was expected of him, and when she complained for the third time about his pose, he said lazily, ‘Well then you’d better come over here and show me exactly what you do want.’

The spotlights were hot, but they alone were not responsible for the prickles of perspiration she could feel breaking out on her skin as she directed his movements. At one point her breasts were on a level with his eyes and although her body was perfectly respectably concealed by the clothes she was wearing his glance seemed to strip that protection away, her face and body hot with colour as she tried to deny her physical response to his scrutiny. As he moved in obedience to her commands, his forearm brushed against her breasts. She stepped back instinctively almost overbalancing, forced to witness the amusement in his eyes—amusement which darkened to something else—something alien and half frightening as he witnessed her immediate rejection of their physical intimacy.

‘Beautiful and clever,’ he murmured softly, ‘the dove fleeing from the hawk, not knowing that her very flight promotes his pursuit, unlike you, who I am sure knows very well what effect she has on the male sex.’ Vanessa started to protest, the words stifled in her throat as he reached out carelessly and unbuttoned the top of Gavin’s shirt exposing the pale curves of her breasts, one lean, brown finger tracing a lazy path down from where the pulse thudded at the base of her throat to the valley between her breasts. ‘Your skin is so pale and soft, an enticement to any man to taste and touch it. Is that why you keep it this colour? Because you know that when a man looks at you, so pale and fragile, he can’t help visualising your body beneath his own? Pale and beautiful like the moon, but not as cold one trusts?’ There was amusement in his voice, as though the words he was saying to her were perfectly common-place.

‘And you, I suppose, are the sun,’ she snapped back at him, disturbed by the effect he was having on her, by the liberty he had taken without her doing a thing to stop him.

‘Is that how you see me?’ His teeth were white against the dark tan of his face, his eyes a shower of gold as he smiled at her.

‘Very symbolic, don’t you think?’ Somehow he had moved and his fingers were at her nape, propelling her slowly towards him. ‘I think of you as the moon, and you think of me as the sun. If those two planets were ever to come together, the effect would be cataclysmic, wouldn’t you say?’ His voice was light, but his eyes … Vanessa shuddered as she read the message so explicitly portrayed in his eyes, and knew that he was already anticipating making love to her, and quite unashamedly letting her know it. This man is dangerous an inner voice warned her. Like the sun he will burn and destroy you if you get too close, and her skin as he had said was pale, far too pale for her to risk being scorched by any sun-god.

She jerked away from him, resisting the pressure of the fingers playing against her nape, and overbalancing. To support herself she flung out her hands, grasping the nearest solid object, recoiling when she realised it was his shoulder, his skin warm beneath her tense fingers, his body relaying a thousand differing and yet similar sensations to hers. So gradually that she was barely aware of it, her fingers uncoiled, their touch a gently feminine caress, her eyes registering her bemused and conflicting emotions. The brief, searing contact of a warm male mouth against the pulse beating so desperately at the base of her throat, made her jerk back, her eyes widening in dismay. He laughed, softly, deep in his throat.

‘I am not Dracula you know, intent on stealing away your life blood, although I must admit when you look at me like that, like a frightened doe hearing the sounds of the hunter it does tempt me to …’ He was tending his head to her throat again, and she was completely powerless to stop him Vanessa thought wildly.

The sudden, shrill ring of the telephone arrested them both, and Vanessa made good use of his momentary relaxation to slip away from him. The phone was in the back part of the studio, in the small room that Gavin used as his office. It was a call from someone enquiring about wedding photographs and by the time she had dealt with it Vanessa had managed to convince herself that she had imagined that frightening pull on her senses, that surge of feeling so intense that for one moment she had been in danger of drowning under it.

Forcing herself to appear calm she walked back into the studio and then came to an abrupt halt. There was no sign of the model! She walked over to the screen and glanced behind it. His clothes had gone too. Frowning she walked back to her camera, and then noticed the note propped up on it. Just remembered I have to go somewhere—next time can I suggest I ‘pose’ somewhere more comfortable! Dark colour surged into her face. She couldn’t ignore the suspicion that he thought it had all been a game. Anger surged through her as she contemplated the implications of his note. What did he think she was? Some sort of … of sexual deviant who enjoyed photographing nude men! She was so angry that her hands were trembling. She paced the studio furiously, rehearsing what she was going to say to Gavin when he returned. If this was his idea of a joke! If he had deliberately set this whole thing up! She knew her brother disapproved of her single state and of her life-style. She was missing out on life he had told her, but if he thought he was doing her a favour by introducing her to some … some studio lothario …

She was still seething ten minutes later when she heard Gavin’s footsteps on the stairs, but the angry words tumbling on her lips were forgotten as he rushed in and she saw his harassed expression. ‘I’ve missed him then?’ he groaned, running irate fingers through his hair. ‘Dear God that’s all I need. How on earth am I going to persuade him to use us as the team’s official photographers after this débâcle? What did he say, Van? Was he very angry? It’s all the fault of that stupid girl at the town hall. She told me I had to be at the party, but according to his aide, he was coming here to meet me. He wanted me to do a shot of him for the local paper—you know they’re doing an article on him. I suppose he was furious when he got here. They say he doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and of course you wouldn’t know why he was here.’

