Falling For Mr. December

It was exactly the kind of building that made Sammy itch to get her camera out. The front door was painted black, with white columns and narrow bands of stucco either side to turn the entrance from a rectangle to a perfect square. Above the entrance was a filigree fanlight, the pattern within the arched window reminding her of a spider’s web. The door knocker, handle and letterbox were all shiny brass, the front doorstep was scrubbed clean, and on either side of the step there was a bay tree in a black wooden planter, its stem perfectly straight and its leaves clipped into a neat ball.

Everything was discreet, tidy—and clearly wealthy without being ostentatious about it. It was a house that had been looked after properly.

Clearly her interest showed on her face, because Nick smiled. ‘You like the architecture?’

‘It’s gorgeous,’ she said. ‘I have to admit, architectural detail is one of my biggest weaknesses. Especially windows like that one.’ She indicated the fanlight above the front door.

‘Come on up and I’ll give you the guided tour.’ And then he looked slightly shocked, as if he hadn’t meant to say that.

Tough. He’d said it now, and Sammy wasn’t going to pass up the chance to look round such a gorgeous building.

‘My flat’s the ground floor and first storey,’ he said.

‘Not the whole house?’

He smiled. ‘I live on my own, so I don’t really need a whole town house. The flat gives me enough room for work, guests and entertaining.’

Though even a flat in a building like this—and in an area like this—would cost an eye-watering amount, Sammy thought. Especially a duplex flat. It would be way out of her own price range.

‘Let’s base ourselves in the kitchen,’ Nick said. ‘We can order some food, and then I’ll show you round.’

‘Sounds good to me.’

Nick’s kitchen was small, but perfectly equipped. It had clearly been fitted out by a designer and it was the kind of shabby chic that didn’t come cheap, with distressed cream-painted doors and drawer fronts, light wood worktops and pale terracotta splash-backs and floor tiles. There was a terracotta pot of herbs on one of the windowsills, and an expensive Italian coffee-maker and matching kettle, both in cream enamel; apart from that, everything was tucked neatly away.

Either Nicholas Kennedy was a total neat freak, or he didn’t actually use this room much himself, she thought.

She set her boxes on the floor next to the light wood table at one end of the kitchen and put her laptop on the table itself. ‘Is it OK to leave these here?’

‘Sure.’ Nick opened a drawer and brought out a file. Sammy had to bite her lip to stop herself grinning when she realised that his takeaway menus were all filed neatly in punched plastic pockets. She’d bet they were in alphabetical order, too.

Clearly he didn’t have a clutter drawer with menus and all sorts of bits and pieces stuffed into it, unlike everyone else she knew. He was a neat freak, then. But that didn’t mean he was totally buttoned-up. After all, he’d agreed to do a naked photo shoot. Someone totally stuffy would’ve refused to do that.

‘Would you prefer Indian, Chinese, or Thai?’ he asked.

‘I eat practically anything,’ Sammy said, ‘except prawns. Fish, yes; crustaceans, no. Other than that, anything you like, as long as it’s here as soon as possible.’

‘Because you’re starving. Noted.’ He gave her a slight smile. ‘How about a mix of Chinese dishes to share, then? And I promise, no prawns.’

‘That’d be lovely.’

‘Crispy duck?’

‘Love it. Thank you.’

She set up her laptop while he was ordering their meal.

‘They’ll be here in forty minutes,’ he said. ‘OK. I promised you a guided tour.’

Sammy didn’t quite dare ask if she could bring her camera. ‘Lay on, Macduff,’ she said with a smile.

‘Living room,’ he said, showing her through the first door.

Like the hallway, it had a stripped pale wooden floor. There were two huge sash windows dressed with floor-length dark green curtains; the walls were painted dark red and there was an antique-looking glass chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. It looked more like the effort of a designer than personal choice, Sammy thought.

The sofas were all low, upholstered in dark green leather and looked comfortable, and there was a light-coloured wooden coffee table in the middle of the room, set on a green silk patterned rug. There was a black marble fireplace with a huge mirror above it, reflecting the chandelier and the state-of-the-art television and audio-visual centre. Between the two sash windows, there was an enormous clock with a white face and dark roman numerals. There were plenty of silver-framed photographs on the mantelpiece, which she assumed were of his family.

But what really grabbed her attention was the painting on the wall. It wasn’t exactly out of place, but she would’ve expected the designer to choose a couple of period portraits or maybe some kind of still life, to go with the rest of the decor. This painting was a modern landscape of a bay at dusk where the sea, cliffs and sky blurred together in the mist. It was all tones of blue and grey and silver—really striking. ‘That’s beautiful,’ she said.

‘Yes. I liked it the moment I set eyes on it,’ he said.

