Chapter 9
“Well, this is a total disaster,” Carly muttered, brushing her hair away from her mouth, only to have it blown right back into her face for the hundredth time. A few strands stuck stubbornly to her lip gloss as the wind whipped around her.
Their first attempt at a photo shoot wasn’t going well at all. The location Nick had chosen was a rocky cliffside in a national park near Manly, with sweeping views of the harbor hundreds of feet below. It was beautiful and forbidding, with clumps of gray-green scrub that looked like the only plant life that could survive up here. It was also extremely windy. Why had Nick decided that it was a good idea to hike to the edge of a cliff on a windy day and ask her to do an arabesque on a craggy rock? Carly had no idea.
“Make it an attitude. And can you cheat it a bit to the left?” he called from ten feet away. Carly obliged, bending her free leg and pulling her hip back so that her foot rose a little higher into the air and less of her torso was facing the camera.
“My left,” he called, sounding annoyed. She rolled her eyes as she made the adjustment. “It’s a pretty good lens, so I saw that.”
She rolled her eyes even bigger this time, to make sure he really got the shot. He pulled the camera down, then squinted at the screen. “Nice, really nice,” he yelled sarcastically. “You look like you’re about to faint.”
Or get thrown into the ocean by the next strong gust. Maybe, Carly thought, that was his plan. It would look like an accident if she toppled into Sydney Harbor in the middle of an arabesque. She brought her foot down and crossed her arms over her chest.
“What step is that?” Nick called.
“Pas de douche,” Carly muttered as the wind plastered several of her curls to her cheek again. She pulled them out of her face and glared over at him.
“Can you give me a Giselle penché? The big one, from the second act?”
He must be out of his mind. If she stood out here on one leg, with her free foot pointing at the sky and her body lowered almost to the ground, she was going to be swept off the side of the cliff for sure.
“I’ve never danced Giselle,” she yelled back. One of twenty-four identical wilis? She’d danced that role plenty of times, standing stock-still in a line along the side of the stage while Heather or one of the other principals danced in the middle of it.
It was Nick’s turn to roll his eyes. “You still know how to do a penché, though. Or is it just not very good?”
Carly scowled. Nick didn’t know what he was talking about. She had an excellent penché, thank you very much. She took a step forward, making sure there weren’t any loose rocks under her supporting foot before lifting her other foot behind her, raising it as high as she could before she needed to lower her body to accommodate the movement. When her leg wouldn’t go any further, she stopped, and for good measure she clasped her hands in front of her chest, just as she’d seen Heather and all the other Giselles do in the second act pas de deux.
“See, was that so hard? You’ve got a very nice penché,” Nick called, sounding smug.
I know I do, she wanted to yell at him, but she’d lose her balance if she turned her head. The sneaky bastard had goaded her into doing exactly what he wanted, and he knew it.
After a moment, her lower back began to ache with the effort of holding the position, and she brought her leg down slowly.
“Okay, try the Odette thing, with the wings,” he called, putting one foot behind him and raising one hand to the sky, resting his head against his bicep.
“Also never danced Odette.” A nameless swan? Many times. But before he could goad her into doing it, she did her best impression of the famous swan pose, with her front leg in a deep bend and her other leg extended long behind her. She raised one arm like Nick had, placing the other hand in front of her body, hovering over the place where a white tutu skirt would have been had she been in costume. “How’s that?” she asked, as though Nick’s opinion mattered. There was a long silence as he scrutinized her.
“Tilt your chin up,” he called eventually, and she ignored the absence of praise and lifted her head slightly.
“Up and to the right,” he corrected, and she tried. “No,” he called, and Carly closed her eyes to keep from rolling them. Presumably, being a stickler for detail was an asset in a photographer, but surely it wouldn’t be good for him if his model got blown off a cliff while he fussed about the precise angle of her chin.
She was about to say all this when she caught a waft of spice and citrus, and when she opened her eyes, Nick was a foot away from her, his stupidly handsome face creased in a frown.
“Like this,” he said, tilting his own chin up and to the side. Carly held her breath and did her best to imitate him, then raised one eyebrow impatiently. He merely frowned down at her, as if nothing about her pleased him. Well, the feeling was mutual. And she was losing patience.
“Just show me, then,” she snapped, gesturing to one of his hands.
“Fine,” he replied shortly, and before she could think better of her suggestion, his hands were on her jaw, guiding her into place. His fingertips were cool and his touch light, but Carly’s skin was suddenly burning in every place he touched her. Out of irritation, she thought. Because he was pedantic and fussy and refused to be satisfied. She swiveled her eyes up to his face, careful not to move her head at all, and saw him looking at her with intense focus, a shallow frown between his eyebrows. Up this close, she could practically count each of his unfairly long eyelashes.