A cold, horrible feeling of disquietude was beginning to seep through her. At least it had started as a seep, now it was a fully fledged mill race. ‘Gavin … who exactly are you talking about?’ she asked her brother.

He gave her a brief impatient frown. ‘Jay Courtland of course. I told you I was supposed to be meeting him today at the Welcome Party, but apparently the arrangements had been changed and they hadn’t let me know. He was to come here for me to do a formal picture of him for the paper.’

‘What’s he like, Jay Courtland?’ Vanessa asked him hollowly, Please God don’t let it be true, she was praying inwardly, but she knew her prayers weren’t going to be answered when Gavin said impatiently, ‘What do you mean what is he like? You must have seen photographs.’ When she shook her head, he went into his office and she heard him rifling through some papers. Within seconds he re-appeared proferring a magazine to her. It was one of the Sunday Supplements and Jay Courtland’s photograph occupied an entire page of glorious technicolor, right down to the amused amber eyes.

‘That’s Jay Courtland?’ She whispered it through stiff lips, still hardly able to comprehend.

‘That’s him, all right. Vanessa what’s the matter? Did he come here?’

‘He came, all right.’ Vanessa told him, trying to hold back the hysterical bubble of laughter fighting for release. Jay Courtland; the local hero made good. The man who could be so important to Gavin’s future, because Gavin hoped to impress him enough for Jay Courtland to use him on the national advertising campaign for his new sportswear acquisition. If Gavin got that contract he would be made, and it was well known that Jay Courtland intended to favour local industry, local firms. Only because it was good publicity Vanessa had said scornfully when Gavin had talked about it, and now …

‘Van, what the devil is going on? What did you say to him?’

‘Oh nothing much,’ Vanessa assured her brother with false blitheness, ‘I only asked him to strip off. So that I could take his photograph you know …’

For a moment Gavin simply stared at her, and then pulling himself together with a visible effort, he shook his head and muttered, ‘I don’t think I’m hearing this …’

‘I thought he was the model,’ Vanessa told him. ‘I …’

‘What happened? Why did he leave?’

‘He went while I was on the phone,’ Vanessa told him.

‘I hope to God he sees the funny side of this Van.’ Gavin looked very disturbed. ‘He can make or break us, you know that …’

‘I don’t suppose I’m the first woman to have asked him to take his clothes off,’ Vanessa interrupted sardonically, but in truth she was feeling far from as assured as she was trying to appear.

‘So that she could photograph him for a suncream ad?’ Gavin asked grimly. ‘I’d better phone his office—if they’re still speaking to me. What on earth made you think he was a model?’

She had been so tense, so nervous, so anxious to get the whole thing over that she hadn’t thought too deeply about it at all.

‘God, a fine impression of our professionalism and skill you must have given him,’ Gavin added, making her feel more guilty than ever. It had been bad enough when she had thought him a model, but now … her face burned when she remembered his outrageous comments; the warm, hard pressure of his mouth against her skin.

‘He thought I was Nadia,’ she told Gavin stupidly, shivering a little with reaction and shock. ‘So I wasn’t the only one to make a mistake.’

‘Did you tell him you weren’t?’ Gavin was moving towards the office.

‘No, there didn’t seem much point.’ If he had known that she wasn’t Nadia, Nadia who the whole world knew loved a lover, would he have been as familiar with her?

She heard Gavin asking to speak to him, and not wanting to listen to his conversation, closed the office door and went downstairs intending to slip out and do some shopping, praying as she did so, that Jay Courtland would not punish her brother for her mistake.

Her mistake. For a second rebellion flared to life inside her, he had hardly done anything to correct it, but then perhaps he was so used to people recognising him that he had expected her to do so as well. Arrogant, lordly creature, if it was not for the fact that he held Gavin’s future in the palm of his hand she would be tempted to wish that he would take offence. But Gavin could not afford to have such a powerful enemy. She remembered the way he had laughed at her when she tried to get him to pose, gritting her teeth as she re-lived the amusement glinting in his eyes. He had enjoyed being deliberately obtuse, she realised that now. If anyone should feel resentment it ought to be her, not him!

CHAPTER TWO

‘I CAN’T get anything out of Russell Jackson, Jay’s aide,’ Gavin said fretfully when he rejoined her. ‘He seems to be under the impression that the photo session has been delayed. Perhaps Jay hasn’t told him what happened. I sincerely hope not, I dread to think what it will do for our reputation if it gets out that you confused Jay Courtland with a male model.’

‘Is there such a vast difference?’ She sounded more cynical than she intended and Gavin gave her an exasperated glare. ‘Look Van, for some reason you seem to have a down on the poor guy and have done ever since we heard he was coming back, but even you have to admit he’s done pretty well for himself. From living in an orphanage to becoming close to a multi-millionaire in thirty-four years is pretty good going.’

‘That depends on how you assess progress,’ Vanessa told him waspishly, ‘there are more things to life than playing football and making money.’

