CHAPTER FIVE
HISgaze narrowed, resting on her critically. “But if things were good there?”
Her lips compressed. He was being deliberately provocative. “They weren’t, they haven’t been good there in years. So I travel. Okay?”
“You still live with your family when you’re in Washington?”
“No way.” Tally shuddered. “Absolutely not. I have a loft in Seattle. Pioneer Square. It’s the historic district. Lots of artists and photographers have galleries there.”
“Do you have a gallery?”
“I used to.”
“And…?”
“I sold it to come here.” She smiled to hide the uneasiness inside of her. Even though she’d begun to find some critical, as well as commercial success as a photographer in downtown Seattle, studio work wasn’t her passion. Anyone could stage a scene, get the lighting just right. She needed greater challenges and bigger risks.
Paolo had said she needed the challenges and risks because she was always running away from herself—a statement that had annoyed her tremendously—but there was truth in it. She hadn’t been happy at home. She was still trying to understand what happy meant. Happy seemed to be a very hard concept at times.
“I want the memory cards back,” she said huskily, looking up, tears in her eyes, blurring her vision. “I want them back, and I know what you’ve told me, but I don’t accept it. There’s no way I’ll let you keep them or let you delete my work. I’ve spent weeks in Egypt, Morocco and Baraka photographing children. I’m not about to lose months of work because you disapprove.”
She drew a quick breath and reached up to swipe away tears before they could fall. “And if you don’t give them to me, when I get out of here, I will tell everyone what you did. I will put it in every magazine, and on every Internet site. I will do endless interviews and send thousands of e-mails. How you kidnapped me, held me hostage, threatened me, intimidated me, took my film—”
“Do you know that our people frown on the use of representational images?”
His quiet question silenced her. He leaned forward, dark gaze intense. “And this problem we have with images extends to photographs. Most of our people have an aversion to cameras, and photographs.”
“But no one’s had a problem with me taking pictures,” she said in a small voice.
“Are you sure? Or have you had to bribe your way into getting the shots you wanted? Money to this person, money to that person?”
Tally swallowed. “My work isn’t exploitative—”
“You photograph children and teenagers.”
“It’s a book about childhood, and the rites and passages of childhood.”
“What makes you think you can come here and photograph our children? Families here don’t even have photographs of their children. The few photographs we have are formal portraits and those usually commemorate a special occasion.”
“I didn’t realize. However—” She pushed hair from her face, shoving it behind her ear. “Tair, I understand your resistance to me including the children from the village in my book, but there are nearly three hundred shots on that card. They’re not allyour children and I’ve spent more than a year on this book. I must finish my book. I need to complete it.”
He said nothing. He simply looked at her and the silence grew long, stretching tautly between them.
“Why don’t you say anything?” she demanded.
“There’s nothing to say.”
“But there is. You can tell me when you’ll return the cards to me. You can tell me you’ve changed your mind. You can tell me I’ll soon be able to continue my work—”
“But that’s not true, so how can I say it?”
“You can’t really mean to keep me here!” The threat of tears was real and imminent. Tally closed her eyes, pressed the palms of her hands to her face. All her feelings of good will toward him disappeared. “I don’t want this,” she protested huskily. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want any of this.”
“But sometimes what we don’t want, is exactly what we need.”
“I will keep running away!”
“And I will keep bringing you back.”
“Why?”
“Maybe because I want you for me.”
Tair’s words hit her like ice water thrown in her face. She jerked upright, gasped, blinked, mouth opening and closing in shock and confusion.He wantedher?