“Call him now.”
Perrin squeezed her hands hard.
“What’s the other thing?”
Perrin reached for the phone and began dialing. She kept her head down as she spoke.
Melanie could barely hear her mumble.
“The cancellation was a four-page spread in the first twenty pages.”
Melanie was still trying to digest that bit of news as she worked her way into the first dress and did her own makeup.
When Tamara arrived from school, she was instantly tasked with brushing out Melanie’s hair. Not a single snarl or twist allowed. Her hair was always either a straight fall or in a ponytail. Her trademark hair was never up, never teased, and god forbid never colored. That was part of her contracts; it also vastly simplified styling choices for the designer. Which many complained about, but ultimately seemed to appreciate.
A four-page spread in the front twenty. The only thing that caused a cancellation like that was a revelation of illegal activity, like design theft. Even the buyout of a fashion house wouldn’t cause that late a change. All of the space was prepaid and they were way past the late-cancellation deadline, so the magazine would have no financial loss and could afford to give away, she did the math, almost eighty thousand dollars of space.
Melanie considered kicking out a text to some industry friends to find out who had choked and how. There were only a dozen or so advertisers who could afford that major a spread to begin with. The front twenty was the stomping grounds of only the very best and the very well-funded who typically reserved that space over a year ahead. She’d text later.
“The editor was one of your customers,” Melanie knew it was right the instant she said it.
Perrin shrugged in the mirror. “I don’t work front of shop much anymore, so she mostly dealt with Raquel. But after she’d bought three pieces in a single fling, she insisted on meeting me. I only had a few minutes before Bill picked me up, but she was very excited. She looked great in one of my day dresses, very chic and flirty.”
“That’s a true fan, Perrin. They are rare and precious people who can make all of the difference.” Thinking of fans, maybe she should call Joshua. She’d come to accept that he was a fan of her public image, even forcing him to unearth the Teen Vogue when he’d confessed to owning a copy. She’d looked good. Young, but good. She couldn’t be angry because Joshua had also proved time and again how clearly he also saw the real Melanie.
“Look who I found just hanging around to carry my gear for me,” Russell announced as he burst in the back door.
Joshua peeked at her over Russell’s broad shoulders.
Russell winked at her from where he’d stopped, completely filling the back doorway with his broad-shouldered frame and two camera cases.
Joshua had to shove past the grinning man. He crossed the studio and reached for her.
“Don’t touch the hair. Tamara’s been working too hard for you to muss it up.”
She could see the temptation cross his features.
“Don’t even think it, Harper. Just don’t.”
Instead, he held her hand and kissed her on the lips very sweetly. She gave him a careful hug, then turned back to the mirror to check the damage. Well worth it.
The shoot itself was a blur, they always were. Melanie let herself become a vehicle for the photographer’s instructions. She’d done photo shoots with Russell: before, during, and after they’d been lovers. It had made little difference; they were professionals doing the jobs they both did best.
But Joshua affected her, she could feel it. She’d walk toward the camera and recall the heat she’d seen fire up in Joshua’s eyes when she’d worn only a t-shirt instead of one of the sexiest pant suits she’d ever seen.
She would turn to look over her shoulder at the camera and see Joshua standing behind Russell with a smile so wide she wanted to go and kiss it off his face.
They went through a dozen pieces, Perrin and Tamara scrambling back and forth between the downstairs design studio and the upstairs apartment-turned-photo studio. Russell had Joshua stand in to give her positioning for a pose—something about them being the same height was desirable, but Russell didn’t stop to explain—and then move him carefully aside without jostling her. Even after he was gone, she could feel herself leaning on his shoulder and smiling from somewhere down inside.
For some reason that he never explained and she’d never asked, Russell never used to use her face in his ads. He always hid it with hair, hat, shadow, or other composition. Not this shoot.
The time flew. At some point, they fed her. Later, Bill and Jaspar came to pick up Tamara and instead ended up being recruited by Russell to the dozens of odd jobs involved in a shoot: angling reflectors, holding meter cards, shifting umbrella lights, moving props without disturbing the model’s position, flapping boards in front of a large fan to create little gusts, and a myriad of others.
Melanie and Joshua were actually reentering the condo by the time she came back to herself, just like a couple returning from a good day’s work. Both chattering away about how fun it had been as he unlocked and held doors for her to pass through first.
The afternoon had been an extravagant whirlwind of innovative clothes and immense fun. Joshua had taken to making the occasional funny face over Russell’s shoulder, several causing Melanie to crack up and lose a pose.
“I love photo shoot modeling!”
Joshua laughed at her passion as she set her purse in its usual spot then did a twirl in the middle of the living room.
“It’s the single thing I loved the most. More than the runway. It’s that back and forth with a truly skilled photographer.”
“Uh-huh.”
The man was slouched against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. That sparkle in his eyes and grin on his face whenever he was just watching her. He never tired of it and she never felt self-conscious in front of him. She just felt…appreciated.
