Lessons in Laughing Out Loud (25 page)

“You forget how nice real life is sometimes,” India said, propping herself up on one elbow. “So, anyway, I’ve decided I’m not going to get you fired.”

“Thank you,” Willow said, hearing the front door shut, presumably behind Sam. She had missed her chance to say goodbye again, to regain some of that even keel they’d barely had a chance to establish before Daniel had left his message.

“Was that rugged and handsome man out there Chloe’s dad?” India asked.

“Handsome, don’t be sick,” Chloe said, appearing in the doorway. She seemed a little better, settled, which meant, Willow hoped, that she and her dad had parted on reasonably good terms.

“I’m sorry I asked you to look after the baby,” Chloe said. “I was rushing in, thinking this was a film or something. I shouldn’t have just landed the idea on you like that. I should have worked up to it.”

“Don’t be sorry, it was such a lovely thought,” Willow said.

“Oh, I still want you to adopt. I’m just saying, there’s no rush for you to agree. You can take your time, we’ve got twelve weeks!”

“Breaking news, I see,” India observed, with a watery smile. “I must say it comes to something when one is upstaged right in the middle of one’s own personal tragedy.”

The three lost women looked at one another for a moment and then, finally, India got up from the bed, dragging Willow with her.

“Oh fuck it, let’s have a group hug and then break open some chocolate. Just don’t you two fatties squash me flat.”

Chapter
           Eleven

“A
re you naked under that coat?” asked Daniel, grinning, as Willow walked into his studio. As promised, four heaters were plugged in.

“Here”—he handed her a large glass of wine—“I figure you’re going to need this before we start. You know, shooting Kayla is a nightmare. I mean, she’s beautiful, a real pro. She’s got it all going on, the camera loves her and all that jazz. But when it came to doing something a bit different, a bit artistic, she turned the Three Graces into a catalog shoot. This is why she will never make a cover girl. She’s got no pizzazz.”

Willow raised her brows, folding her arms in front of her. “So if the actual model has let you down, there’s not much hope for me, is there?”

“Depends.” Daniel winked at her. “So, are you naked under there, or do you want me to take the fur?”

“Hang on.” Willow gulped the wine down in one go and handed the glass back to Daniel. “Top that up and you can have the coat.”

“Willow”—Daniel chuckled—“this is strictly professional. It’s not a game of strip poker!”

“I know that! More wine, please.” She paced up and down, glancing around just in case Serious James was hiding anywhere or Kayla had decided to stay on to chaperone.

“No need to worry, it’s just us,” Dan said. “Look, if you’re going to back out, do it now, okay. Don’t make me spend time lighting you and then back out.”

“Okay, okay.” Willow took her coat off.

“That’s not quite going to cut it, darling,” Dan said.

“Well, can’t you light me now, with my clothes on? That way I don’t have to be naked for ages, freezing my bits off.”

“I can’t.” Daniel was apologetic. “I have to get luminosity right, bounce the light off your skin.” He took the glass out of her hand. “There’s a screen over there and a robe. Don’t be nervous—remember what Kayla said? I’m not looking at
you
. I’m just looking at the shapes your body makes.”

“Fine,” Willow said, feeling a thrill of anticipation wrought with anxiety. “Right, fine.”

“Oh, and Willow,” Daniel called after as she headed toward the screen, “keep the shoes on.”

Willow was grateful that Daniel had not put a mirror behind the screen; that way at least she could keep the image of herself that she had seen in her own bathroom mirror in her mind’s eye without having it ruined by good lighting or an accurate reflection. She kept her arms over her breasts as she stepped out in the thin cotton robe, finding Daniel peering into his camera and messing about with some piece of equipment she didn’t recognize.

“Great,” he said, suddenly very businesslike. “So you sit here, with your back to me, like so. Okay, look over your shoulder at the camera. Hold that for a minute. Great. Robe off.”

Willow felt the heat flare in her cheeks as she slipped the robe off, lifting her bottom a little to allow the gown to fall to the floor in a liquid pool of fabric. This would be okay, she told
herself. Her back was to him, he would see barely anything besides her enormous arse.

“Beautiful,” Daniel said. “The curve of your waist, into your hip. It’s perfect. Hold on.”

The next thing Willow knew he was standing next to her, his fingers under her chin as he tilted her face a little more toward the light. Kayla was right; he wasn’t looking at her at all, he was only concerned with the light on her cheek. There had been more sexual tension between her and Sam in her flat than there was here.

Willow allowed herself to breathe out a little. But only a little—she was still concentrating rather hard on holding her tummy in.

“That’s it, now you need to bend this arm back a little. Great. Hold it there, while I adjust this lamp.” Returning to his camera, Willow waited as he took a few shots.

“Oh, Will, darling, this is looking so good.”

Daniel approached her once more, rearranging a strand of her hair, and stepped back to regard her, his fingers on his chin. “Can you remember that exact pose? If you can remember it, you can come out of it for a second while I get another prop I want to try out. If not, you need to stay here.”

“I can remember,” Willow said, rubbing the back of her neck as Daniel disappeared into the depths of his studio. As odd as it was to find herself here in this big, almost empty room, nude under the glare of the lights, she suddenly found that she was totally relaxed. It might be the wine, of course, but perhaps for the first time in her life, Willow felt almost comfortable about displaying nudity, even with Daniel’s eyes on her. For most of her life she had felt nothing but shame and even repulsion for her own body, and yet at that moment she felt more comfortable in her own skin than she could ever remember feeling before. Daniel looking at her dispassionately down the lens was
somehow sexier than if he’d lunged at her the moment she arrived. She was beautiful; he’d said so. He probably said that to every single model who had ever stood in front of his camera, but Willow didn’t mind that. When he said it that way, as if it were a simple fact, then she felt that it was true.

