Flawless. Sara Craven
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a kid at school when he took off for America four years ago. And he hasn’t been back since. I never thought he would come back.’
Marge shrugged. ‘I only wondered,’ she returned mildly, leading her still fuming husband into the sitting-room, and closing the door behind them.
Carly released a long, deep breath, letting sudden tension flow out of her.
‘Take it easy,’ she whispered to her mirrored image. ‘You have a long night ahead of you.’
She eyed herself with a kind of clinical detachment, trying to see herself as Saul Kingsland would later that evening.
Her hair cascaded to her shoulders in wave after wave of burnished mahogany. Her eyes under the long sweep of mascaraed lashes were as cool and tranquil as aquamarines. She had a pale skin, a small, straight nose, a chin that was determined without being obtrusive, and a well-shaped mouth, the top lip clearly defined, the lower one curving in discreetly sensual promise.
‘Flawless,’ she said aloud, and with irony.
Her dress was aquamarine too, a simple, supple shape that left one shoulder bare, and she wore no jewellery, not even a watch.
I don’t want to know when it’s midnight. I might turn back into a pumpkin, she thought, and for a moment her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
But it couldn’t happen. Here she was, after all, Carly North. One of modelling’s newest and most successful faces. An up and coming name. Someone to be reckoned with in the cut-throat world of promoting beauty and fashion.
Just for a second, she wondered what the assignments were that Clive had been lining up for her, and allowed herself a brief pang of regret. Quite apart from the fact that he and Marge had become almost her second family, she had nothing but praise for the way he’d handled her career so far.
But she couldn’t have second thoughts now. She’d waited too long for this chance. Her decision was made, and there was no going back.
She was going to be the Flawless Girl. She had to be.
She picked up her flask of First by Van Cleef and Arpels, and drew the glass stopper delicately over her pulse points. By the time she got to the reception, the fragrance would be blooming and alive on her skin.
Then she smiled at herself. It wasn’t a smile that Marge, Clive, or the children would have recognised, or, indeed, any of the photographers she’d worked with in the past, who spoke of her warm vitality.
It was a harsh, almost feral twist of the lips.
‘Saul Kingsland.’ She said his name aloud like an incantation. ‘You won’t choose anyone else. You won’t see anyone else.’
She picked up her wrap and went to join the others.
It was a warm night, and the long french windows of the hotel’s banqueting suite had been thrown open. The balcony outside overlooked the hotel’s sunken garden, a square of paved walks interleaving beds of crowding shrubs and roses.
Carly stood beside one of the open windows, and drew a deep, grateful breath. Clive had been so right about her loathing of this kind of party, she thought, grimacing inwardly. The clash of most of the popular scents on over-heated bodies vied for supremacy with the smell of alcohol, and the all-pervasive reek of tobacco smoke.
The champagne had been flowing freely all evening. Carly’s own glass was almost untouched, but other people hadn’t been so abstemious. Around her, voices were being raised, and laughter was a little too strident. Some of the other girls were looking flushed, too, and their immaculate grooming was becoming frayed round the edges.
If he keeps us all waiting much longer, people will start passing out, Carly told herself. But perhaps that’s how he’s going to make his choice—the only girl still vertical at the end of the evening.
Her mouth curled in distaste at the thought. In fact, Saul Kingsland’s delayed appearance at the reception spoke of arrogance of the worst kind. But maybe the man who was being spoken of, since his recent return from the States, as the natural successor to David Bailey and Patrick Lichfield, felt himself above the consideration of other people’s feelings or convenience. If so, he would undoubtedly be a swine to work with.
Good, Carly thought, lifting her hair away from the nape of her neck for a moment so that the faint breeze could caress her skin. That suits me just fine.
‘Carly, I thought it was you.’ Gina Lesley, with whom she’d worked on a bathing-suit feature in the Bahamas, appeared from nowhere. ‘Isn’t this whole thing unbelievable? It’s like being in some harem, and waiting for the Sultan to appear and pick one of us for the night.’
‘They say it’s exactly like that,’ an elfin-faced girl, her red hair exotically tipped with gold, broke in eagerly. ‘Lauren reckons that Saul Kingsland sleeps with all his models. Do you suppose it’s true?’
Gina gave Carly a speaking look. ‘I shouldn’t think so for a moment,’ she returned crushingly. ‘If he went in for that kind of bedroom athletics he wouldn’t be able to focus his eyes, let alone a camera.’
The other girl pouted and walked off.
‘Incredible,’ Gina muttered. ‘In fact, the latest whisper from the powder-room says that we’re all wasting our time because the great man has no intention of showing here tonight.’
Carly was very still. ‘I hope that isn’t true,’ she said sharply.
‘So do I, darling. And to add to my depression, one of the hacks from the Creed agency is spreading the word that Saul Kingsland is going for a total unknown—someone he’ll see in the street, or serving in a shop, maybe.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Carly said. ‘They wouldn’t be throwing away their money on a bash like this if that was the case.’
Gina grinned at her. ‘Positive thinking,’ she said. ‘That’s what I like to hear.’ She paused. ‘Oddly enough, you were the last person I expected to see here tonight.’
Carly shrugged. ‘I have to eat, too,’ she returned. ‘I just wish it was all over, and we could go home.’
‘Well, something seems to be happening at last.’ Gina craned her neck. ‘Some of the Flawless bigwigs are milling about, and Septimus Creed is doing his marshalling act. I think someone’s going to make a speech.’
The chairman of the company producing the new cosmetic range mounted the flower-decked dais at the end of the room, and tested the microphone a shade uncertainly. After the usual words of welcome, he launched into an enthusiastic description of the new range.
‘Flawless,’ he told them, ‘is not just another brand of make-up. We regard it as a total look—part of today’s woman’s complete way of life—hypo-allergenic, yet highly fashion-conscious at the same time. And we pride ourselves on the fact that we are leading the way in banning animal testing from our laboratories.’
Carly joined in the dutiful ripple of applause, and took a sideways step towards the open window to gulp another breath of fresh air. And in that moment she saw him.
He was standing at the head of the short flight of stairs which led down into the banqueting suite from its main entrance, his eyes restlessly scanning the crowded room.
He was tall, she thought, her gaze devouring him. Broad-shouldered and lean-hipped. He was by no means conventionally handsome. His features were too strong—too assertive with those heavy-lidded grey eyes, jutting chin, and a nose that was almost a beak. He shouldn’t even have been attractive, Carly told herself. His face was too thin, and the lines round his face and mouth altogether too cynical. His hair was too long, and the formality of his dinner-jacket sat uneasily on him, Carly told herself critically. His tie was slightly crooked, as if he’d wrenched at its constriction with an impatient hand.
Yet in spite of this—because of this?—he was attractive. Devastatingly, heart-stoppingly, unequivocally attractive.