‘Come on Van, you’re being unreasonably prejudiced. Look at his business record; the money he’s given to charity.’

‘And the publicity he’s got for it,’ Vanessa reminded her brother refusing to be swayed. ‘You’re entitled to your opinion Gavin and I’m entitled to mine.’

‘I wish to God I knew how he is reacting to this morning.’ He glanced at his sister.

‘Well unless he gets in touch with us we’re not likely to find out are we?’

‘We could.’ His glance held hers. ‘If you went to see him and …’

She had known her brother too long not to guess what he was going to say. Her stomach seemed to drop away leaving shock mingling with her anger. ‘And what? Apologise?’

‘Explain,’ Gavin palliated. ‘We owe him that at least … Come on Van,’ he protested when he saw her truculent expression. ‘You must admit that.’

‘Gavin I …’

‘Look it’s our whole future I’m talking about here Van. You know how much it costs to run the house; the rates alone … If I can’t make a go of the studio …’

He frowned and for a moment looked so tired and drawn that her conscience smote her. By his lights Gavin undoubtedly had a case. After all he hadn’t met Jay Courtland and been subject to his virile mockery; his subtly sexual onslaught against her senses. No doubt Gavin was looking at the whole matter in the light of the damage it could do them professionally whilst she … She bit her lip frowning. She didn’t want to submit to the humiliation of apologising to a man who she knew would enjoy receiving her apology, who she suspected had believed she had deliberately … A fresh thought struck her. Could Jay Courtland have thought that she knew his real identity all the time? Dark colour burned her pale skin. If that was the case she had to admit her mistake if only to convince him that it had been genuine.

Almost as though he had picked up on her train of thought Gavin said perplexedly, ‘What I can’t understand is how you could have mistaken Jay for the model in the first place … Surely you’ve seen his photograph often enough recently to recognise him? It’s been plastered all over the local rag and then there’s all the advertising the football team have been doing. It isn’t every day that a World Cup player returns to the fourth division club he first started off with with the express intention of giving them financial aid. In fact there’s many a first division club that would like to be in Clarewell’s position now. Bill Stoakes, the manager, is over the moon.’

‘Is he?’ Vanessa asked acidly. ‘Personally I’m more concerned about all the local lads who are going to find themselves dropped from the team once Jay Courtland starts waving his cheque book around.’

‘What on earth gave you that idea?’ Gavin shot his sister an exasperated look. ‘Why do I get the impression that you’ve got a blind spot where Jay Courtland’s concerned? It can’t be because you harboured a youthful adoration for him—you were never a football fan, so what is it?’

‘Nothing,’ Vanessa lied shortly. How could she explain to her down to earth brother that everything she had read in the national press about Jay Courtland before he announced his return to Clarewell irritated her? He was a rich tycoon, a man who lived and played hard; who made no secret of his orphanage upbringing; or the fact that he had had to fight hard for all that he now owned. She had visualised him as something of a rough diamond; a man who carried his game-playing from the football field to the boardroom and who was worlds removed from the sort of man who would appeal to her. Her tastes ran to men who shared her love of music; the theatre and the other arts; men whose idea of enjoyment was a day spent at the National Gallery as opposed to Wembley Football Stadium; a man who did not make sport and being ‘one of the boys’ his Gods. In short, a man as far removed from Jay Courtland as it was possible to get. If she had to visualise a career for this mythical man it would be as a doctor, or a solicitor, something that demanded exercise of the intellect rather than the body. If she explained any of this to Gavin he would doubtless accuse her of being silly, even perhaps of being faintly snobbish, but there was nothing of this in her feelings, it was simply that men like Jay Courtland were not her type. She did not believe for one moment that his generosity to his home town was purely philanthropic. How could it be when one took into account his reputation?

‘Look Van,’ Gavin began with brotherly impatience. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. Jay intends to keep the team a local one; in fact he’s determined on that; he wants others to have the chance he had; the chance to use their skill on the football field to escape the near poverty he had to endure as a child. That’s why he’s financing the new sports and leisure complex; that’s why he’s re-equipping the local team to such a high standard.’

‘And of course his generosity has nothing to do with Supersport, I suppose?’ Vanessa asked sardonically. ‘Honestly Gavin you must think I’m a real dunce.’

‘I’m not denying that he will want to make Supersport as successful as all his other companies, but you can’t use that to detract from what he is doing for the town. If you discount everything else there are still the jobs that Supersport will bring to the town when he expands it as he intends to do.’

‘By fermenting a good deal of national public interest in his ex-local football team? By kitting out them and all other local would-be athletes for free?’

‘Okay, so there is something in it for him, and he can be a hard man, but he’s got reason to be Van. Abandoned by his mother when he was five years old; never knowing his real father, because his mother never married him and she died before he was old enough to talk to him about him; living in an institution … He got a place at university, he could have gone to Oxford you know, but he couldn’t afford to support himself while he was there, even with his scholarship so—–’

‘He became a footballer instead, swopping graceful spires for the adulation of his fans? You’re breaking my heart …’

‘As you’ll break mine, if I lose the promise of this contract. You will go and see him won’t you Van?’

