The Reluctant Nude - Meg Maguire [1]
“I apologize that I forgot your appointment,” he said. “I don’t usually have appointments.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“No matter. Refresh my memory, Miss Frost. Soon to be Mrs…?”
“Forrester,” she lied, stomach turning. Dear God, what a disgusting thought. The only thing that nauseated her more than that face-saving fib was her real motive for being here.
“And your fiancé didn’t come with you today?”
“No.”
Behind heavy black stubble, his mouth twitched—amused or offended, it was tough to pinpoint which. “Your fiancé is investing a great deal of money in this. Doesn’t he want a say in the piece?”
“He gave me a photo. To give you an idea of what he wants.” Fallon could feel herself blushing already.
Max Emery frowned outright. His eyes narrowed and his lips pursed in a lopsided scowl.
“Is that not…sufficient?” Fallon asked.
He ran a hand through his messy hair. “The money he’s offering can compensate. But I’m not impressed.”
Fallon decided it was the accent of a Frenchman who’d learned English in Great Britain. An accent that couldn’t help its own contemptuousness.
“Sorry,” she said again.
Max flapped a hand designed to dismiss her worries. “No matter. May I make you a coffee?” He didn’t wait for an answer.
Fallon watched him stroll to the far side of the cottage to a huge, industrial sink. He had a lazy way of moving that made it seem as though he’d just rolled out of a bed full of satisfied women. A photograph hung on the wall beside the cupboards, and he paused to kiss two fingers and press them to the frame as he passed.
The studio matched its denizen: dusty and a bit off. The walls that would have created individual rooms had been reduced to support beams, lending the house a cavernous, cathedral quality. What had formerly been an attic had been half-removed and converted to a loft, reached by the spiral staircase winding up from the center of the floor. Fallon saw a bed there, positioned under one of many skylights, a mess of sheets and blankets heaped on it. The other half of the studio, from which the attic had been entirely removed, was bathed in light from the proliferation of mismatched windows. Mullioned and louvered, some modern and some less so, they looked to have been scavenged from buildings of any and all types and relocated here, to this sunny patchwork of a residence. Fallon spotted an old, clawfooted enamel bathtub parked immodestly below a tall window in the rear of the house and felt her eyebrows rise.
A kettle wailed.
Max poured steaming water into a French press and grabbed a wooden folding chair from beside the stove. He approached Fallon and snapped it open, setting it at her side.
“Thank you.”
“Sugar?” he asked.
“No. Cream, if you have it.”
“No cream. Black coffee and red wine are normally the sacraments of this house,” he said, as if reciting a proverb. “But you may bring some next time, if you like.”
“Okay.” Fallon sat, clasping her hands, pretending to be entranced by the view through the front windows. In her periphery, Max crossed his arms over his chest, scrutinizing. She met his stare. He seemed to study her with detachment, as if she were some interesting object that he couldn’t quite identify.
“You’re not what I was picturing,” he said slowly.
Before she could echo these sentiments, he turned and walked back to the stove.
A minute later Fallon accepted a chipped mug filled with coffee so black she felt jittery just looking at it. Max dragged a stepladder over and perched on the second step, wrapping an arm around his knees.
He blew the steam off his cup. “So. Do you have this photo of the pose your fiancé is envisioning?” His baritone voice was smooth and rough at the same time, like cement.
“Yes.” Dread gurgled in Fallon’s stomach as she rooted through her canvas tote and withdrew the magazine clipping.
Max took it and studied it and frowned so deeply it bordered on disgust. “This is a joke.”
“No, it’s what he wants.” Fallon agreed that the photo was risqué, a pin-up to say the least, but she hadn’t expected this strong a reaction. She’d seen Max Emery’s work online—nudes,