Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
M att and Leah were sitting with their heads bent over the desk, eyes glued to the laptop screen in front of them. Maya came in and peered over their shoulders, munching on a chocolate biscuit. ‘Well?’ she asked, straightening the sunglasses that were perched on the top of her head as it was a scorching hot day outside. The perky little short red sundress she wore that day made her feel sexy and powerful, and she’d almost strutted to the flower shop. She felt like she’d shed her skin and the old anxious Maya had been peeled back and a sparkling new and more confident woman was emerging in her wake.
‘Hmm,’ said Matt, standing back and waiting for them all to do the same. ‘Later - we want gory details about your dirty weekend with Noah Benedict, but you were right about Gio’s potential as a No.1 Ethereal Lane model and business comes first.’
‘Yes!’ crowed Maya. ‘I told you!’ Matt grinned and Leah began dancing around the room and waving her arms in the air to the low hum of the music that was playing pop songs in the background.
‘It’s incredible!’ she sang. ‘We were wrong, and you were right. There are social media posts literally everywhere we look and people are podcasting and raving about Gio and your brand. He’s your most popular model…’ when Matt gave her a withering look, she hastily continued, ‘excluding Matt, of course – but he’s an entity of his own. Gio has taken the world by storm. You are literally making people’s careers by picking them as part of your brand, Maya. Nina - the model with him, looks like she’s already fallen under his spell - as have half of the population. The way he’s handing her the necklace as if she’s the only woman in the world, gives me goosebumps. I know Nina’s already popular with your other brand clients Matt, but bringing in Gio and No. 1 Ethereal Lane has made them both stratospheric. It’s incredible!' she breathed and then flopped in a chair for a moment, as if she’d worn herself out.
'Everyone is trying to book Gio to model for them now. Have you spoken to him?’ Leah stopped twirling her chair and paused for a moment. Clearly speaking and spinning at the same time was exhausting, as she was brushing her wild hair out of her eyes and tying it into a ponytail with the ribbon she sometimes kept in her pocket when she was working.
‘Uh, huh,’ said Maya, as she was still in a daze about her latest campaign success. ‘Obviously, he doesn’t know I’m his employer, but we met for a coffee because he can’t believe he’s been “randomly” selected out of everyone in the world when he’s got no modelling experience. I explained that I'd read in the newspapers that No. 1 Ethereal lane, have talent spotters everywhere. We spent hours chatting about it, and I convinced him to take the job, thank goodness! He’s really come out of his shell since he’s been at Mason’s art class on the boat and Phil, Bobby and Margot have become some of his closest friends.
‘Does Bobby still have a crush on him?’ Leah asked.
‘Yes, but he thinks there’s no way Gio will notice him now he’s famous, so he’s heartbroken,’ winced Maya. She was trying to help one friend, but another had been caught in the crossfire. She suspected Bobby wasn’t alone in his crush, though. Maya had seen the way Gio’s eyes followed Bobby around the boat when he thought no one was looking. Maybe she could do some matchmaking there?
Matt rolled his eyes, but she could see he was finally on board with her idea to use the very timid, Gio, in her latest jewellery campaign. Matt still modelled occasionally, but he enjoyed running his new agency too much to deviate too far, especially now he and Leah were thinking of starting a family, which Maya knew would fulfil the secret wish that Leah had made when she blew out her birthday candles. Life with Leah was never dull. Maya had recently sought out a local legal team after her mistakes with Blake. She’d been burnt before and knew she needed the right trusted advisors to guide her newfound wealth.
‘Gio’s just so dreamy!’ added Leah. ‘You’ve got to admit that he’s making most of the population swoon,’ she looked at Matt with an eyebrow raised, as he’d been the one who’d thought Gio too shy for the role. He grinned finally, holding his hands up in defeat and filched a biscuit from the packet Maya had just taken out of the drawer. She’d hidden them there earlier to stop herself from eating too many.
‘That first photo in the series you set up of him sitting on a step with the branded jewellery box in his hand and looking off into the distance is a winner. The main consensus online is that he is thinking of the person he’s delivering it to. Lucky them!’ Maya remembered seeing Gio sit on the bench on Bertha ’s deck during an art class and noting the wistful gaze in his eyes. An expert photographer had fulfilled her vision, and the result was breathtaking. Gio was now a star. The following images with him handing the necklace to Nina had been marketing gold.
Matt sat down and swung his feet up onto his desk, which made Maya tut, but he ignored her. This was his domain, even though she was now his biggest client.
‘The issue might be that Gio will be pretty wealthy soon and people have preyed on him on for his gentle nature before,’ said Maya with a frown. She had thought of this previously, but her urge to help him had outweighed it. Now the gnawing worry was back. Maya settled back into her own seat, watching the press mentions of her brand and Gio, on the screen of Matt’s computer.
‘A bit like Blake did with you,’ added Leah, making Maya wince and Matt give her a censorious look.
‘He’s suddenly a lot more interested in me now he thinks my connections are worth having,’ admitted Maya after a short pause. ‘He’s been texting me.’
‘I hope you haven’t responded!’ said Leah, appalled.
‘Of course not! I’ve ignored his calls as well.’
‘Block him,’ suggested Matt pragmatically and Leah frowned about why she hadn’t already done this.
‘Back to Gio,’ she said quickly, pointing to the image of him on the screen to distract them both. She knew Leah would have more questions later, but for now she was letting the subject go.
‘We don’t want to overwhelm him before he’s ready and it’s a change of a career path for him, but one he’s happy to follow, it seems,’ said Matt, clicking his own mouse and checking the latest booking requests for Gio and Nina, on his computer.