‘Do I have much option?’ she asked her brother dryly, adding, ‘Yes I’ll go, and if I were you I’d check up on the whereabouts of our real model.’

There was no point in putting off the evil hour unnecessarily. Gavin told her that Jay’s aide had said he could be found at Supersport, but just as she opened the studio door Gavin yelled after her, ‘Van, go home and get changed first. If you go dressed like that they’ll never let you in the place …’

Suppressing an angry grimace Vanessa stepped out into the sunlit street, heading for the battered Volvo estate both she and Gavin shared.

It didn’t take her long to drive to Clare Lodge, the home her parents had bought shortly after their marriage. Set in the rolling countryside of the Cheviots the lodge commanded almost idyllic views of the hills. The approach road was unmade up and pot holed, but the Volvo was too used to it to do more than protest mildly, unlike the expensive foreign make sportscar which she only narrowly managed to avoid as it came racing down the lane towards her. Only by swerving almost into the ditch was there room for its driver to get past, and Vanessa had a blurred impression of dark hair before her attention was concentrated on maintaining control of her own vehicle.

The lane led only to Clare Lodge and the Manor House beyond, and she frowned wondering if the driver of the other car had merely lost his way or had had a definite mission down the muddy narrow track. The Manor House had been up for sale for over twelve months and before that had fallen into decay, occupied only by General Adaire, an eccentric, ex-army man who lived there alone after the death of his wife.

More out of curiosity than anything else, Vanessa drove past the gates of the lodge and headed towards the Manor House proper coming to an abrupt stop as she saw the padlocked gate and the ‘No trespassers’ signs. Where the old, faded ‘for sale’ notice had hung a new notice now stood, a bold ‘sold’ sticker plastered across it. Someone had bought the Manor.

Musing on who it could be and hoping it would not, as had been rumoured at one time, be a property developer intent on turning what had once been a gracious country house into a multitude of small flatlets, Vanessa reversed down the lane to the lodge. As its name implied it had once been the lodge to the Manor House, but had been modernised and extended from its original Tudor framework during the Edwardian era, when it had been occupied by the mother of the then incumbent of the Manor. Having known no other home Vanessa was fiercely devoted to the lodge. How much longer would they be able to keep it though if Gavin did not get the contract he was hoping for from Supersport? Yet another reason for her to tender her apologies to Jay Courtland. Surely her love for her home outweighed her discomfort at the thought of facing the man who had mocked her so sardonically in her brother’s studio?

Less than an hour later, showered and wearing a simple pale yellow linen suit she had bought on impulse in a boutique several weeks ago, she was driving the Volvo in through the gates of Supersport. She had visited the factory once before and as then she was struck by its general air of neglect and decay, hardly the image of a go-ahead competitive firm, she thought as she eyed the untidy loading bay and the rather decrepit vans waiting there.

The only space to park the Volvo was right next to … Her heart missed a beat as she studied the unmistakable lines of the exotic sportscar she had last seen coming down the road from the Manor. A brief glance at the personalised numberplate told its own story and her face flamed as she remembered their brief contretemps in the lane; JAC 1, the numberplate read and she wondered idly what the ‘A’ stood for as she forced herself to breathe evenly and deeply, summoning all her courage and composure for the interview ahead.

As she locked the car and walked towards the reception area she heard voices gradually coming nearer, and recognised Jay Courtland’s, much sharper and more authoritative than she remembered it. ‘All deliveries will be tendered out—at least until we get the factory working reasonably efficiently.’ Vanessa heard someone else objecting, but Jay Courtland cut ruthlessly through the objections announcing crisply that he had made up his mind and that he was not prepared to waste valuable time on discussing the matter further.

She had just reached the main door when the small party of men rounded the corner. There were five men altogether, Jay Courtland easily discernible; easily the most arresting, his lean, tall frame standing out from those of his fellows; tired-looking, business-suited individuals whom she recognised as the directors of the once family-run firm. Jay Courtland saw her first, and saying something to his companions left them to walk towards her.

‘Ah ha, it’s the lady who wants to photograph me in the nude,’ he mocked her with a taunting smile. ‘You’re nothing if not persistent, but you can hardly expect me to strip to the buff here, or was it bribery you had in mind this time?’ His glance rested provocatively on her breasts as he spoke, and the suit which had seemed eminently respectable and suitable when she put it on suddenly seemed to cling far too seductively to the curves of her body, the silk shirt she was wearing beneath it, far too revealing. Only pride and a certain grim determination not to let him rattle her prevented her from hugging the edges of her jacket protectively around her body, but as though he knew what was running through her mind Jay lifted his glance from her body to her flushed indignant face, laughter gleaming gold in his tawny eyes. ‘You know I can’t imagine you as a model somehow,’ he said softly, ‘You don’t strike me as a young woman who would docilely allow herself to be ordered what to do. Something tells me you prefer being the one who does the ordering. Is that why you prefer being behind the camera to being in front of it?’