And it was nice to feel beautiful.

She shook her hair out over her shoulders, tipping back her chin so that she could feel the tresses trail along her back.

“Here we go.” Daniel returned with an armful of cosmetics and spent several moments arranging them in carefully organized disarray on the dressing table in front of her. He was smiling when he turned around, but as he caught sight of her he stopped and the look on his face changed.

All at once Willow felt awkward, uncertain; she felt the fold of her tummy, the dimpling of flesh over her hip. The relaxed sense of beauty she’d briefly enjoyed vanished as Daniel inspected her, his eyes roaming over her breasts, her hips and legs.

Desperate for his observation to be over, Willow prompted him.

“Bloody hell, get on with it then!” she said, her voice sounding rather strangled.

Blinking as if awakened from a trance, Daniel dipped his head and turned his back on Willow for a second as he rearranged the cosmetics once again, moving them like chess pieces before returning them to almost exactly their original position.

When he turned around, he was back to his old self.

“You can’t hurry art, Will. You should know that. Strike a pose, Madonna.” His voice was easy and playful as he approached her, but even so there was a new tension hovering in the air as he tilted her chin this time, pushing his hand into the small of her back to accentuate the curve. “And this arm needs to go back a little more.”

As he moved her, the back of his hand brushed the side of her breast. Willow closed her eyes as a frisson, ever so slight, of excitement shivered through her. She dared not look at him. Nothing about him was discernible now. Had she pleased him, horrified him? Willow could not tell. She only knew that when he had looked at her and saw
her,
everything had changed.

“Perfect. Stay perfectly still.” Daniel traced the tips of his fingertips down her spine, a caress that Willow wondered if she had imagined. She sat perfectly still as his fingers repeated the journey, trailing over her shoulder blades, grazing her waist, brushing over the top of her bottom. She sensed a moment of hesitation before she felt his other hand on her thigh traveling upward.

“Daniel . . .” Willow felt his fingers creep back up to the nape of her neck; she felt them entwine in her hair, sensed his breath on the back of her neck. His other hand rose toward the swell of her breast.

“You feel amazing,” he whispered, and Willow felt his lips on the back of her shoulder. One moment longer and she would be in his arms. This was it. This was exactly how she wanted it.

Only now that the moment was here, she was terrified of it.

“Daniel!” Willow stood up abruptly, knocking Daniel off balance so that he stumbled and fell against the mannequin he’d positioned, toppling it over. Willow grabbed the robe off the floor and held it in front of her.

Daniel steadied himself and took a breath, looking utterly stunned.

“God, Willow, I’m so sorry . . . I thought . . .”

“What?”

“I thought you wanted me to . . .”

Willow bit her lip. “So did I. Something’s happened to me in the last few days, Daniel. I’ve changed, or I’m changing. I feel like I’ve been stuck for years and years in once place, and
then I took a wrong turn and I found these shoes, and they are just shoes, I know that, but since I found them everything’s changed. I’ve changed. It’s almost like everything I’ve been wishing for the last few years has started to come true, and it’s too much. Chloe’s at home . . .”

“Little Chloe? Your ex’s kid, Chloe?” Daniel ran his fingers through his hair, struggling to keep up. “Aren’t you banned from seeing her?”

“Yes, she found me, and she’s fifteen now and pregnant, so . . .”

“Are you kidding me?”

“It’s a lot to take in, I know . . . and I saw Sam today. . . .”

“Whoa.” Daniel’s expression changed again, this time to become a little petulant. “So how was that?”

“It was quite . . . intense. I don’t know. It ended so abruptly between us—we never had a chance to tie up loose ends, talk it through. We spoke for a few minutes today and I already feel like I understand what happened so much more. I wanted to do this, but I can’t be here, like this.” Willow looked down at herself, still sheltering behind the robe. “Not when they are back at the flat waiting for me.”

“They? Sam’s there too?” Daniel paced, turning his back on Willow long enough for her to hurriedly slip on the robe. He seemed lost in his thoughts for a moment, still trying to make sense of everything Willow was saying. When he spoke there was a hard edge to his voice. “He’s in your flat waiting for you?”

“No, it’s India Torrance.”

“Willow, am I drunk, or dreaming or something? India Torrance, who’s been fucking that actor guy, is in your flat?”

“Yes, keep up! She’s been hiding out at my place until Victoria got a handle on her story, and that information is strictly confidential, okay?”

Daniel shrugged, as if he felt the film star was incidental.
Willow took a breath, trying to untangle her feelings at the same moment as she was explaining them to Daniel.

“They need me, they both need me badly, especially now. But what did I do? I came here to take my clothes off for you, because I’ve wanted this and you, a lot, for a long time now. And you seeing me the way you did, touching me . . . if this was my only chance I didn’t want to miss it, I wanted to . . .”

“To conclude some unfinished business?” Daniel suggested, a little coolly.

“I thought, I thought maybe that was what I wanted. But . . .” Willow looked down at her shoes, which seemed so at home with her virtual nudity. “When you touched me I realized something pretty immense.”

“That I repulse you?” Daniel asked, wincing slightly as if either answer might be the wrong one.

“No! Daniel, I realized I want to be a mum.” The revelation came as much as a shock to Willow as it did to Daniel, whose face blanched.

“Okay, I’m all for a little bit of love between friends, but I’m not ready for fatherhood yet, you know? Maybe one day . . .”

“No, you nutter.” Willow laughed, relieved to have shocked him out of his unfamiliar intensity, if only for a moment. “I want to be in Chloe’s life. I want to be there for her, I want to be her mum again.” Willow kept talking as she went behind the screen and started to get dressed. “Do you know, today, she offered me her baby.”