‘He’s already talking about moving into a small flat in the centre of town near to where Penny lives. By next year he’ll probably be able to afford his own place if he invests wisely,’ commented Leah with a laugh, brushing biscuit crumbs from her work trousers and checking the time and video feed of her shop. ‘He’s totally gorgeous,’ she said again, fanning her face and pretending to swoon, until Matt poked her in the ribs and she yelped and jumped away.
‘He’s going to be swamped with fans wanting to get to know him now, but we’re used to that for our models now,’ added Maya. Matt raised an eyebrow because hardened fans from out of town still squealed and ran over to get his signature when they saw the original No. 1 Ethereal Lane model. It was just the locals who left him alone, outside of that he was quite well known. Maya pulled a face and stuck her tongue out at him. Maya knew he secretly enjoyed the attention, so he wasn’t complaining. He was a bit of a peacock, but she loved that about him. Leah was always grumbling that he took more time to get ready than she did, which made Maya smile.
‘At least Gio is smiling every day now and he has an extra spring in his step,’ said Maya. ‘It’s good to see him grow in confidence. There’s no way he’d date a guy like his ex now. He knows his own worth.’
‘You can’t help everyone, but you can help me’ said Matt, batting his eyelashes at them, as he always did when he wanted a cup of coffee and was too lazy to get it himself.
‘I know…’ responded Maya, ‘but I can help a few and you can get your own coffee, lazybones.’
‘So…’ said Matt, changing the subject because he clearly wasn’t getting any coffee and Maya knew sh e couldn’t put off this conversation any longer. ‘How was your weekend with our resident film star?’
Maya smiled a secret smile and Leah squealed and jumped up and down, clapping her hands. ‘When are we going to meet him properly?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Maya, her hands suddenly feeling clammy, as this was something she’d thought about a lot recently. ‘Romy wants to meet him and we talk most nights about how we are both getting on, but she’s as busy as I am. Her tea boat is taking off and she works on her own, so I need to visit her there, but Noah would cause chaos if he tried to step aboard.’
‘That I’d like to see,’ joked Leah and Maya sent back a sarcastic smile.
‘The reason we haven’t all met up is just as much Romy’s fault as mine. Arthur wasn’t impressed when I mentioned my new boyfriend, either.’
‘How come?’
‘Ever the protective brother, he’d read the stories in the papers and had his own questions about Noah’s character.’ Leah didn’t seem that surprised by this and Matt didn’t either. Arthur was usually pretty easygoing, but not when it came to the happiness of his sisters where he became a bit growly if he wasn’t impressed. He was definitely still dating other women to get over Joe and Olive’s granddaughter, Daisy, who he’d been in a relationship with for a while, but then pushed her away when even bigger feelings had become involved. That was his own stupid fault because he’d run away from commitment with her as soon as she’d become serious about him. Then she’d met her husband, had a baby, and the rest was history because he’d persuaded her to move to France. Maya didn’t like Daisy’s husband, Harrison – at all - but luckily, Maya didn’t have to live with him.
Now her friends and family wanted to meet Noah. She’d made the pact to shut them up, but in a way, it had made matters worse because nothing was real and now she was scared that she wanted it to be. Spending the night with him had changed everything for her, because however much she’d joked to Leah about being able to ‘love them and leave them’ it had been a lot harder than she’d expected to pretend to Noah that this was just a convenient fling for her. The words he’d said in the throes of passion that she was his, hadn’t been mentioned again. He probably didn’t even remember saying it.
‘Gran and grandad want to meet him too,’ Maya explained, ‘except they think he’s my actual boyfriend and now I’m worrying they might scare him off with their over the top behaviour,’ she added, anguish showing on her face. Noah had sneaked into her thoughts when she was working and her work had become softer and more fluid somehow. She didn’t want another man to influence her work, and the idea of letting her barriers down again terrified her, so she definitely wouldn’t be doing that. It was easier to be alone than vulnerable, she decided.
‘But surely it’s not as fake as it was…’ asked Leah with a frown. ‘You’re starting to like your new ‘fling’ aren’t you?.’ She looked at her best friend shrewdly and Maya couldn’t quite meet her eyes. ‘You spent the entire weekend there and met his parents!’
‘That was an accident, and it scared the hell out of him,’ sighed Maya. ‘I ended up asking them to visit again soon, even though he’s not my actual boyfriend and I had no right to invite anyone to his house!’
‘Eek!’ winced Leah, but she was trying not to laugh. Matt shook his head and sat back in his chair, regarding her thoughtfully.
‘I guess we’ll see how good an actor he is when he meets your family… Ouch!’ he said when Leah jabbed him in the ribs. She gave him a fiery look, and he held his hands up in surrender. ‘Sorry, Maya,’ he added, ‘but you’re the one who said this was all make believe.’
‘Why are men so stupid?’ asked Leah as she threw her hands up and grabbed Maya’s arm to make her follow her back to the flower shop because a customer had just walked in. ‘Sit there,’ she motioned to a stool behind her wooden counter. ‘Let me just serve this customer, then we will work this whole thing out.’ Maya appreciated the gesture, but while Leah was busy behind arms full of tall pink and purple stock stems that filled the air with their heady scent, she slipped out of the front door and headed for home. She had to finish a jewellery commission and if she wanted to keep up the momentum and not fall flat on her face, she needed to forget hours of passion with a movie star and concentrate on continuing to build her brand. Maybe if she jumped fully into the role of pretend girlfriend and stopped stressing about feelings, then Noah could become a good friend. The problem was that they had already become lovers, and she’d never had a lover who simply reverted to being her friend. She’d always admired people who could do this, so maybe this time, her and Noah could come out of the other side of this mess unscathed…