This was the moment to tell him that she wasn’t Nadia, but just as she opened her mouth, the main doors opened and a slim, harassed looking man in his mid-forties hurried out, relief clearly evident in his expression as he saw Jay Courtland.

‘Jay, there you are. There’s a call for you about the new contracts we’re hoping to set up for Supersport. Will you …’

‘Tell them I’ll ring back in fifteen minutes will you Russell. I think this young lady has something to say to me that just won’t wait.’

Vanessa went scarlet as she felt the other man’s interested gaze skim over her, and then Jay was taking her arm and guiding her in through the open doors, down a carpeted corridor coming to an abrupt halt outside the farthest door. Thrusting it open he stood back so that Vanessa could precede him inside. The room still smelled of fresh paint and had obviously been re-decorated and refurnished. Her mouth twisted in a slightly bitter smile. Of course everything would have to be bright shiny new for the new owner.

As though he guessed what she was thinking Jay Courtland watched her mobile face for a few seconds before offering, ‘Packaging my dear Nadia, you of all people should know how important that is. How can we hope to persuade our buyers that Supersport’s products are the best if we try to sell them from grubby, tatty offices?’

‘Spend money to make money?’ Vanessa asked acidly. ‘I should have thought you already had more than enough of that commodity?’

‘A man can never have too much of any commodity he prizes,’ Jay told her sardonically, ‘and I learned young the value of money; the status and power it confers upon its owner.’

‘And that’s what you want? Status, power?’

‘Is that so wrong?’ He walked over to the row of modern cabinets with their smoked glass fronts and extracted a bottle and two crystal glasses. ‘The respect of our peers, isn’t that what all of us want?’

‘Respect can’t be bought,’ Vanessa told him defiantly.

‘You think not?’ His mouth twisted wryly. ‘You think the Mayor would still be wanting to dine with me if I was still Jay Courtland, bastard orphan of this parish? Would I be enjoying the company of a beautiful woman like you if I was still the same Jay Courtland I was at fifteen?’ His eyes and mouth told her that he thought he knew the answer, and Vanessa realised for the first time how much bitterness there was concealed behind the mocking mask; the smooth urbanity with which he faced the world. How could she tell him that no matter what he had done in life he would always have been a man who commanded the attention of others, especially her own sex. He opened the bottle he had been holding in his hand, the popping of the cork alerting Vanessa to its contents. ‘Veuve Cliquot,’ he drawled as he poured the foaming clear liquid into the fluted champagne glasses. ‘Your favourite I believe.’

Just about to correct him Vanessa realised that it was Nadia’s favourite drink, at least according to the popular press. She wanted to tell him that he was mistaken and that she wasn’t her glamorous cousin, but something more important took precedence. ‘You bought that for me? But how did you know …’

‘That you would come here?’ He shrugged powerful shoulders and smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile, Vanessa realised. Nor a warm smile, in fact it was cold and rather bitter, his eyes flat and empty as they studied her flushed face. ‘Wasn’t it part of the game that you should?’ he asked softly, handing her one of the glasses. ‘I must admit you showed ingenuity and since that is a trait I greatly admire, I felt it should be rewarded.’

Ingenuity? Vanessa stared at him, the truth suddenly so clear that it could have been illuminated in ten foot high letters outside the factory. She put down her glass so quickly that some of the frothy liquid spilled, anger darkening her eyes to deep sapphire as she faced him.

‘I came here to apologise for this morning,’ she said enunciating the words clearly and slowly so that there could be no mistake. ‘I’m very sorry for what happened, but it was a genuine mistake. I had no idea. Everyone makes mistakes,’ she added wildly, when it became plain that she wasn’t getting through to him. ‘Gavin did have a session booked.’

Jay had put down his glass and he came towards her, with a cool economy of movement that reminded her of a huge jungle cat. Even the way he walked possessed an undeniable sensuality she thought, watching him with one half of her brain while the other half struggled with the task of impressing upon him the truth.

When he reached for her hands she was so surprised that she made no move to evade him. ‘I really can’t allow you to call a halt now that the game has begun, it promises to be far too interesting. If it makes you feel any happier we’ll forget about motives for the moment shall we and concentrate on this.’

‘This’ was the warm, firm pressure of his mouth on hers, as he parted her surprised lips with consummate ease, enfolding her in his arms almost before she even realised he had done so, and then once his mouth was in possession of hers, somehow it was impossible to pull away.

She had been kissed before of course. She could hardly have reached twenty-two and not had some experience with the opposite sex, but because of her inferiority complex she had always chosen as her dates boys and then men biased towards the intellectual rather than the physical, and the actual realisation of what a kiss could and should be totally overwhelmed her. Before she knew what she was doing she was holding on to Jay’s hard shoulders, sliding her fingers into the thick silky hair at his nape, allowing him to taste and plunder her mouth as though she were no more than a ragdoll.

