“What for? No. Please don’t! He already thinks I’m an idiot!” Day two with her new camera, she’d trained her lens on the dolphins dancing against the media mogul’s bow, completely unaware she was also snapping shots of his family. Apparently he was extremely protective of his children and had insisted on boarding Roman’s yacht ten minutes later, stealing Melodie’s memory card and returning it minus several of her best shots.
Roman had not been pleased, but more because he could see how upset Melodie was, not because she’d got him off on the wrong foot with one of the world’s most powerful men. They’d actually wound up having drinks later when they’d both anchored in the same cove. Nic’s wife was a peach, but Melodie still felt as if she’d grossly invaded their privacy. It had been a good lesson in requesting permission before clicking the shutter.
“He never paid you for the shots he appropriated.”
“I didn’t want him to!” When Nic had offered to pay her the scale rate for news photos, she’d been horrified, wanting to erase the whole mortifying experience. “It was too much anyway. I’m just an amateur.”
Roman gave her a patronizing look. “Your amateur shots are better than many professionals’, and you know it. And if you’d accepted his payment, you would be a professional yourself. Come with me.”
She dragged her feet as she followed him into his office and watched as he called Nic on his tablet. “Melodie needs a favor,” Roman said. “Are you aware that her father is Garner Gautier? Have you heard of him?”
“On occasion,” Nic said with reserve.
“Sounds as though you know what kind of man he is. Melodie is thinking of writing a memoir about her childhood. Quite a tell-all.”
“No, I’m not!” she cried, shaking her head vehemently.
“You’re offering me exclusive rights to this memoir?” Nic asked.
Both men ignored her protests, talking over her.
“That’s right,” Roman continued.
“Roman, no!” Melodie insisted. “I don’t want to profit from my family’s dirty laundry. My mother’s memory doesn’t need that kind of smearing and neither do I. No.”
“I could give Gautier a call, ask him if he’d like to contribute his side of things?” Nic suggested.
“You see where I’m going with this. I knew this was the right call to make.”
Melodie didn’t. “Both of you, stop. I really don’t want all that to come out. There would be paparazzi, a complete media circus...”
Roman clasped a reassuring hand on her arm. “It’s never going to come out, Melodie.”
“Gautier is going to pay back your advance to me so I will kill the book before it’s written,” Nic explained. “And that figure would be...?”
“Not a penny less than three million. Five would be better,” Roman said.
“That’s blackmail,” Melodie gasped, pulling from his grip to cross her arms.
“It’s a message,” Roman insisted. “He doesn’t have to pay, but he’ll understand the potential consequences if he comes near you again. If he does pay, well, think of all the programs that money could beef up at your mother’s clinic.”
“It’s still bribery,” she stated, but she was warming to this outlandish idea.
“And since Nic taking your photos was larceny...”
“By all means, let me redeem myself,” Nic said drily.
And that was that. They left it with Nic, and Melodie spent the afternoon quietly reeling. Later that night, when she felt an urgent wave of attraction, as though she couldn’t get enough of Roman, he accommodated her very tenderly, overpowering her to slow her down, whispering, “It’s okay, Melodie. It’s okay.”
She wasn’t so sure. For a short while she’d been terrified she would lose him. It had been the most painfully lonely vision of her future she could imagine.
But she didn’t lose him. One week on the Med turned into two, then three. Roman worked every day and Melodie filled her time with photography, joining amateur forums online for tips and critiques, thinking of starting a blog just to have a reason to share her best shots.
It was an incredibly easy existence after so many years of hardship. She didn’t know how to handle it and it bothered her sometimes, made her think she wasn’t trying hard enough or wasn’t paying her dues. Rather than relaxing into confidence that they were a solid couple, she grew more and more anxious that something would tear them apart.
Maybe if he showed more emotion, she found herself thinking as she stood at the rail, photographing their approach to his beachside home. But despite weeks of close proximity, she really didn’t know Roman much better than she had the first time she’d arrived at this elegant home.