More glad than she should have been that Chase didn’t so much as glance at Amanda’s perfect naked br**sts, Chloe got up out of her seat and came to get the dress. “Can you wait ten minutes?”
He looked down at the large tear. “You can have this fixed in ten minutes?”
She looked at it more closely, running her fingers along the tear. “I think so.” Satins and silks were always harder to work with because every hole the needle made showed, but she’d been eying the enormous sewing box all day. Now she finally had a reason to dig into it.
Chase called out for a break. She quickly threaded a needle with thin, transparent filament and began to work on the dress. She was so entranced by the soft fabric beneath her fingertips that it took her a few moments to realize Chase was sitting beside her.
“What would I do without you?”
She almost stabbed herself with the needle. Thankfully she was concentrating too hard to have to reply. Actually, she wasn’t concentrating all that hard. After the past year of doing side jobs for the local tailor for what amounted to little more than slave wages, she could sew up things like this in her sleep.
Only, it was more than a little unnerving to have Chase’s full attention like this.
“Don’t you have something else you need to be doing?”
She could feel his grin without needing to see it. “Just keeping my friend company while she does me a favor.”
Friends. He’d agreed to be her friend. So then, why was she a teeny bit disappointed that he hadn’t pushed her for more up on the hill?
No. That was crazy thinking. And she knew exactly where that kind of crazy would lead.
A bed…with Chase in it.
“I’d like to help more,” she told him. “You’ve been so kind to me and I wish there was something more I could do to repay you.”
“Chloe.” The serious way he said her name had her looking up at him. “I wanted to help. You don’t need to repay me for anything. Ever.”
The intensity of his gaze—the utter dedication and focus on her—nearly had her stabbing herself again with the needle.
“I need to concentrate on this,” she lied.
What she really needed was some breathing room from her budding feelings for him.
“Go check on something else,” she told him in her best no-nonsense voice.
Before she looked back down at the dress, she caught a flash of his gorgeous grin. A grin that told her he knew exactly why she was sending him away, darn it.
Ten minutes later, she helped Amanda put the dress back on and found herself blushing as everyone started clapping and telling her how great she was to have repaired it so quickly and so well.
It wasn’t long until the sun set and the models were really drooping.
“Let’s call it a day,” Chase said. “Great work, everyone.” He made sure to include her with his eyes, even though she’d barely done anything to help. “Really, really great.”
Chloe could see how much his praise meant to everyone. Including her.
“My brother, Marcus, is hosting all of us for dinner and drinks at his place tonight.” He pointed to the big house across the vineyard. “Jeremy, why don’t you take everyone over?”
Without being asked, Chloe helped the models out of their dresses, making sure to tell each one of them how impressed she was with the work they’d done. “How do you hold those poses for so long?”
Amanda was already on her cell phone, but Jackie, a shy “older” girl (who was barely twenty-one, but Chloe had already learned that was borderline ancient in their business), said, “I do a lot of yoga.”
The girl’s smile was beautiful and Chloe immediately grinned back at her.
“It was nice to have you on set,” Jackie said. “Kind of like having my mom here to take care of us.”
Chloe somehow managed to hold her grin.
She was only nine years older than Jackie. And yet, she supposed the model was right. If life experience was anything to go by, they were a century apart.
Jeremy loaded the huge van with trunks and racks of clothes and camera equipment, then called everyone together. “Are you coming, Chloe?”
She was tempted to go with the group, rather than stay behind with Chase. But she felt grimy. Even if she didn’t have nicer clothes to wear to Marcus’s house, the least she could do was smell better than this. A shower was definitely necessary.
“I’m going to freshen up a bit. I’ll see you all there soon.”
Freshen up a bit. Seriously, she even sounded like she was Jackie’s mom.
After everyone left, she turned to look for Chase. Thinking of him made her insides go soft and warm.
At first she couldn’t find him, and then she realized he was standing behind one of his big cameras…and it was pointed straight at her.
She instinctively put her hand over her cheek. Oh God, what was he doing? And what would he see? Would he be able to look beyond the ugly bruise and see that she was a quivering mess of jelly on the inside? Would he see what a coward she felt like for not having called the police yet, for just hiding out here with him and the models and his crew?
And would he see the feelings that had grown for him inside of her heart all day, despite the fact that she knew better than to feel anything at all?
Angry at him—and at herself for even caring in the first place—she started toward him. He’d already lowered the camera by the time she said, “I thought you put all your equipment away.”
“I always feel better if I’ve got at least one on me. Just in case there’s something I need to take a picture of.”
“You don’t need to take pictures of me.”
“I’ve never been able to resist photographing loveliness,” he said softly, before tucking the camera inside his bag. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
The look he gave her—warm and soft, yet full of a desire he didn’t bother to hide—had her realizing just how ridiculous she was being.
“It’s just with this bruise…” she began, lifting her hand to cover it again.
But before she could say anything more, he said, “You’re lovely.”
Her hand was halfway to her face when she realized she didn’t need to hide the bruise from him anymore. Because he didn’t seem to think it made her look ugly. And he didn’t seem to think it made her look weak, either.
Their slow walk back to the guest house through the darkness with only the moonlight to light their way felt impossibly romantic. Far more romantic than she could allow it to be.