All Work and No Play (2 page)

‘And success is the best revenge, right?’

Jonny shook his head. ‘The situation hasn’t changed. I’m still being judged by my appearance. Ultimately, it’s
not honest. I’m not a body, I’m a … bloke. I’m a writer. I’m me. That’s why I want to keep my modelling life and my real life separate. And then when I’ve made enough money, it’s back to the writing.’

‘Dude.’ Thom leaned forward again. ‘If you need money, I’ll write you a cheque. You don’t need to face a single camera. You know that.’

‘No,’ Jonny said, and then realised he’d said it violently enough to make his friend blink. ‘I mean, thank you, Thom. But I’ll earn my money.’

‘What do you need so much money for, anyway? If you’re in trouble—’

‘I’ll be all right,’ Jonny said, and, although he didn’t want to hurt Thom’s feelings, he said it crisply enough to stop the discussion.

Thom was a Californian, and Californians talked about everything. Despite Jonny’s own years on the west coast of America, he was still English, and he still knew that some things were best kept private.

A woman came down the train aisle with a trolley of coffee and tea. They gave it to you free in first class, a fact Jonny never would have discovered without Thom and his insistence on travelling the best way possible. ‘Coffee, thanks,’ Jonny said when she stopped at their seats, and his eyes wandered back to his laptop. When the coffee didn’t arrive, he looked up.

The woman was staring at him, half a smile on her face. She was cute, with blonde hair scraped back into a pony-tail. Her cheeks flushed slightly as she said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t usually ask things like this, but haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’

‘Now that you ask, Jay’s been in—’

Jonny interrupted before Thom could start on the list of magazines and advertisements he’d got Jonny jobs modelling for. ‘I don’t think we’ve met, no. Sorry.’

The woman looked from Jonny’s polite smile to Thom’s grin, and then back to Jonny. ‘Oh. Well, here’s your coffee, and if I can get you anything else …’ Her voice, though shy, was unmistakably flirtatious.

‘Just the coffee is fine, thank you.’

Thom snagged a can of cola as the trolley passed, and settled back in his seat, shaking his head sadly. ‘You disappoint me, my friend. That was your perfect chance. Stewardesses are hot.’

‘She wasn’t a stewardess. This is a train, not a plane.’

Thom leaned out into the aisle and looked after the woman. ‘Uniform is still pretty cute from behind, though.’ He turned back to Jonny. ‘Do you know how many women are hot for models? And how many of those models are actually straight? You’re a rarity and you should be shagging everything in sight.’

‘Thom, I want to hook up with a woman because I
have something in common with her, not because she’s seen me in some magazine.’

‘You mean you want a female computer geek.’ Thom took a long drink of his cola. ‘That’s fortunate, because, with the amount of time you spend on a computer, I bet the only sex you’re getting is virtual.’

‘You know, Thom, I’d be much more offended by what you’re saying if I didn’t personally know that you haven’t had sex since the last leap year.’

‘We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you. You’re living up in the middle of nowhere and you spend all your time online. When we get to London, how about I set you up with somebody?’

‘That won’t be necessary. I’m meeting somebody already.’

Like his evasion of Thom’s questions about his financial situation, this wasn’t quite the whole truth, and Jonny felt a stab of guilt. It was a measure of how much the circumstances of the past few months had affected him that he was being deliberately misleading.

‘I mean, I’m going to try to meet a friend,’ he corrected himself. ‘You didn’t give me a whole lot of notice that I was coming to London.’

‘A friend.’ Thom looked interested. ‘Is this a sex friend?’

‘No. She’s a friend. I’ve known her since I was a kid,
but we fell out of touch, and we only started emailing each other a few months ago when I got back to England and found her on the web. She lives in London.’

‘A virtual girlfriend. How do you do that whole cybersex thing? I never really understood it. Do you, like, describe what you’re doing to each other, and then use toys, or—?’

Jonny had to laugh at Thom’s single-mindedness. ‘We’re not having cyber sex. I used to have a huge crush on her, but that was when we were kids. I haven’t seen her since we were about eleven years old. And she’s engaged. She’s just—’

He tried to think of how to describe it. Jane was his friend, but it was more than that. Even though they’d never met up, over the past few months Jane’s emails had been just about the only thing that kept him sane.

