'Nadine,' he repeated. 'A beautiful name for a beautiful woman. I'd very much like to paint you, but we'll discuss that later!'
Nadine laughed a little uncertainly—had he recognised her? She couldn't tell from his face. He was a short, broad man with Mediterranean colouring, who looked much younger than she had expected, as she confessed to him.
'But there's a big photo of me in the brochure,' he pointed out, and Nadine hesitated.
'Yes, but... well, I suspected it might be a very old one, they often are, and you're so well known I thought you must have been working for years, and be much older than you looked in that photo,' she blurted out, flushing as he laughed out loud.
'I can see you are a very cynical lady. Remind me, have you had any art training?'
'No, I'm just an interested amateur. I sketch and paint water-colours occasionally. I enjoy it but I know I'm not very good. It's just a hobby.'
'If you enjoy it, that's all that matters. And I'll be the judge of whether or not you're any good. What do you do for a living, Nadine?' He had already announced that first names were always used in his class and she was finding it easy to call him Luc because he was so direct and friendly.
'Well...' She hesitated, frowning. She wasn't surprised or offended because her name obviously meant nothing to him. It was a relief, in fact. It was only in Britain and the States that people saw her on TV in the commercials she had done. Nadine preferred to be anonymous; it meant she met people without them having preconceived ideas about her.
Famous models seemed to have a certain reputation: jet-setting, nightclubbing, hobnobbing with pop stars. That was what people expected if they knew you were a model. Nadine was tempted not to tell Luc Haines the truth, but what if another guest recognised her?
Luc was watching her expectantly, his face curious. 'You prefer not to say? I wonder—is it something exciting, or tedious? Well, never mind, forget I asked. Come and meet your fellow students.'
Nadine was nervous at first, afraid as she shook hands with them one by one, that somebody was going to say, 'But aren't you Nadine Carmichael, the model in that TV ad?'
Nobody did, nor was she pressed to tell them what she did, because Luc said wickedly, 'Nadine prefers to forget real life while she's here, so we won't ask her personal questions, will we?' and everybody looked at Nadine with surprised amusement and laughed.
'Same for me!' several of them chimed, grinning at each other.
'Let's all forget our lives back home,' another younger woman said eagerly. 'Don't you wish you lived here all year round?' and the others all sighed, as if they certainly did. By the end of the evening they had already become a group and were chattering easily to each other as they left the hotel dining-ro
om after an excellent meal.
Nadine went to bed early, still slightly suffering from jet-lag, but also because she wanted to be fresh and full of energy next day. She fell asleep at once and slept heavily.
Towards dawn she had an incredibly vivid dream. In it, she was not divorced from Sean; they were together, in bed, making love. Sean was kissing her throat, making her tremble as she felt the sensuous slide of his naked body against hers.
Nadine moaned, restlessly moving in the bed, beginning to wake up, and as she did so she realised suddenly, with a panic-stricken jolt that woke her up faster, that her dream had not been a dream. She was not alone in the bed. There was a naked body next to hers, a man's body; his mouth was on her throat and his hands were everywhere, caressing her breasts, stroking her softly, intimately, sliding down her thighs.
CHAPTER THREE
NADINE began to scream and at the same time sat up and began scrambling out of bed. The man beside her acted even faster. He grabbed her before she could get away: a hand clamped down over her mouth while he pulled her back down again into the bed, kicking and struggling. He rolled on top of her in spite of her efforts, holding her down with the sheer weight of his body.
Nadine was suffocating, and scared witless with panic: she gasped and choked, trying to see him, but was half blinded by her tangled chestnut hair which had fallen over her eyes.
Her senses told her too many things all at once: the muscled power imposing itself on her, the silken feel of his bare, tanned skin against her own, the salty taste of his palm over her mouth. Through her hair she was getting glimpses of wide, brown shoulders, a strong neck, black hair. A mouth.
She stiffened, lay still, staring up at that mouth: the hard, sardonic curve of the upper lip, the full, sexy promise of the lower one.
'Promise not to scream again,' the mouth said softly.
Nadine bit it.
The mouth swore. The hand was snatched away.
'That damned well hurt, you vicious little cat!'
'Good,' Nadine said, shifting her head on the pillow so that her hair fell back and she could see his face. She wished she could look at him with unmixed dislike, but for some stupid reason she felt an overwhelming relief that he seemed so fit and well. Why are you such a fool? she asked herself angrily, and told Sean aloud, 'Served you right, gagging me like that!'
'I had to, before you woke up the whole hotel!' Typically he was unrepentant, he looked at her as if she was the one being unreasonable, and her teeth met.
'I promise you this much,' she said through her clamped teeth. 'If you don't get off me, and out of my bed, I'll scream so loudly I won't just wake up the hotel, I'll wake up the whole island!'