Desert Sheikhs Collection: Part 1. Jane Porter

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СКАЧАТЬ tried to count to ten, but the numbers became jumbled in her mind as she turned round. At least the half-smile on her lips was appropriate, as was the polite, almost deferential raising of her eyebrows. After all, he was the boss and she the model.

      ‘Hi,’ she said.

      ‘Hi.’ He found himself mocking her, enjoying the brief moment of discomfiture which allowed itself to break through her cool little smile, but then his eyes narrowed. Maybe she was used to men coming onto her. With looks like that she was bound to be. He saw her shiver. ‘You’re cold,’ he said softly.

      Lara looked down at the goose bumps on her arms, which was infinitely easier than meeting that clear golden stare, and composed herself enough to look up again, a rueful smile playing on her lips. ‘Well, yes,’ she agreed. ‘Silk chiffon is a wonderful floaty fabric, but it wasn’t exactly designed with warmth in mind!’

      ‘No.’ He forced himself to be objective. He had sat in with the creative team while they thrashed around the kind of image they wanted to project. Delicate and ethereal had been the objective—an objective achieved perfectly on the mock-ups they had shown him.

      But reality, in the flesh and blood form of Lara Black, had an impact he had not been expecting. A bone-melting, sensual impact. Maybe that had been the subtle difference which had marked her out from all the others, Darian thought—that understated but persuasive femininity which could overpower men by stealth.

      ‘Do you want a jacket or something?’ he asked suddenly.

      The question took Lara off-guard, and for one mad moment she thought he was actually going to take off his own jacket and offer it to her! As if! Lara pointed to a soft pink wrap which lay draped over one of the canvas chairs.

      ‘I have a shawl. I’ll—’

      ‘Here—let me.’ He bent and scooped the garment up, and draped it around her shoulders, feeling her shiver as he did so. ‘You really are cold,’ he observed, feeling the smoothness of her skin through the fine cashmere.

      ‘Yes.’ But that was not the reason she had shivered. She knew that, and she suspected he knew that, too. It seemed like the most deliciously old-fashioned and chivalrous act—a disarming act—to put her shawl on for her like that. A man like Darian Wildman would be aware of that. Talk to him, she told herself. This is your opportunity!

      ‘Do you…do you often go on shoots like this?’ she ventured.

      The lips curved into a cool smile. ‘Is that a take on the “do you come here often” line?’ he mocked.

      At that moment Lara hated him for making her feel so unoriginal, but she didn’t show it, shrugging her shoulders instead. ‘Don’t answer if you don’t want to,’ she murmured. ‘I’d hate to think I was straying into unprotected waters!’

      He laughed. This was better. He liked her spiky better than he liked her soft. Softness made women vulnerable, and vulnerable women weren’t equals. They got hurt, and then they made you feel bad because of it. ‘Was I being rude?’ he mused.

      ‘Yes.’

      He raised his eyebrows fractionally, taken aback by her blunt reply. ‘The answer to your question is no—but then I rarely conduct advertising campaigns.’

      ‘So why this one?’

      He wasn’t about to start telling her about his plan to float Wildman on the stockmarket—she, like the rest of the world, would find out about it soon enough. ‘Because I want the name Wildman to be synonymous with mobile phone technology.’

      ‘You mean it isn’t already?’ she teased. ‘Shame on you!’

      He allowed his mouth to curve into a small smile. ‘I know. Shocking, isn’t it?’ he questioned gravely.

      ‘Utterly,’ she agreed, realising that he was flirting with her and that she was flirting right back.

      Their eyes met and he regarded her thoughtfully. He wanted to take her out to dinner, he realised, not exchange snatches of conversation while the crew ran around, shout-ing and disrupting them. And just then, as if echoing his thoughts, someone shouted her name.

      He frowned. ‘Sounds like you’re needed,’ he observed.

      ‘Sounds that way.’ She hugged the shawl tightly around her as the stylist beckoned, hoping that she didn’t sound reluctant to leave. ‘Excuse me,’ she murmured, glad to get away because nothing seemed to be going according to plan—although when she stopped to think about it what plan had she actually made, other than to somehow get to meet him? And now that she had managed to do that, all she could do was fantasise about his golden eyes and his lean, hard body. It just wasn’t good enough.

      Darian watched while the stylist fussed around with Lara’s hair and then the photographer moved over, whipped the wrap away and began to coax her into position, prowling around in front of her, crooning directions.

      ‘That’s right, baby—smile! Not too much—just a kind of cool, thoughtful smile, as if you’re deciding whether to dump your lover or not!’

      Lara smiled.

      ‘That’s good! Now half close your eyes—as if you’re trying to drive him wild with jealousy! You’re thinking of another man—and you want him more!’

      Lara did as she was told, her eyelashes fluttering down, finding it remarkably easy, picturing golden eyes and tawny skin and a dark, burnished head of royal descent…

      She snapped her eyes open, startled as the bright flash exploded, staring into the eyes of the man who was fantasy and yet real, and for a moment the rest of the world receded.

      Darian stared back at her, and for the first time in his life he recognised the intrusiveness of the camera and despised the intimacy it created between photographer and subject. For a moment there she had looked so sexually excited that it might almost have been for real. His mouth tightened. What a way to earn a living, he thought in sudden disgust. Yet it was what he wanted, wasn’t it?

      No. It was what his company wanted. And this was an assignment, he reminded himself. A professional assignment. He hadn’t been introduced to her at a party—maybe if he had it might be different. Instead, he had run across her in the course of work, and he kept the line between work and pleasure strictly delineated.

      Lara saw his face harden and wondered what had happened to the courteous man who had wrapped the soft wool around her shoulders. The golden eyes had darkened, a flush of colour was running along the high, aristocratic cheekbones. For a moment she saw the glimmerings of a hard, almost cruel contempt, and his expression filled her with trepidation even while something feminine ached at the very core of her, revelling in that cold look of mastery.

      With an effort she tore her gaze away from him, staring instead at the phtographer, giving the shot everything she had and suddenly wishing that she was a million miles away from that hard, glittering scrutiny.

      She held her arms aloft and the silk chiffon twirled and clung to her thighs. Abruptly, he turned away, and she forced herself to concentrate on the job in hand, losing herself in it because that seemed infinitely easier than losing herself in the gaze of Darian Wildman.

      But when the photographer had stopped shooting СКАЧАТЬ