That he was the one to break the kiss was a humiliation she would dwell on more deeply when she was alone, for now it was all she could do to simply stand up, her eyes betraying her bedazzlement, while thick, dark lashes concealed his expression from her, his voice as warm and lazy as always as he commented softly, ‘A most auspicious beginning, don’t you think.’ He reached out and ran his thumb along the bottom curve of her lip, watching the emotions chase one another through her dazed eyes, a tigerish smile springing to his mouth as he observed, ‘For such a very experienced lady, you certainly have quite a few tricks up your sleeve, or did one of your lovers tell you how arousing that mixture of inexperience and enthusiasm can be?’

His words jerked her out of her bedazzlement and she pulled away, but it was too late to evade the hard pressure of his arms, and the even harder pressure of his mouth, as it reinforced his comments about her effect on him. This was no teasing, lazy kiss, but a man’s expression of his powerful physical need and avowing his intention of appeasing it, in a very explicit manner. A pervasive indolence spread through her body, heating her blood, melting her resistance, every nerve ending concentrating on the feelings beating through her body. Her mouth opened of its own accord beneath the hard pressure of Jay’s, her fingers sliding into his hair to prolong the caress, her body meltingly pliant against him so that she wasn’t quite sure when she first felt the touch of his fingers against her breast, only that they seemed to burn through the thin silk of her blouse and she could think of nothing she wanted more than to be with him; to be part of him.

He tensed against her, lifting his head, and her body cried out its protest, her tongue touching her swollen lips. His eyes followed the brief movement. ‘Someone’s coming,’ he told her huskily. ‘You’d better go.’ He bent his head, trailing his tongue tormentingly across the tender flesh she had just moistened, and when he lifted it again his eyes glowed as brilliantly gold as the sun. ‘You do things to me I’ve only dreamed about,’ he moaned against her throat. ‘Think yourself lucky you got that phone call this morning, otherwise we’d have been making love on that damned “beach” of yours.’

She was at the door almost before she realised what was happening. When it opened Russell was there, looking worried and drawn. ‘It’s been more than fifteen minutes, Jay,’ he complained, his thin face flushing slightly as he avoided looking at Vanessa. Had he guessed what had been happening? Did Jay make a habit of seducing every woman who walked into his life? Certainly according to the press there was no shortage of women willing to share his wealth with him. Sharp knives of pain raked over her skin, and for the first time she knew real jealousy. It was nothing like the feeling she had felt towards Nadia.

‘Miss March is just leaving, Russell,’ Jay assured his aide with a brief smile, and as she headed down the corridor to the main door, Vanessa had to suppress a faint shiver of reaction. In less than five minutes Jay Courtland had managed to turn her world upside down. Or had it happened before that? Even this morning, despite her resentment of him she hadn’t been immune to him, and now, when he kissed her … Her fingers touched her mouth and she trembled. Never had she experienced such a surge of physical desire; such an intensity of feeling that obliterated everything else until nothing mattered but the final, flaming consummation of that desire. Jay had wanted her too, he had told her so. Suddenly she seemed to have stepped into an unfamiliar world. The world she had inhabited before today didn’t allow for such happenings, for … falling in love! Falling in love, she was being ridiculous. Jay Courtland certainly hadn’t fallen in love with her. Oh he wanted her all right … She came to an abrupt halt suddenly remembering something else, a deep tide of mortification colouring her skin. He didn’t want her, he wanted Nadia. He wanted the woman he had held in his arms and kissed, she told herself; that woman was her. For the first time in her life she felt the urge to assert herself instead of creeping into the background. She was back at the studio before she remembered that she had not really apologised and nor had Jay shown any indication of accepting that the entire incident had been a genuine mistake.

Gavin greeted her with a wide grin. ‘Guess who’s just been on the phone?’ he called out to her. ‘Only Russell Jackson, Jay’s aide. Jay’s giving us the sole contract for photographing the new range when they bring it out, and he wants us to do the photographs for all the publicity the team will be getting. What do you think of that?’

‘It’s marvellous news Gavin.’ He asked her about her interview with Jay, and she told him that it seemed to have gone well, hoping he would be too preoccupied with his own news to notice how few real details she was giving him. ‘I’ve got another piece of news for you,’ he told her. ‘Jay’s bought the old manor. Apparently he’s tired of city living and he wants to settle down here. Shouldn’t even be surprised if he decides to marry.’ She had her face turned away from her brother so he couldn’t have seen the sudden paling of her face, or noticed the ridiculous way in which her heart suddenly threatened to stop beating.

‘To anyone in particular, or …’

‘Oh, I’m just surmising, but surely he’s going to want to pass on his wealth to someone? I’ve got to go and see him tomorrow, he wants to set up the publicity campaign for the team. I don’t know how long it’s going to take.’

She had been looking for a way of explaining to Jay the mix-up over her identity and suddenly hit upon the ideal solution. ‘Gavin, Jay still thinks I’m Nadia, will you explain to him tomorrow that I’m not. It’s getting rather embarrassing.’

‘If you want me to, although I can’t see why you didn’t tell him yourself today. Why didn’t you?’

‘I didn’t really get the opportunity. I had to leave because he had a phone call to make.’