“It’s like you were saying when you got that first scene written.” She spun over and pinned him to the wall for a moment with her lips and body. Even when she pulled back enough to continue, she used her body to keep him there. “That energy the character gave you and you gave her. It just hums inside you.”
And it had been such a joy. None of them were being paid and none of them cared. They were all there to help a friend. Well, she’d get a killer dress out of it, because that was the only kind of dress Perrin made. She’d felt a little guilty about requesting such luxurious fabrics, but a free four-page spread would pay it back in the first day’s orders.
“Joshua, we have to totally re-do Perrin’s plan. A big spread wasn’t supposed to happen until next year.”
“You also didn’t factor in having the most beautiful woman on the planet being the signature model.”
She giggled at the compliment. Melanie never giggled, but she couldn’t help herself. Joshua simply made her feel that special.
“Let’s go dancing!”
And that’s exactly what they did. They hit Pioneer Square.
“Hey look!” Joshua pointed at the sign above a bar right in the heart of the Square.
“The J&M Café. Oldest bar in Seattle.” Melanie read in wonder. “The J&M Mutual Admiration Society now has a base of operations.”
They drank one beer each, laughed like they’d had a dozen, and rocked out to the live band right up to the two a.m. closing time.
Chapter 14
Russell had called them to come early to Maria’s Tuesday night dinner. Cassidy and Russell lived a few blocks north of the Market in Belltown. Maria and Hogan lived in a building that looked directly down on the cobbled streets, booths and the waterfront. The apartment was cozy for a couple rather than spacious and begging for expansion like the Pioneer Square condo.
They’d decorated it with a tasteful eye and an old-world elegance that fit them. Kitchen, bedroom, and office all opened off one wall. The living room boasted a large brown leather sofa facing the
view and several comfortable-looking armchairs to either side. Bookcases down the left wall. The back of the living room was the domain of a massive oak table that could easily seat a dozen.
Josh hadn’t been sure what to bring. Just a bottle of wine seemed lame. And going up against a patissier of Maria’s skill also kept desserts off the list of possible things to bring. He’d settled on a platter of build-it-yourself bruschetta. He premade and toasted the thin rounds of French baguette and rubbed them all lightly with garlic. Then he’d made a large plate with a pile of fresh-made mozzarella cheese at the center and surrounded it with mounds of slivered olives, chiffonaded basil, diced sun-dried tomatoes, and a half-dozen other toppings.
It had earned him a hug from Maria and had earned Russell a swat from her when he’d tried to grab a fistful of the toasts to munch on. So, Joshua would count that as a two-fold success.
“You know,” Russell absently flexed his sore knuckles as he turned to Melanie. “I won’t use any image without your approval. But I think you’ll like these. I really hope so, because I didn’t have time to make any other variations. I already ran them by Perrin and she’s over the moon.” He rubbed his mouth where Josh would bet she’d planted a smacking kiss of thanks.
“But no pressure to like them,” Melanie had laughed that beautiful laugh of hers then tugged Josh along to go look at them. The four prints were laid down on the bright oak of the big dining room table.
Josh had never really looked at Russell’s work, except the landscapes on the walls of Angelo’s restaurants. Those evoked a specific, soothing emotion making it a comfortable place to dine rather than merely eat. But these fashion photographs were something else again. Even to his untrained eye each was a straight-shot punch to the gut.
Melanie was posing—with herself! That’s why he’d had to stand in to help her find the right poses. Rather than four images of her, there were a total of nine on the four pages. In the first, the pantsuit clad Melanie was resting a casual hand on a friend’s shoulder, except the friend was also Melanie, dressed for a night on the town and laughing at a joke just told.
In the next, she leaned against her own back, clad once in a dynamo black powersuit of jacket and skinny spring-green dress, the other in the slacks, blouse, and loosened tie of waterfall silk of a woman supremely competent and confident—enough so to not need the powersuit. Each appeared to be scoffing at the other’s presumption.
Sportswear was clearly the subject of a grudge match between two ponytailed Melanies somehow glaring at each other but also, just as clearly, giving the camera a nudge-and-a-wink look that made him want to laugh.
The last page. He wanted a life-size poster of that last image. Melanie three ways. Three brilliant evening gowns the color of new leaves—each radiating sex in its own way. But it wasn’t just sex, it was the raw power of the incredibly feminine form within. One with deep cleavage and soft flowing folds, the second with a form-hugging sleekness, and the last dress so thoroughly covering her body that it was impossible to avoid imagining the woman beneath.
Separately they were beautiful, together they were astonishing.
Josh could pick out each woman. Could see the powerful, the shy, the playful, and all of the others she’d told him about and walked for him. But there was something more, if he could only identify it.
Melanie gave Russell hands-down approval. They went to the computer in Hogan’s small home office to sign the model releases and send them off to the magazine.
Josh stayed to study the pictures and see if he could figure out what he wasn’t seeing.
“She loves you so very much.”
He startled to see that Maria had come up beside him to look down at the images of Melanie. Then Maria’s words registered. “She what?”
