Bowing my head, I put my hands on the waistband of my jeans. My hair slid over my shoulders, sending a shudder through me, and when I unbuttoned my jeans my fingers were trembling. With a shove, I pushed the denim down over my hips, letting it fall past my thighs to my knees, and I stepped out of my pants, the cool air pebbling the skin of my body. Now only my underwear remained, cheap, practical black cotton panties I'd bought on sale. Old habits die hard. I hooked my thumbs into the waistband and prepared to pull them down.
My hands wouldn't budge.
I bit my lip.
“Can I, uh, keep my underwear on?” I asked through the screen, cursing my cowardice as I did so. Couldn't even take it off for a photo shoot? What kind of artist am I?
“Sure.” Ward's voice floated around the screen, deep and rich. “Whatever you're comfortable with.”
Hating myself, I picked up the white satin and wrapped it around my body.
The fabric was long—very long, and wide, like a bridal train. I wondered where he'd managed to get it, but then I pushed the thought out of my mind. What did it matter? He was rich. He could get anything he damn well wanted. Taking a deep breath to brace myself, I slipped out from behind the screen, the fabric trailing over the floor behind me.
Ward was peering at his camera, adjusting some setting or other, and didn't notice me for a moment. I would have been content to watch him frown for an hour, but my reactions were starting to severely unsettle me, so I cleared my throat instead. He looked up. His cherry wood eyes widened.
“Wow,” he said.
I gave him my best bitch, please eye roll. I may have been susceptible to his charms, but I liked to think I wasn't that susceptible.
His mouth turned up. “I meant that you look different in white,” he said.
“Different from what?” I asked him. “We've known each other less than twenty-four hours. You haven't seen me in anything.”
“Black,” he said immediately. “And if I had to guess, you really like to wear black.”
“Of course I like to wear black. It goes with everything.”
He smiled, as if he knew something about me that I didn't, and I scowled back at him. “Let's just get started,” I snapped.
“Sure,” he said, and gestured for me to step onto the black backdrop, in front of the blinding lights.
Tossing my head back, I did so, dragging the stupid satin cloth behind me, keeping it wrapped around my chest so that it would cover the important bits. When I reached the center of the dark rectangle on the floor, I turned and flung my hair over my shoulder, giving him my dirtiest look.
Ward snapped a picture.
My mouth dropped open. “What the hell?” I demanded. “Aren't you going to warn me when you take a picture?”
“Well, you'll be on your guard now,” he said affably, inspecting the photo he'd just taken on his camera. “That was my only chance to capture the most raw you.”
For some reason, that made me even angrier. “Who said you could take pictures of the raw me?” I said. “That's personal!”
He blinked. “Isn't that what art is?” he asked. “Personal?”
“Personal for you.”
“You are personal for me. I find you fascinating.”
The fists clenching the satin around my body tightened, and as it did so his sharp cherry wood eyes honed in on it, and he lifted the camera again.
“Wait!” I said.
He halted and tilted his head at me. “Yes?”
“Just why do you find me fascinating? I know it's not because of my looks or whatever.” I mean, I hoped it was for my looks. I wouldn't mind being Felicia. I wouldn't mind being beautiful to someone.
He lowered the camera and appeared to think about this for a long moment, and the longer it stretched out the more nervous I got.
“I suppose because you are alive,” he said at last.
He really had a way of confusing me. “Everyone's alive. Except dead people.”
But he shook his head. “No. Not so. In that entire room of people last night, you were the only person who stood out to me against the crowd. You were alive.” He lifted the camera again and stepped in, closer and closer, crouching so that his camera was level with my breasts and honed in on my hands clutching the white fabric to my chest. I prayed he wouldn't notice how rapid my breathing became with his increasing proximity.#p#分页标题#e#
I licked my lips as he took a picture of my pale-knuckled hands. “That still doesn't make any sense,” I told him.
He backed up, and looked at me. And for a strange moment, I felt as though he was the only person who had ever really looked at me before. Looked, and saw.
“Then perhaps I recognized you,” he said. “From a past life. Perhaps we are bound together by the red thread of fate, as the Japanese say.” He paused. “A red thread. Red ribbon. You would look beautiful bound in red.”