So this was his taste rather than his designer’s? She liked it. A lot.

Just as she had a rather nasty feeling that she could like Nick Kennedy rather a lot, if she got the chance. He was more than easy on the eye, and she liked what she’d learned about him in the short time she’d known him.

He ushered her in to the next room. ‘My office.’

It was another room with dark red walls and stripped wood floors, but this time the curtains framing the two huge sash windows were cream voile and the patterned silk rug in the centre was dark red. The chandelier was wrought iron, and one wall was completely filled with books, most of which she guessed would be legal tomes. There was a desk against the opposite wall, teamed with what she recognised as a very expensive office chair—the kind she’d dreamed about owning but couldn’t justify the price tag—and a state-of-the-art computer sat on his desk.

She could imagine him working here, with a bunch of papers spread out on the desk, his elbow resting on the table and his hand thrust through his hair while he made notes with a fountain pen. Because Nicholas Kennedy was definitely the kind of man who would use a posh pen rather than a disposable ballpoint.

‘Dining room,’ Nick said, showing her the next room.

Like the other rooms, the dining room had stripped floors; but it was much lighter because the walls were painted cream rather than dark red. There was a huge mirror above the white marble fireplace, reflecting the light from the sash windows and the antique glass chandelier. A light-coloured wooden table that seated eight sat in the centre of the room, teamed with matching chairs upholstered in cream-and-beige striped silk, which in turn matched the floor-length curtains. The silk rug here was in tones of cream and beige. She loved the room; she could just imagine sitting on the window-seat with a book, sunning herself while she read.

And there was another striking piece of art on the wall—a close-up of a peacock with its tail spread, and it looked as if it was painted in acrylics. ‘The colours are glorious,’ she said softly, enjoying the splash of orange among the turquoise, blues and greens. And it was so very different from the other picture; clearly Nick’s taste was diverse.

But the artwork that really made her gasp was in his bedroom. The room was large, but for a change not painted dark red; it had blue and cream Regency striped wallpaper, floor-length navy curtains, stripped floors and a dark blue silk patterned rug to reflect the curtains.

She couldn’t take her eyes off the black and white photograph that had been sliced vertically into three and framed in narrow black wood: a shot of the steel and glass roof of the Great Court at the British Museum. ‘That’s one of my favourite places in London.’ And she had quite a few shots of that roof in her own collection. ‘I adore that roof.’

‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘It’s the pattern and the light.’

‘Did you know that no two panes of glass in the roof are the same?’ she asked.

‘No, but now you’ve said it, I’m going to have to look.’

‘There are more than three thousand of them,’ she pointed out. ‘And the differences are tiny. It’s only because of the undulations.’ But the sudden light in his eyes now they were talking about art made her wonder. ‘Did you ever think about being an artist or an architect rather than a barrister?’

He smiled. ‘Absolutely not. I can barely draw a straight line with a pencil.’ And then he changed the subject, making her wonder even more. ‘Given that I already know you’re starving, can I make you a coffee and offer you some chocolate biscuits to tide you over until the takeaway arrives?’

‘That would be lovely. Thank you,’ she said. ‘Your flat’s beautiful. Though I wouldn’t have put you down as someone who’d choose dark red walls.’

‘An interior designer organised most of the place for me just before I moved in,’ he admitted. ‘Maybe my living room and office are a little dark.’

Just a tad, but she wasn’t going to be rude about it. ‘“Strikingly masculine” is probably the official phrase,’ she said with a smile.

He ushered her back to the kitchen. She sat at the table and opened the file of photographs on her laptop while he made the coffee; and then he brought over two mugs of coffee and a plate of really good chocolate biscuits.

‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘And don’t be polite. You said you’d missed lunch.’

‘Thank you,’ she said gratefully, and devoured two. ‘These are scrumptious.’

‘They’re my sister’s favourites,’ he said. ‘I keep a stock in for her.’

Nick was the kind of man who paid attention to details and quietly acted on them, she thought. She’d just bet he had a stock of his nephews’ favourite treats, too. And the coffee was better than that served in most upmarket cafés; though, given that posh coffee machine sitting on his kitchen worktop, it wasn’t so surprising. If you had an expensive machine, it stood to reason that you’d use good coffee in it. ‘Would you like to see the photographs now?’ she asked.

‘Sure.’ He viewed them in silence, then nodded with what she was pretty sure was relief. ‘You were very discreet. Thank you.’

‘The point is to raise money, not to embarrass people,’ she said softly. ‘And it’s meant to be fun, so I think we should discount this one, this one and this one—’ she pointed to them on the screen ‘—as you look very slightly uptight in them.’

‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘I have to admit, picking out your own photographs is a bit...’ He grimaced.