“Look,” she nodded down to the nine figures looking back at him. “If you can’t see it in how she looks at you, it is right there in all of the pictures. Russell is very skilled, but even he couldn’t have done that if it weren’t in her to give.”
And now Josh could see it. He could see that all nine of the women before him were also the final woman. It was a woman Melanie hadn’t shown him before. It wasn’t the lioness who had devoured his heart. It was the beautiful woman who had offered hers to him.
She reentered the room from the office door not ten feet away, laughing about something with Russell. Then she turned to him and her face shifted. It was subtle. If he hadn’t been studying the images before him, if Maria hadn’t pointed out the common thread, he wouldn’t have understood the change.
There was no question, Maria was right.
Melanie loved him.
Just maybe she loved him as much as he abruptly realized he loved her.
“What is it?” Melanie had asked Joshua three times during dinner, but he had only shaken his head and looked away. Something had shifted after he’d seen those wonderful ads Russell had made.
He took another bite of his Italian cheesecake, clearly to avoid answering her question.
“You begin to scare me, Joshua.” She kept her voice low. She really hoped he wasn’t somehow seeing her again as the supermodel. He was the only one who saw past the external beauty; past the make-believe she presented to the world. At first it had scared her, but she had come to cherish that about him.
Russell had indeed made her look fabulous. These ads were going to, as Perrin would say, kick ass. But if they’d made Joshua lose that unique perspective he had of her, it wouldn’t have been worth it.
Maria and Hogan had propped up the first three images for display along one of the bookcases and tacked the fourth on the wall which was covered with candid shots, mostly of the people in this room. The photo shoot was definitely the news of the evening and the images were a near constant topic. Only now did it strike her that Maria might intend to add that image permanently to the family collection.
To keep Russell’s ego in check, Perrin and Tammy had started a campaign of teasing him horribly about anything they could come up with. Cassidy had joined in on the side of her husband and Jo was refereeing in such a way as to make it more lively. Cassidy had been right; Jo was sneaky.
As the sun had set beyond the Olympics, candlelight had replaced the sunlight. The room was crowded and loud, filled with the sounds of friends simply glad to be together.
And no one was treating her strangely at all. Not because of the photos, not because she was a supermodel. No one, except Joshua.
Maria and Hogan sat at either end of the main table, but with the restaurant staff and other friends, there were sufficient numbers that they spilled over into the living area, returning to the table only to restock plates from the vast trays of food that had been prepared and to add a tease to the merry battle surrounding Russell. It was cheerful mayhem.
She became aware that Joshua was studying her closely. The noise around the table was sufficient to create something of a bubble around them.
“You,” Joshua whispered softly enough that only she would hear it, “are the one who is scaring me.”
He must have seen her confusion.
His answer was to lean in and give her a kiss that reassured her more than any words could have done. It was a kiss flavored of ricotta, chocolate, and strawberries—Maria’s Italian cheesecake. It lingered, tested, and asked. She didn’t know the question, but she answered and felt the shift inside her as she did so. Her heart didn’t pound, instead it beat as smooth and silky as the texture of the dessert. Joshua’s kiss was a place she could go to be lost forever. Time, sound, the external world stopped. Nothing existed but them, their connection, their being together in this lingering moment.
When the kiss ended, her ears were buzzing. And that was the only sound in the room. From one end of the table to the other, everyone was looking at them. Even those sitting in the living room chairs and sofa were silent. Cassidy and Perrin actually had tears in their eyes. Jo had rested her head on Angelo’s broad shoulder.
Tammy broke the silence w
ith a thirteen-year old’s sigh that sent a ripple of laughter around the room. Then Jaspar offered a ten-year-old boy’s view with a loud, “Eww!” which shifted the sound of the laughter yet again and slowly rekindled conversations.
Melanie didn’t blush when she was kissed. More than one of her clinches had ended up on the cover of People and a fair number had graced the cover of the National Enquirer. But now the heat roared to her face.
She considered facing the laughter in defiance. But it was a friendly sound that made her feel both welcome and fortunate. So, rather than pulling on her imperious cloak, she did as Joshua did and turned her full attention to her dessert—only too aware of how closely their legs pressed together beneath the table.
Chapter 15
Josh had wanted to help, but Melanie only let him do so when she was stuck on some particular aspect of Perrin’s business strategy.
“Your job, Joshua, is to write. You wrote those two press releases for her, which were wonderful, thank you. But that is not your passion. You have quit your job to write a novel. Go, write your novel.”
As if he could just wave a wand and the typed pages would appear. So, he’d gone alone to his usual table at Angelo’s and sat down to write.
He tried waving a fork of the boar-sausage pasta that Graziella had served him for lunch, but all it did was waft the delicious smell of garlic, sausages, and fresh basil; no novel magically appeared on the table or under it. He checked.
So he ate the pasta, ignored the gentle conversations of the late lunch crowd, and, as he’d done all week, turned back to his computer. He had his fictional world built. It was a crazy one that was nothing like he’d imagined.
Where Dreams Are Written Page 16
