LITMIR.BIZ

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smiled. ‘But never mind about that tonight...just look at you!’

      Hands resting lightly on Chloe’s slim upper arms, she pushed the taller woman back a little. The sombreness of earlier drifted across her face when her glance stilled momentarily on Chloe’s legs covered in loose folds of sky-blue silk, but it was gone by the time her eyes reached Chloe’s face.

      ‘You look stunning, as usual. I’m not saying it’s all about a pretty face, but it definitely helps when you’re trying to get men to open their wallets for a good cause...and before you ask you have my permission to put the hard sell on everyone here tonight.’

      ‘People are usually very kind,’ Chloe said.

      ‘Especially when they are being guilted into it by the sister of a future queen. But why not use your connections? That’s what I always say, and, while I might not have the right sort, your sister certainly does.’ She sketched a curtsy and Chloe laughed. Her sister might be a princess and one day destined to be the Queen of Vela Main, but Chloe could not imagine anyone less royal. Both sisters had been brought up to believe that what a person did was more important than their title.

      ‘I’ll do my very best for the charity,’ Tatiana continued in earnest now. ‘In my book, I owe you.’ She walked across to the mantel where the marble surface was covered with framed photos. She selected one and held it up in invitation for Chloe to see it. ‘For what you did for Mel,’ she finished, looking fondly at the photo she held.

      Chloe shook her head, uncomfortable with the praise. As far as Chloe was concerned, the young Greek girl was her inspiration. ‘I didn’t do anything.’ She took the frame that Tatiana offered and looked at the photo it held. It was a snap taken the previous month in a pavement café on a girls’ trip to Barcelona. ‘She’s a brave girl.’

      Chloe had known Tatiana by sight and reputation before the other woman had boosted Chloe’s career by mentioning her blog in an interview she’d given covering London fashion week, two years ago now, Chloe realised, though it seemed more like a lifetime. Back then the interview was pretty much responsible for her blog becoming a profitable overnight success.

      Chloe had contacted Tatiana to thank her for the plug and they had exchanged the odd email but they had never met in person.

      That had happened in a very different context a year ago, after the designer’s god-daughter was moved into the room next to Chloe’s own in the specialist burns unit. Chloe had already been in there for three months; she’d known every crack in the ceiling and had been living vicariously through the love lives of the young nurses designated to her care.

      Though the burns Chloe herself had received in a road traffic accident had been severe and painful and the healing process long, her own scars were easy to hide from view under her clothes. But the young woman in the next room had not been able to hide the damage done to her face by the fire caused by a gas explosion. Then, as if life hadn’t already thrown enough rubbish at her, the day after she had arrived at the burns unit her boyfriend had dumped her, at which point Mel had turned her face to the wall and announced she didn’t want to live.

      As she’d listened through the partition wall Chloe’s heart had ached for the other girl. Their first conversation later that night shouted through the wall had been a one-sided affair, but it had been the first of many.

      ‘You got her through it, Chloe,’ Tatiana choked. ‘I’ll never forget that day I arrived and heard her laugh—you did that.’

      ‘Mel helped me as much as I did her. Did you see the information sheet she put together for me on make-up techniques?’ she asked, placing the photo back on the shelf. In doing so she accidentally nudged the one next to it and straightened it, admiring the frame; it was an antique one, the ebony wood delicately carved and rather beautiful.

      Chloe was admiring the craftsmanship, running her fingers across the smooth indentations, when her glance drifted across the photo it held. Her mouth tugged into a smile; with a white-knuckle ride in the background, a younger Eugenie smiled back at her, complete with braces, from under the peak of a baseball cap with the logo of an adventure park emblazoned on it.

      The jeans-clad man crouched down beside her in the shot was wearing the same cap, and he was... Chloe’s smile vanished like smoke as brutal stinging reality hit her like a slap across the face. Pale as paper now, she stared at the male in the picture, wearing jeans, a tee shirt, and a teasing, carefree expression on his handsome face, a face that bore no signs of a tortured soul. There were no shadows that she felt the need to banish; he was just a regular guy...well, only if the regular guy in question was more handsome than any man had a right to be with a body that an Olympic swimmer might dream of possessing.

      She stood like a statue staring at the photo she held in a hand that quickly developed a visible tremor—the tremor penetrating past the skin level and moving deep inside her.

      By sheer force of will she released the breath she was holding in her lungs, but not the avalanche of questions whirring in dizzying succession through her brain. She felt as though a dozen people were inside her shouting so loudly she couldn’t make out the individual questions.

      Obviously it couldn’t be him but, equally obviously, it was! The man in the photos was the same man who she had spent a never-to-be-forgotten night of lust with. If all learning experiences were as brutal as that one had been, it would not be worth getting out of bed in the morning—happily they weren’t and she had moved on.

      But that didn’t mean she’d forgotten any of it. Forgotten the feelings of emotional hurt and humiliation that had made her physically sick the next morning when she’d realised he’d slipped away during the night. And the worst part was, she had no one to blame but herself. Because she had been the one who had followed her instincts when she’d approached him in that bar, telling herself that what she was doing was somehow meant to be... If they had been handing out awards for naivety and general stupidity that night, she would have walked away with an armful of prizes!

      She’d wondered if his name really was Nik. It seemed utterly incredible to her now that she’d ever thought it part of the romantic fantasy element of their night together that she hadn’t even known his full name! Time had stripped away the romantic gloss and revealed it for what it truly was—a cheap and tacky one-night stand, even if the sex had been utterly incredible.

      Keeping her voice carefully casual, she half turned to Tatiana, as yet unable to tear her eyes from the snapshot. ‘How old was Eugenie in this one?’

      Tatiana came across and looked at the photo of her daughter and she gave a nostalgic sigh. ‘Oh, that was taken on her tenth birthday, although just five minutes afterwards she was throwing up. Nik let her eat a bag of doughnuts then took her on some white-knuckle ride.’

      Chloe’s own knuckles were bone white where her hand was pressed to her chest. Her poor heart was vibrating against her ribcage, her insides were quivering as she told herself sternly to get a grip, not to mention a sense of proportion. It was only a photo after all, and he was old history.

      Note to self, she castigated herself, the next time you decide to make love, don’t do it with a complete stranger! No, Chloe, let’s be grown up and honest here—it wasn’t making love, it was having sex.

      It hadn’t been until she’d accepted that particular fact and realised that what they had shared that night had had absolutely nothing to do with a spiritual connection but everything to do with blind lust that she had been able to move on.

      Move on—really? So why was she shaking?

      She put the photo down carefully and smoothed her hands down over the fabric of her jumpsuit. She would not let that man do this to her again; she was not that silly naive girl any longer.

      It had been a painful learning experience, but once her pride had stopped stinging and she had stopped feeling basically stupid she’d understood that while empty sex with anonymous strangers could obviously be physically satisfying, it probably wasn’t for her. She wasn’t exactly holding out for the love of her life, but she did think maybe a bit of mutual respect might be nice.

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