Anne Weale Wedding of the Year (pdf)

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He gave her an amused look. 'I think it was Coleridge who said that men
desire women and women desire to be desired.'
'By one man yes. Not by all of them.'
He was smiling openly now. 'I don't think you know much about it yet.'
Before she could answer, Gerald announced that, the lighting being
satisfactory. he was ready to shoot.
'Your left hand on Jago's shoulder, and your right on the handrail, please,
Anny. With your body turned slightly this way. That's fine except for the
facial expression. It's much too aloof for a bride, lovey. Let's see a little
roguish smile ... as if, having kept him waiting while you got dressed, you
wouldn't mind too much if he took you back upstairs and undressed you.'
'I should be delighted,' said Jago, in an undertone.
He covered her hand where it lay on the smooth wooden rail, and his other
hand returned to her waist.
'Roguish smiles went out with silent films, Gerald,' she said, hoping to hide
her confusion with an air of nonchalance.
'Okay, a sexy smile, then,' Gerald amended.
'Is my expression satisfactory?' Jago enquired.
While one palm held her hand captive, the other was fondling her waist. His
eyes were narrowed and intent.
'It's fine,' the photographer told him.
But the lighting was still not quite perfect, and they had to remain in the
pose while his assistant carried out an adjustment.
By summoning all her professionalism, Savanna managed to maintain a
provocative half-smile, but inwardly she was seething with mixed
sensations, including being intensely conscious of the powerful shoulder
beneath the black silk barathea on which her free hand was resting. The
conservative cut of his dinner jacket, and the unadorned plainness of his
shirt suggested that whatever form his tycoonery took and she wished she
had asked Gerald to elaborate on that disclosure Jago did not suffer from
any nouveau-riche leanings towards ostentation.
In a way she rather wished he did, for then she could have rationalised her
wariness of him. But there was nothing about him apart from his risque
aside a few moments earlier, and really Gerald was largely to blame for
that on which to peg her dubiety.
Physically, everything about him from his brushed back raven's wing hair to
his well-scrubbed, neatly pared nails was pleasing to her. As close as they
were, she could smell very faintly the clean aroma of his shaving soap, but
none of the pervasive after-shave lotions used by less discriminating men.
Influenced by her father and brothers, she did not like men to be scented as
strongly as women, or to give more time to their hair than was taken by a.
daily shampoo and a regular haircut. Any man sufficiently preoccupied with
his looks to have his hair styled was too vain to be attractive to her.
'Okay, that one's in the bag. You can relax for five minutes while Anny gets
changed for the next one.' Gerald was speaking to Jago.
For the next shot she wore a straight tunic of avocado crepe-de-chine with
plaited rouleaux straps and a matching girdle. Rhinestone waterfall
ear-rings were her only jewellery.
This time, to her relief, they had to pretend to be playing backgammon, and
there was no direct contact between them. But when she had put on the
white dress, Gerald posed them on a sofa in the drawing-room, she with her
feet up and Jago seated beside her, one long hard thigh pressed to hers as he
leaned towards her, his forearm stretched along the backrest.
The unselfconscious ease with which he obeyed Gerald's instruction to kiss
her hand would have made it clear had it not already been obvious that
he must be a very smooth operator.
'Won't your business associates be amazed at your lending yourself to this
sort of thing?' she asked while, once more, the lighting was being perfected.
'Amazed at my luck, I should imagine,' was his urbane reply. 'This dress is
very becoming. You ought to buy it.'
'I should never wear it. I don't lead this kind of life. And even if I did, a dress
like this would pay for a whole winter's fuel bills.'
'I suppose so.' [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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