“Am I perfect yet?” she asked sarcastically.
Nick’s fingers froze on her face, and he pulled them away. It didn’t stop her skin from buzzing. “That’ll do,” he replied tersely, taking a step away from her, and she gritted her teeth.
“Get the shot, then.”
“One second, I just want—” Just then, a huge gust of wind swept over the cliff and slammed into Carly’s back. She let out a little shriek as she toppled over, grabbing Nick by the shoulders and sending him stumbling backward. For a moment she thought they were both going to tumble onto the hard, rocky ground, but Nick regained his footing and righted himself, and she was able to stop herself from falling.
“You’re a menace,” he muttered
“That wasn’t me, that was the wind,” she objected. “And I’m not the one who wanted to take photos in the eye of a hurricane.”
“The eye is the calm part. It’s the rest of the hurricane that’s dangerous,” he shot back, and as she let out a frustrated growl, he turned away and she heard him mutter something that sounded a lot like human hurricane.
“Can we please go somewhere less windy? I don’t want to die today.” But I might commit murder.
“Sure,” he said shortly, sounding defeated, and then he was stalking away from her back toward the car.
“God, that was a nightmare. Why did you want to trek all the way out there?” she asked, joining him in the front seat a few minutes later.
He stopped and looked over at her, his eyes a dark inky blue now that they were out of the sun.
“I thought the shots would look good,” he said simply, putting the keys in the ignition. As if the discomfort and danger were irrelevant as long as the photos came out well.
“That’s the most ballet dancer thing I’ve ever heard,” Carly said. “Who cares what it feels like, as long as it looks good?”
He gave a grim laugh, and Carly idly wondered if he ever laughed for real. Like a good, from-your-gut, throw-your-head-back-and-cackle kind of laugh. Or was it all sharp, humorless laughs like that one?
“Anyway, do they?” she asked.
“Do they what?” he said, as they rolled down the hill and back, she assumed, toward Freshwater.
“Look good? The photos?”
“God, you’re not impatient at all, are you?” he shook his head. “You can’t wait until we get back?”
“Only if you drive faster,” she said. In response, he pumped the brakes, and they both lurched forward in their seats. He winced, and she had a feeling the sudden stop had pressed on his bruises.
“Serves you right,” she said tartly, and his silence suggested he agreed with her. “Can I please just see what you got?”
“Fine,” he sighed, and he pulled the car to the side of the road and threw it into park. He reached behind him and pulled his camera case off the back seat, and she reached for it.
“Absolutely not,” he said sternly. “I’m not letting you hold it.”
“Why, you think I’m going to try to steal it?” she shot back sarcastically, her eyebrows raised and her eyes wide. “I already tried that, remember, and you caught me, Interpol.”
“No, but I’m sure you’ll find some other way to wreak havoc,” he replied, “and I can’t have that. None of this works if my camera doesn’t work. So just let me hold it, okay?”
Carly looked at him, torn between irritation and impatience. This close to him, she could see a few fine creases around his eyes and smell the spicy cologne she was coming to associate with him. And with this very particular blend of frustration. He was watching her, waiting to see if she was going to accept his terms.
She gave a small eye roll of assent, and he gave a reluctant little nod, then opened the bag and switched the camera on.
Nick busied himself with the camera, taking his time putting the bag back on the back seat and pulling up the photos he’d taken of Carly on the North Head cliffs. He’d been planning to drive home as slowly as possible, to put off the moment when he’d have to show her the photos. But he should have known that her fierce impatience would wreck that plan. So he’d insisted on holding the camera and counted on her being insulted. With any luck, she’d get into a signature Carly huff and decide that she didn’t want to see the shots after all, if he wasn’t going to trust her with his Nikon. But she’d surprised him—well, her annoyed little eye roll hadn’t surprised him one bit, but the rest of it had. She’d stared him down, her mouth set in a firm, stubborn line and her eyes locked on his, and then given in.
His thumb shook slightly as he scrolled through the images now, and he hoped she wouldn’t notice. He wished he’d come up with another excuse, and another one after that, but he’d been caught off guard. Everything about Carly seemed to catch him off guard, and now here they were, each with one elbow on the armrest, craning their heads over the camera so she could look at his photos right in front of him.
His pulse sped up as she scrolled through the first few shots, some warm-ups he’d taken of her before she’d started posing. It had been an unpleasant walk up to the edge of the headland, and it had been windy as hell up there, but the view from the edge of cliffs was as striking as he’d remembered. The Sydney skyline in one direction, and the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean in the other. As dramatic and iconic views went, he’d thought it was a good place to start.