‘Umm. Well while he was on he warned me that we can expect a considerable amount of activity up and down the lane for the next few weeks. The manor is practically derelict and he’s getting an architect in to work on it, modernise it.’

Modernise it! Vanessa repressed a brief shudder. She could well imagine the results, a tasteless, brash amalgam of all that was modern and gimmicky. For the first time since she had left Jay’s office reality impinged. They were two people who were worlds apart and until today his world was one she would never have dreamed of wanting to enter. She still didn’t want to. But she did want Jay. The next move was up to him. Would he get in touch with her again once he knew who she really was, or was he too, having second thoughts? Had she only appealed to him as ‘Nadia’ March the famous model?

CHAPTER THREE

IT was Gavin who informed her of the exact nature of Jay’s thoughts, when he returned from his meeting with him. They had no work on that day and Vanessa had elected to give the lodge a good cleaning. She had just finished and was sitting down with a cup of coffee when she heard the Volvo in the drive. Gavin got out looking elated, waving a thick bunch of papers.

‘The contract,’ he told her as she opened the door. He grimaced when he saw her coffee mug on the small table in the living room. ‘I think we deserve to celebrate with something a little better than that.’ He glanced at his watch and announced. ‘I’m taking you out to lunch, go and put your glad rags on, and we’ll go.’

Apart from her lemon suit there was little in her wardrobe to deserve the description ‘glad rags’, and in the end she selected a white cotton skirt and a pretty pastel toning tee shirt which had been a cast off from Nadia, who claimed that it was far too big for her.

Although both girls were slender, Nadia maintained an almost flat-chested model’s proportions while Vanessa was more femininely curved, so that the tee shirt fitted snugly to her body.

As they drove through the countryside, now in full bright green June leaf, Vanessa recognised the route to what had been a favourite family haunt— an old coaching inn which had been preserved and remained much as it must have appeared in Dickens’ time.

Because it was mid-week they had no difficulty in getting a table, the landlord immediately recognising both of them. The inn specialised in local produce, Vanessa opted for a sea-food cocktail followed by steak, new potatoes and asparagus, both vegetables being grown locally. They had reached the main course before Gavin started to talk about his meeting with Jay Courtland. He waited for the wine waiter to move away and then started to tell her about the contract. ‘It gives us the exclusive rights to do all the photographic work for Supersport, and all the publicity connected with the team. It’s a relief to know that everything’s tied up legally now,’ he confided to Vanessa. ‘Business has been too slack recently. I suppose London is really the place for a photographer to make a real success.’

‘You’ve been doing very well,’ Vanessa protested.

‘Not as well as you think,’ he told her ruefully. ‘I haven’t wanted to worry you by telling you how much we needed the money from this contract. I only found out after he died that Dad raised his share of the money for that last expedition by mortgaging the house. Unless we pay back a hefty sum this year, the bank could foreclose and we’d lose it.’

‘As bad as that! You should have told me.’

‘And have you worrying yourself to death about losing the lodge?’ He shook his head. ‘I must admit I was beginning to get desperate until I learned about the contract. And he was very nice about the mix-up yesterday. He seemed more amused than annoyed.’

‘You did tell him that I wasn’t Nadia, didn’t you?’

There was a brief silence, and Gavin’s expression changed, his face flushing slightly. ‘You haven’t told him have you?’ Vanessa breathed. ‘Oh Gavin …’

‘Look I know I said I would, but the thing is, Van, he wants you to pose with the team; for a gimmick he said. He was so keen on it that I could hardly turn round and tell him the truth. Not when he’d just said that finding out you were my assistant was what had swung the deal our way. I couldn’t tell him.’

Vanessa went pale, pushing her half empty plate away from her. ‘But Gavin, that’s dishonest. Letting him think I was Nadia …’

‘Not really. It is you he wants to model with the team. After all he’s seen you in the flesh and he hasn’t seen Nadia.’

‘But he thinks I am Nadia,’ Vanessa protested, ‘and the truth is bound to get out. The whole town knows who I am. Unless of course you’re proposing deception on a grand scale.’

He had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. ‘Look Van I know it places you in an awkward position, but what else could I do? There he was saying the contract was ours with one breath and then with the other suggesting that you wouldn’t object to posing with the team as a publicity gimmick.’

‘I can see that it was difficult for you, but surely no more difficult than it’s going to be when he finds out the truth?’

‘Need he do?’ Gavin fiddled awkwardly with his cutlery. ‘Look Nadia’s out of the country at the moment, I checked before we came out, a modelling job in Gambia and besides, she never comes back here. You know that.’

‘Gavin you can’t expect me to deliberately deceive someone; to pretend that I’m someone I’m not. Tell him the truth and if he still wants me to pose, then fine …’

‘I don’t see how I can now.’ Gavin sounded truculent and Vanessa sighed. Her brother didn’t want to admit to Jay Courtland that he had allowed him to believe she was Nadia, and she could understand that, but surely he could see how potentially dangerous it could be to deliberately allow him to go on under the same misconception. Apart from her own dislike of the thought of the deceit and subterfuge necessary to keep up the pretence.

