‘I have to go, Isabel,’ her mother was saying. ‘Your father and I were just having a bite to eat before we go down the club. When will you be home? Will you be eating with us tonight?’
Isabel had been living with her parents during the last few weeks leading up to the wedding. She’d quit her flat, plus her job as receptionist at the architectural firm where Luke worked, content to become a career wife and home maker after their marriage. She and Luke were going to try for a baby straight away.
‘As far as I know,’ she told her mother whilst she continued to watch the man opposite with unreadable eyes. ‘Unless Luke comes back today and wants to go out somewhere. If he happens to ring, you could ask him. And tell him I’ll be back home by one at the latest.’
‘Will do. Bye, love.’
‘Bye, Mum.’
She clicked off the phone then bent down to tap it against the album on the coffee-table. ‘Very impressive,’ she said, giving him one of her super cool looks, the ones she fell back on when her thoughts were at their most shocking. Pity she couldn’t have rustled one up earlier when his barb about her wearing white at her wedding had sent a most uncharacteristic flush to her cheeks. Still, she was back in control now. Thank heavens.
She put down the phone and opened the album to a page which held a traditional full-length portrait of a woman in an evening gown. ‘I liked this portrait very much. If you feel you could reproduce shots like this, then you’re hired.’
‘I don’t ever reproduce anything, Isabel,’ he returned quite huffily. ‘I’m an artist, not a copier.’
Isabel’s patience began to wear thin. ‘Do you want this job or not?’ she threw at him.
‘As I said before, I’m doing this as a favour to Les. The question is…do you want me or not?’
Isabel’s eyes met his and she had a struggle to maintain her equilibrium. If only he knew…
‘I suppose you’ll have to do,’ she managed to say.
‘Such enthusiasm. When and where?’
How about here and now?
‘The wedding is at four o’clock at St Christopher’s Church at Burwood, a fortnight from today. And the reception is at a place in Strathfield called Babylon.’
‘Sounds exotic.’
It was, actually. Isabel had a secret penchant for the exotic. Though you’d never tell by looking at her. She always dressed very conservatively. But her favourite story as a child had been Aladdin, and she’d often dreamt of being a harem girl, complete with sexy costume and gauzy veils over her face.
‘Do you want me to come to your house beforehand?’ he asked. ‘A lot of brides want that. Though some are too nervous to pose well at that stage. Still, when I was doing weddings regularly, I developed a strategy for relaxing them which helped on some occasions.’
‘Oh?’ Isabel tried to stop her wicked imagination from taking flight once more, but it was a lost cause.
‘I’d give them a good…stiff…drink,’ he said between sips of his coffee.
How she kept a straight face, Isabel would never know.
‘I don’t drink,’ she lied.
‘Figures,’ he muttered, and she almost laughed.
He obviously thought she was a prude.
‘Don’t worry,’ she went on briskly. ‘I won’t be nervous. And, yes, I’m sure my mother will want you to come to the house beforehand. I’ll jot down the address and phone number for you.’ She pulled out a pen from her bag, plus a spare business card from her hairdresser, and wrote her parents’ details on the back.
‘What say you arrive on the day at two?’ she suggested as she handed it over to him, then stood up.
He put down his coffee, stared at the card, then stood up also.
‘Is this your regular hairdresser?’ he asked.
The question startled her. ‘Yes, why?’
‘Did they do your hair today?’
‘No. I did it myself. I only go to a hairdresser when I want a cut. I like to do it myself.’ Aside from the money it cost, she wasn’t fond of the way some hair-dressers had difficulty following instructions.
‘So you’ll be doing your hair on your wedding day?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not like that, I hope,’ he said as he slipped the card into his shirt pocket.
Isabel bristled. ‘What’s wrong with it like this?’
‘It’s far too severe. If you’re going to have it up, you need something a little softer, with some pieces hanging around your face. Here. Like this.’
Before she could step away, or object, he was by her side, his fingers tugging at her hair and touching her cheeks, her ears, her neck.
It was one thing to keep her cool whilst she was just thinking about him, quite another with his hands on her. His fingertips were like brands on her skin, leaving heated imprints in her flesh and sending quivery ripples down her spine.
‘Your hair seems quite straight,’ he was saying as he stroked several strands down in front her ears. ‘Do you have a curling wand?’
‘No,’ she choked out, knowing she should step back from him but totally unable to. She kept staring at the V of bare skin in his open-necked shirt and wondering what he would look like, naked.
‘I suggest you buy one, then. They’re cheap enough.’
Her eyes lifted to find he was studying not her hair so much, but her mouth. For one long, horribly exciting moment, Isabel thought he was going to kiss her. She sucked in sharply, her lips falling apart as a shot of excitement zinged through her veins. But he didn’t kiss her, and she realised with a degree of self-disgust that she’d just been hoping he would.
But what if he had? came the appalling thought. What if he had?
Just the thought of risking or ruining what she had with Luke made her feel sick.
‘I must go,’ she said, and bent to pick up her bag, the action forcing his hands to drop away from her face. By the time she’d straightened he’d stepped back a little. But she had to get out of there. And quickly.
‘If I don’t hear from you,’ she added brusquely, ‘then I will expect you to show up at my parents’ home at two precisely, a fortnight from today. Please don’t be late.’
‘I am never late for appointments,’ he returned.
‘Good. Till then, then?’
He nodded and she swept past him, her bag brushing against him as she did so. She didn’t apologise, or look down. She kept going, not drawing breath till she was in her car and on the road home.
Relief was her first emotion once his place was well out of sight. Then anger. At herself; at the Rafe Saint Vincents of this world; and at fate. Why couldn’t Les have recommended a photographer like himself, a happily married middle-aged conservative bloke with three kids and a paunch?
When a glance in the rear-vision mirror reminded her she had bits of hair all over the place, courtesy of her Lord and Master, she pulled over to the kerb and pulled the pins out of her French roll, shaking her head till her hair fell down around her face like a curtain.
‘Maybe you’d like me to wear it like this!’ she stormed as she accelerated away again. ‘Lucky for me it isn’t longer, or you’d be suggesting I do a Lady Godiva act at my wedding. I could be the first bride ever to be photographed in the nude!’
She ranted and raved about him for a while, then at the traffic when it