But now, this entire exercise seemed like a colossal mistake, and his heart was hammering in protest. It had been months since he’d let anyone see his photos, and it was hard not to think about the last time he’d tried. He’d shown Delphine a shot he’d taken during a dress rehearsal at the Opera Garnier, one of the best he’d taken since he’d gotten serious about photography, or so he’d thought. She’d frowned down at it for a good thirty seconds and finally managed a “beuhhhh,” the French verbal equivalent of a shrug. After that, he’d stopped asking her if she wanted to see what he was working on, and so she never saw another of his photos. It wasn’t like she’d made a practice of asking to look at them.
He swallowed hard, and reminded himself that it didn’t matter if Carly hated the photos. He didn’t need her good opinion, and if they were truly terrible, they could go to some other location and try again. She needed this as much as he did, and as she’d told him this morning, he was her last resort. So she wasn’t in a position to criticise or get picky. Still. He swallowed again.
After a few tense seconds of scrolling, she stopped and leaned closer to the camera, squinting slightly. She was close enough that one of her errant curls bobbed close to his face when she cocked her head, threatening to tickle the tip of his nose.
“Hmmm,” she mused. He couldn’t tell what the sound meant, and he was too anxious to ask. She saved him the trouble. “I really like this one,” she said, and as relief bloomed in Nick’s chest, she pulled back so that he could see the screen.
He’d caught her at the height of her attitude, balanced on one leg with the other one raised and wrapped behind her body, her hair blown back off her face and away from her long neck. He’d been right to get her to cheat to the left; it made her look like she was a second from tipping over and toppling off the rock. But the look she was giving the camera made it clear that she wasn’t coming down until she decided to. Despite his anxiety, he’d gotten at least one good shot out of this day.
She leaned forward to look at the camera again, and this time her hair did catch him on the nose. It smelled like the bouquets of roses the stage managers kept stashed backstage to give to principal dancers on opening night, but smokier somehow, and less delicate. He became aware that the sun was beating down on the little car, making the air feel stuffy and the backs of his knees itch with sweat.
“I look really good here,” she said, leaning back and gesturing at the camera. “I mean, you made me look really good. And the view from the cliff looks incredible behind me, and even the wind really works. It’s so dramatic.”
“Euh, thanks?” he half asked, the stream of compliments making his cheeks flush and something uncomfortably pleasant crawl in his chest.
He looked at her, waiting for the other sarcastic shoe to drop. Surely she was going to find something to criticise or complain about, some way to blow up this otherwise perfectly nice interaction. All available evidence would suggest that was what was about to happen. But instead, she just said, “Let’s post it.”
“Oh, I should edit them first,” he objected. It was one thing for her to see them, but he needed to make sure they were perfect before anyone else did.
“We don’t have time for that,” she said, shaking her head dismissively. “And who cares if it’s not perfect? Let the people see my grubby sneakers and stretch marks on my inner thighs. Authenticity is what clicks anyway, right?”
“Euh,” he started, but he had no idea what to say to that. He hadn’t noticed any stretch marks on her inner thighs, but suddenly they were all he could think about. Maybe he should start the car and put the air con back on.
“Come on, we don’t have time to tinker and retouch. If this plan is going to work, we have to start posting these photos ASAP,” she said. “Besides, this is really good; it doesn’t need editing. I promise you. Can I see the rest?”
He knew she was only praising him because she was in a hurry, and she wasn’t really praising him at all, just this one photo. Still. He picked up the camera and held it out to her.
“You’re sure?” she asked, eyeing him skeptically.
“Sure,” he said. “How much damage can you possibly do?”
“You’d be surprised,” she muttered, taking the camera.
“No. I wouldn’t,” he said archly, and she chuckled, but turned her attention to the camera.
He watched as she scrolled through the images for a few minutes, watching her forehead crease and her lips purse as she assessed the other photos he’d taken. He’d just realized he was staring when she burst out laughing, tossing her head back as the loud, joyful sound filled the car.
“What’s so funny?” he said, craning his neck to see which photo had incited that response. She giggled, the high-pitched sound so different from her deep, almost scratchy voice, and held it up for him to see.
She’d stopped on a frame he’d taken just as a gust of wind had thrown her hair right across her face, so her entire head looked like a red curly blur. But beneath the fuzzy red ball that was her head, her body was all sharp, long lines. Her arms were thrown out at a low angle at her sides, energy radiating from her shoulders all the way down through her fingertips, just the way dance teachers always demanded. One of her legs was extended behind her, her foot pointed in her sneaker, and a slight bend in her front leg was making the muscles in her thigh bulge beneath the hem of her shorts. She was a picture of utter chaos and absolute control.
“Not the best shot in the set,” he said. “Maybe we shouldn’t post that one.”
“I think it’s hilarious,” she replied, grinning back at him, her lips glistening and her eyes alight with amusement. “Is that really what I look like?”
Yes, he thought, as he turned away from her and turned the key in the ignition. That is exactly what you look like.