‘She’s got a great sense of humour, and we seem to have a lot in common. We email four or five times a day.’

‘Oh.’ Thom’s playful interest had been replaced by something more serious. ‘She’s the one you tell things to, huh?’

The one you tell things to.
Yeah, he wished. How many times had he sat down and written to Jane, typed all of his problems and worries and disillusion into the computer to send to her … and then deleted the whole thing before he sent it?

It was too painful to say. Even not out loud, even to someone he didn’t see in person. Even to someone he cared about.

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘she’s got a fiancé, so there’s never going to be anything between us.’

‘Man, you’ve got to be crazy. There is no way her fiancé is as good-looking as you. You just snap your fingers, she’ll drop at your feet.’

‘Thom,’ Jonny said warningly.

‘Okay, okay. I was just saying. I get it, you’re deeper than that and you’re a decent guy who doesn’t break up relationships. I think you’re insane, but that’s nothing new. You do like her despite the fiancé, though, right? Tell Uncle Thom.’

‘I’ve wanted to marry her since I was nine,’ Jonny admitted. ‘But I’ll settle for dinner—if you give me any time off from posing for a camera.’

Thom pulled out his palm organiser and began tapping through it. ‘Well, we’ve got shoots scheduled for most of the day on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, but you should have some time free in the evening to meet your lady friend.’

‘And to do my real work. I’ve got a deadline for a book in three weeks.
HTML for Utter Beginners.
’

‘And to play. There are some mega parties you need to go to, especially mine on Friday. First, though, you
and I are having lunch with the creative director from Pearce Grey, the advertising agency who’s hired you for the Franco campaign. Her name’s Jane Miller. You’ll like her.’

At the name, Jonny sat up straighter and smothered a chuckle.

He knew Jane Miller. And he definitely liked her.

In fact, he’d wanted to marry her since he was nine.

‘Sounds perfect,’ he said, pushing his glasses back on and clicking open his email program on his laptop. He’d already emailed Jane once today, this morning before he’d caught the train, but this called for another message.

‘Just one thing, Jonny?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Put in your contact lenses before we get to London, or I’ll call you Clark Kent by mistake.’

‘No problem,’ said Jonny, and started to type.

Subject: Today

Hey Jane, remember I said I was coming to London if you wanted to meet up? Turns out we’re meeting after all. I have something to confess to you: I’m moonlighting as a model, and you’ve got a lunch date today with my agent Thom Erikson and me.

He smiled. It felt good to come clean about his double life to someone else.

He glanced over at Thom, who was absorbed in his organiser again.

Jonny remembered Jane as a kid. She’d been vibrant, exciting and full of adventure, as outgoing as her four older brothers. She’d looked like a naughty porcelain doll, with her long wavy hair and her sparkling grey eyes.

Jane was up for a little bit of intrigue. She could keep this secret; in fact, she’d probably think it was fun.

Thing is, when I’m modelling, I’m known as Jay Richard instead of Jonny Cole. When we’re with other people, would you mind calling me Jay? It sounds weird, but I’ll explain it to you when we get a minute by ourselves. Looking forward to seeing you again. Love, Jonny.

As he hit the send button, he wondered if Jane Miller was still as adventurous as she used to be.

He hoped so.

Jane walked into the Covent Garden bistro and glanced around its trendy interior. She didn’t see Thom Erikson, or the model she’d hired through him to be the face of
Giovanni Franco’s new cologne. Then again, of the two of them, she’d only met Thom in person—she’d seen the model in glossy photographs she’d gone through with her art director, so she might not recognise him in real life. From seven years of working in advertising, she knew very well that appearances didn’t always reflect reality.

It was a lesson she’d been wrestling with constantly for the past week.

At least lunch would be enjoyable, she thought as the hostess led her to the table she’d reserved. She liked Thom, and it was always interesting to meet models, as long as they weren’t chain smokers. They had odd quirks and they were good to look at, and Thom’s models tended to have a sense of humour.

Wouldn’t it just show Gary if I ended up dating a model?
she thought, and snorted. She came up with crazy ideas all the time for her job, but this was probably one of the craziest. As if a model would ever notice her enough to ask her out.