‘Van, I wouldn’t ask if we didn’t have so much at stake, believe me.’

‘But Gavin, we can’t go on deceiving him for ever.’

‘No, I realise that. Once the photographs have been done and I’ve shown him the quality of our work, “Nadia” can disappear and “Van” can return. He might suspect the truth, but as long as we’re discreet he isn’t going to question it—he won’t want to appear that foolish, and besides what harm will it do?’

How could she explain to her brother the delicacy of the situation between herself and Jay? As far as she was concerned there was no justification for deceiving him further, and now it was too late, she cursed herself for not making her identity plain earlier. But if she went to him now and told him the truth it would be humiliating for Gavin, and they could even lose the contract. She was in a cleft stick, faced with Hobson’s choice, neither path appealing to her.

‘Look Van,’ Gavin pressed, sensing that she was weakening. ‘You only need to do it for a week or so, no longer I promise you. You might even enjoy it,’ he added with a grin. ‘Haven’t you always wanted to know how the other half live; what it’s like to be our glamorous, sought-after cousin?’

‘Not at the price of my own integrity,’ she responded smartly, but inside she felt a tiny twinge of despair. He desired her, Jay had told her, but was it her he desired, or was it the woman he thought she was? Was it the cachet of possessing her cousin’s famous face and body that drew him? Would he still want her when he discovered she was simply plain Vanessa? Second best all her life and no competition at all for the glamorous Nadia; a candle in comparison to the sun.

‘I still don’t think it’s right, Gavin,’ she told him slowly.

‘But you’ll do it anyway? Steady, reliable Van, always weighing the pros and cons … Hurry up and finish your meal,’ he commanded her, ‘we’ve got a busy afternoon ahead.

‘Busy?’

‘Umm … If you’re going to be Nadia, you need costuming for the part. The only jeans I’ve ever seen her wearing are designer label. Jay was very curious about why you were behind the camera instead of in front of it. I told him you had wanted a break and that you were helping me out.’

‘Very inventive of you,’ Vanessa said dryly, following her brother as he made to leave their table. He paid the bill and then they were out in the warm June sunshine; the first really warm day they had had and it seemed to be almost criminal to waste it on shopping, but Gavin was adamant. It was just as well he had such decided ideas on fashion because alone she could never have found the enthusiasm to buy the clothes he was pushing at her. She didn’t even like touching them; silk dresses and blouses, fluid sensual clothes that conjured up a vivid impression of her clothes horse cousin. Clothes she would never have chosen in a million years.

‘You know you look just as good as Nadia,’ Gavin commented as he made her parade up and down in front of him, studying each outfit assessingly, ‘in your own way. Where Nadia is sensual, you are innocent. In fact Jay remarked upon it, and said how surprised he’d been by the lack of sensuality which comes over so strongly in your photographs. He seemed to find it very intriguing. We’ll have that one,’ he added, picking out the bright pink taffeta dress with its low cut neckline that she had been wearing. ‘And you’ll need something really grand for the ball.’

‘The ball?’

‘Umm. He announced this morning that once the alterations on the house are finished he intends to give a ball there, proceeds from the sale of the tickets to go to the local children’s home. It promises to be an extremely grand affair, but it’s months away yet, you can get something for that later. You still need a dress for now.’

She tried on a selection of dresses half-heartedly, liking none of them until the assistant brought in the soft silk taffeta sheath. She tried it on in breathless anticipation marvelling at the apparent delicacy of her figure and the undeniable pleasure of wearing something so alluringly feminine.

When she showed it to Gavin at first she thought he didn’t like it. The neckline revealed the smooth sweep of her shoulders and the rounded curves of her breasts, the narrow skirt outlining her hips. A very provocative dress she thought and she held her breath waiting for his comments, asking anxiously when he made none, ‘What’s the matter, is it too sexy, do you think?’

The smile he gave her was faintly crooked. ‘It’s not that, it’s just that I’ve suddenly realised what we’ve all done to you, and what you would have been if there’d been no Nadia, and only a Vanessa. We’ll take it,’ he told the saleswoman.

An hour later they were back at the lodge. Because of the new contract Gavin had some work to do, and rather than sit brooding on the deception she was forced to be party to, Vanessa picked up her Nikon and wandered down into their back garden, finding the gap in the thick beech hedge which gave access to the Manor’s overgrown wood. The wood had always been a favourite place of sanctuary during her childhood, a place where she could be alone to think and dream, and now she needed its solace once more. She had picked up her camera more out of habit more than anything else, but as she wandered along the overgrown bramble and nettle bordered paths she was glad that she had. Soon this small wilderness would be gone; this might be her last opportunity to record what had once been her secret place of refuge. Soon Jay Courtland and her false identity as Nadia were pushed to the back of her mind as she worked busily photographing the ancient oaks, the small, still pool where she had watched ducklings hatch; the stream where otters played and she had once seen a kingfisher. Gavin had once brought her here at night to watch the badgers, a truly magical experience; soon she was lost, wrapped in the dense silence of her surroundings transported from the materialistic and often alien world outside.

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