All Work And No Play.... Julie Cohen

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      ‘I’m not so sure I love the camera,’ Jay was saying to Thom. ‘And you only think modelling is a great profession because you haven’t been forced to look brooding under hot lights for hours on end.’

      She dragged her eyes away from that V of tanned skin at the base of his neck, and sat back in her seat, trying for a semblance of ease. ‘Don’t you think that’s a fair turnaround for the years that women have been objectified by the media?’ she said.

      ‘Ha!’ cried Thom. ‘She’s got you there, bud. You’re striking a blow for feminism by being a sex object. Think of that next time you’re posing in your underwear.’

      Jay threw back his head and laughed, and she could see the texture of his skin. He was tanned and he hadn’t shaved this morning, so a slight rough stubble shadowed his well-formed jaw and around his beautiful mouth.

      She wondered what it would feel like on her neck. Under her lips.

      A menu appeared in front of her and she took it without looking at the waitress who offered it. Instead, she looked at Jay’s hands as they accepted the menu. They were as lean and strong as the rest of him.

      He smiled at her over the menu and the pulse of desire that ripped through her was so strong that she nearly gasped.

      ‘Would you like something to drink, some wine?’ she heard a female voice say, and Jane tore her gaze away from Jay to look up at the waitress, ask for the wine menu, take charge of this situation instead of letting her libido do it for her.

      And this time, she did gasp, as her body temperature went from overheated to zero.

      ‘Oh, crap,’ she said.

      CHAPTER TWO

      IT WAS Kathleen. Big-breasted, tousle-haired, full-lipped Kathleen.

      ‘You’re a waitress?’ Jane said.

      ‘Oh.’ Kathleen stood stock-still, the wine list in her hand. ‘This—is awkward.’

      ‘Thom,’ Jane said, her voice much calmer than she would have thought possible, ‘would you mind choosing the wine? I’ll be right back.’

      ‘Sure,’ she heard Thom reply, but she didn’t wait to see what he thought of her behaviour. Instead she walked straight across the restaurant and into the ladies’ room.

      It was empty. Jane kicked the marble base of the sink. She didn’t know what to do, so she washed her hands. She wished she could wash out her mouth, too. Or wash the last five minutes away.

      ‘He left me for a waitress,’ she said to her reflection, and then turned the water back on to wash her hands again.

      She heard a soft knock on the door. ‘Jane?’

      She went around the sink to the door. It was open a crack, and she could see a hand and half a face. Blue-eyed, jaw rough with brown stubble. Jay.

      ‘Jane? Are you all right?’

      She sighed and opened the door all the way. Fortunately the ladies’ room was in a corridor off the main dining room, so the entire restaurant couldn’t witness her conversation with a male model through the lavatory door.

      ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I said “crap”.’

      Jay shrugged. ‘I’ve said worse, and so has Thom. I can be quite an inventive swearer, actually. What’s the matter?’

      ‘Nothing. It’s—everything is fine.’ She smiled.

      The expression on his face let her know she wasn’t being convincing. ‘Okay. Listen, Thom’s sorting out the bill and getting us a table at the restaurant next door. Do you like Italian?’

      Her cheeks flushed hot. Some professional she was—she was meant to be the host. ‘That’s not necessary, I’ll be—’

      ‘It’s necessary,’ Jay interrupted her. ‘And don’t say the word “fine” any more. I know you’ve got a better vocabulary than that, even when you’re lying.’

      His words surprised a laugh out of her. ‘Okay.’

      Jay rested his shoulder against the wall beside him, the same sort of casual, comfortable stance he’d had when she’d first seen him. It brought him a little bit closer to her. She’d expect a model to wear some sort of cologne, especially as he was advertising it, but he smelled of warm cotton.

      ‘Do you want to tell me what’s wrong, Jane?’

      For a split second, she was tempted.

      It would be a relief to tell someone what was going on. She’d kept it in and kept it in and sometimes she felt as if she were going to explode. Jay was looking at her with concern in his blue eyes, a slight furrow between his eyebrows. And he looked so damn familiar, as if she’d known this stranger all her life.

      But she didn’t know him.

      ‘Did you see her shoes?’ she asked instead. ‘The waitress’s?’

      He nodded, seemingly not put off by the change in topic at all.

      ‘Were they cheap, or expensive?’ A model would know these things, she was sure.

      ‘Cheap,’ he said without hesitation. ‘Needed resoling. If she stands in those all day she’s headed for corns.’

      Her laughter this time wasn’t quite so unexpected, and it relaxed her a little bit.

      ‘Jane,’ he said, leaning closer to her, his voice lower and sincere, ‘I don’t know who that waitress is, but if it helps you to know this, you are about a million times prettier than she is. And you have a better job, and I’m certain you have a better personality.’ His gaze dropped downward, taking her in. ‘And you have much better shoes.’

      Jane’s skin heated, because, although he was discussing her shoes, he hadn’t just looked at her feet. He’d looked at her body on the way down. Just a look, but she was pretty much melting.

      Wouldn’t it show Gary if I went out with a model? she thought again, and then again brushed the thought aside. She’d already mixed up her personal and her professional life, and it was a very bad idea.

      ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I guess we’d better get back to—’

      Jay touched her arm, the bare skin of her wrist, and she stopped, arrested by the feeling of his flesh on hers again.

      ‘You’re doing wonderfully, by the way,’ he said. ‘I appreciate it.’

      That was an odd thing to say, but she supposed it was meant as some sort of encouragement. ‘Thank you. I’m usually a very professional person.’

      ‘I know.’

      His fingers were still wrapped around her wrist. He could probably feel every beat of her heart. As if he were touching, somehow, her life force.

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