She stared at him, amazed that he’d even have to ask. “I didn’t know you’d be the photographer.”
“That shouldn’t bother you. You smiled plenty for me once upon a time.”
She flinched, then caught herself. “That was a world away, Web.”
“Brian. I’m called Brian now … or Mr. Webster.”
“I look at you and I see Web. That’s why I can’t go through with this.”
“Funny,” he said, scratching the back of his head, another studied act, “I thought you’d be above emotionalism at this point in your life.” His hand dropped to his side. “You’re a powerful woman, Marni. A powerful businesswoman. You must be used to pressure, to acting under it. I’d have thought you’d be able to rise to the occasion.”
He was goading her, and she knew it. “I’m a human being.”
He mouthed an exaggerated “ahhhhh.”
“What do you want from me?” she cried, and something in her voice tore at him quite against his will.
His gaze dropped from her drained face to her neck, her breasts, her waist, her hips. He remembered. Oh, yes, he remembered. Sweet memories made bitter by a senseless accident and the vicious indictment of a family in mourning.
But that was in the past. The present was a studio, a production crew and equipment waiting, and a magazine cover to be shot.
“I want to take your picture,” he said very quietly. “I want you to pull yourself together, walk out into that studio and act like the publisher of this magazine we’re trying to get off the ground. I want you to put yourself into the hands of my staff, then sit in front of my camera and work with me.” His voice had grown harder again, though he barely noticed. Despite his mental preparation for this day, he was as raw, emotionally, as Marni was.
He dragged in a breath, and his jaw was tight. “I want to see if this time you’ll have the guts to stand on your own two feet and see something through.”
Marni’s head snapped back, and her eyes widened, then grew moist. As she’d done before, though, she blinked once, then again, and the tears were gone. “You are a bastard,” she whispered as she pushed herself to her feet.
“From birth,” he said without pride. “But I never told you that, did I?”
“You never told me much. I don’t think I realized it until now. What we had was … was …” Unable to find the right words when her thoughts were whirling, she simply closed her mouth, turned and left the room. She walked very slowly down the winding staircase, taking one step at a time, gathering her composure. He’d issued a challenge, and she was determined to meet it. He wanted a picture; he’d get a picture. Shewasthe publisher of this magazine, and, yes, she was a powerful businesswoman. Web had decimated her once before. She was not going to let it happen again.
By the time she reentered the studio, she was concentrating on business, her sole source of salvation. Anne rushed to her side and studied her closely. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
“God, I’m sorry, Marni. I didn’t realize that you knew him.”
“Neither did I.”
“Are you over the shock?”
“The shock, yes.”
“But he’s not your favorite person. You don’t know howawfulI feel. Here we’ve been shoving him at you—”
“But you were right, Anne. He’s a superb photographer, and he’s the right man forClass.My personal feelings are irrelevant. This is pure business.” Her chin was tipped up, but Anne couldn’t miss the pinched look around her mouth.
“But you didn’t want to be on the cover to begin with, and now you’ve got to cope with Brian.”
“Brian won’t bother me.” It was Web who would … if she let him. She simply wouldn’t allow it. That was that! “I think we’d better get going. I’ve got piles of things waiting for me at the office.”
Anne gave her a last skeptical once-over before turning and gesturing to Webster’s assistant.
In the hour that followed, Marni was shuttled from side room to side room. She submitted to having her hair completely done, all the while concentrating on the meeting she would set up the next day with the management of her computer division. She watched her face as it was cleaned, then skillfully made up, but her thoughts were on a newly risen distribution problem in the medical supplies section. She let herself be stripped, then dressed, but her mind was on the possibility of luring one particularly brilliant competitor to head Lange’s market research department. As a result, she was as oblivious to the vividly patterned silk skirt and blouse, to the onyx necklace, bracelet and earrings put on her as she was to the fact that the finished product was positively breathtaking.
The audience in the main room was oblivious to no such thing. The minute she stepped from the dressing room she was met by a series of “ooohs” and “ahhhs,” immediately followed by a cacophony of chatter.
But she was insulated. In the time it had taken for Webster’s people to make her camera-ready, she’d built a wall around herself. She was barely aware of being led to a high, backless stool set in the center of the seamless expanse of curving white wall. She was barely aware of the man who continued to poke at her hair, or the one who lightly brushed powder on her neck, throat and the narrow V between her breasts, or the woman who smoothed her skirt into gentle folds around her legs and adjusted the neckline of her blouse.