Jane pulled her BlackBerry out of her briefcase, figuring she might as well use the time as she waited for Thom and Jay Richard. This morning had been hard work; she deserved a minute or two to look for an email from Jonny.

Her machine took a moment to connect, and when she looked up a man was smiling at her.

He had dark hair and he wore a loose white shirt, unbuttoned at the cuffs. His hands were in the pockets of his faded jeans. He stood casually, comfortably, looking straight at her, and his eyes were dark blue. Even across the room she could see it.

Jane’s fingers gripped her BlackBerry hard. This was her model. It must be, he looked so familiar. But, somehow, in a different way than she’d expected. It wasn’t like recognising someone from a photo. The sight of him connected inside her stomach, making her joints ache and her breasts tighten. Her tailored suit stifled her, felt too tight across her chest.

He had perfect teeth, sculpted lips, high cheekbones, and he wasn’t just smiling at her, he was beaming.

Jane couldn’t help it. She flicked her head to the side, looking over her shoulder to see who was behind her, because men this gorgeous did not
beam
at her.

When she looked back he was striding across the restaurant, nearly at her table, his hand outstretched.

And then he was there. In front of her, holding her hand in his, though she didn’t remember offering it.

‘Jane,’ he said, his head tilted slightly to the side, his smile digging creases into the side of his mouth. His voice was deep, soft, and friendly.

The sound of her name in his mouth did something to her blood because she felt as if she had too much of it,
heating her skin, pumping her heart harder, tingling in her fingertips and chest.

‘Yes.’ She stood on weak legs, hearing her voice shaky and realising, somewhere in the back of her boiling brain, that she should really try to control her behaviour before she made herself look like an idiot. But this man …

‘You look different from your photographs,’ she said.

‘I really hope so,’ he said, and the warmth in his eyes and his hand made her swallow, hard.

‘Dude, you found her!’

A man in a white linen suit burst out of nowhere. He clapped the gorgeous man on the shoulder and kissed Jane on both of her cheeks. ‘Hey, Jane, great to see you, babe. I see you know Jay already.’

‘Thom,’ she said, in confusion, and then realised that she was still holding the model’s hand. ‘It’s great to meet you, Jay,’ she said, giving his hand a shake, trying to inject some professionalism into the gesture that was, for her, quite frankly sensual.

His hand enfolded hers, warm and dry, and it was as if she could feel every line of his palm, every print of his fingertips against her. It was more than a handshake. She felt as if she
knew
him.

She met his eyes again and he was smiling as if he shared a secret with her.

He knew. He knew he made her feel this way.

‘I’m glad to meet you too, Jane,’ he said, and his voice was knowing, too. ‘It looks as if we interrupted your emailing.’ He glanced down at her BlackBerry, where her emails had loaded.

‘Oh, not at all,’ she said, dropping his hand at last and scooping up her BlackBerry to close it down. She couldn’t help glance back up at his face, though, and when she did, he winked at her.

Winked. As if they were already friends, as if he were flirting with her. He stepped behind her and pulled out her seat for her—not that she needed it, she had just stood up—and before she could sink into it, he whispered, ‘You look even better than I thought you would.’

Oh-h-h. She got it, now. He was a charmer, someone who thought that his good looks gave him the right to flatter and flirt with every woman.

‘Thank you,’ she said, and if her attraction to him meant that she couldn’t quite inject her reply with the requisite coolness, he seemed to understand some of it, because he retreated to the other side of the table and sat down next to Thom.

Her body was disappointed. Her body, traitor that it was, wanted Jay to sit next to her and stay close to her. Her mind, however, registered that if she was sitting across from him, she’d be able to look at him for the entire meal, which was quite bad enough.

‘Jay’s very excited to be working on the Franco campaign with you,’ Thom was saying, and if it hadn’t been so weird she would have sworn that Thom dug an elbow into Jay’s side. ‘Aren’t you, Jay?’

‘Very,’ he said, and he caught Jane’s eye again. Jane couldn’t figure it out. It was as if he were trying to communicate some other message to her, something beyond the normal chit-chat of a professional meeting, something even beyond what must be, for him, routine flirting.