‘It makes everyone squirm. It’s much, much easier to look at someone else’s photographs and choose the best ones in a set than it is to choose your own,’ she said.

‘Which ones would you choose?’ he asked.

‘Honestly? This, this and this.’ She pointed them out. ‘Mainly because of the expression on your face. You look more relaxed here.’ And really, really sexy, which was the whole point of the calendar. Selling pictures of hot men to make money for the ward. Not that she was going to say it; she knew it would make him uncomfortable.

‘OK. I’m happy with those ones,’ he said.

‘Great.’ She took the model release form from her bag. ‘So we’ll put the shot numbers in here.’ She wrote them down. ‘Would you like to check that you agree with the numbers before you sign?’

He smiled. ‘You sound like a lawyer.’

‘I sound like a professional photographer who likes to get things right,’ she corrected.

He checked the numbers on the form against the numbers on her laptop, then signed the form. ‘I’m impressed with what you did. Can I see any of the other calendar shots?’

Sammy shook her head. ‘Sorry. Only the Chair of the Friends and the committee members she chooses to work with her on the project can see them until the proofs are printed,’ she said.

‘Fair enough. I was just curious.’

‘About the other models?’ she asked.

‘About your work,’ he said, ‘given the way you reacted to that picture of the British Museum’s roof.’

‘Ah. If you want to see my portfolio, that’s a different matter entirely.’ She pulled up a different file for him. ‘Knock yourself out.’

He looked through them. ‘You’ve got a real mixture here—lots of people and a few landscapes.’

‘They tend to go with profiles of people in magazines and Sunday supplements,’ she said. ‘That’s my bread-and-butter work. So if the profile is of someone who’s set up an English vineyard, I’d take a portrait of that person and then whatever else is needed to illustrate the interview or article. Say, the vineyard itself, or a close-up of a bunch of grapes, or the area where the wine’s produced or bottled.’

‘What about the photographs you take for you?’

‘What makes you think I don’t take these ones for me?’ she parried.

‘Apart from the fact that you admitted that they were work, it was the look on your face when you saw the house—as if you were dying to grab your camera and focus in on little details. Particularly the fanlight window.’

‘Busted,’ she said with a rueful smile. ‘Architecture’s my big love—I never wanted to be an architect and create the buildings myself, but what I like is to make people focus in on a feature and see the building in a different light instead of just taking it for granted or ignoring it entirely.’ And, although she’d never normally show her private shots to someone she barely knew, something about the way Nick looked at her made her want to open up. She went into another file. ‘Like these ones.’

‘They’re stunning,’ Nick said as he scrolled through them. ‘And I mean it—I’m not just being polite. I’d be more than happy to have any of these blown up, framed and hung on my walls.’

She could see in his face that he meant it. And it made her feel warm inside. Some of her exes had scoffed at her private photography, calling her nerdy and not understanding at all what she loved about the architecture. And others had wanted her to give it all up so they could look after her—because a cancer survivor shouldn’t be pushing herself to take photographs from difficult positions. Hanging off a balcony to get a better angle for her shot really wasn’t the sort of thing a delicate little flower should do.

She’d wanted a relationship, not a straightjacket. And being protected in such a smothering way had made her feel stifled and miserable, even more than when the men she’d dated had backed off at the very first mention of the word ‘cancer’.

‘So when do you take this kind of shot?’ Nick asked.

‘When I get a day off, I walk round London and find interesting things. And sometimes I go to the coast—I love seascapes. Especially if a lighthouse or a pier’s involved.’

‘And you put your pictures on the internet?’

‘I have a blog for my favourite shots,’ she admitted.

‘So did you always know you wanted to be a photographer?’ he asked.

‘Like most kids, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do when I grew up,’ Sammy said. ‘Then, one summer, my uncle—who was a press photographer before he retired—taught me how to use a proper SLR camera.’ Nick didn’t need to know that it was because she’d been cooped up in one place, the summer when she’d had treatment for osteosarcoma; she’d been bored and miserable, unable to go out with her friends because she had been forced to wait for the surgical wounds to heal and to do her physiotherapy. Uncle Julian had shown her how she could get a different perspective on her surroundings and encouraged her to experiment with shots from her chair. ‘I loved every second of it. And I ended up doing my degree in photography and following in his footsteps.’

‘A press photographer? So you started out working for a magazine?’

‘For the first couple of years after I graduated, I did; and then the publication I worked for was restructured and quite a few of the staff were made redundant, including me. That’s when I decided to take the leap and go freelance,’ she explained. ‘Though that also means I don’t tend to turn work down. You never know when you’re going to have a dry spell, and I like to have at least three months’ money sitting in the bank so I can always pay my rent.’

‘And you do weddings as well?’ He pointed to one of the other photographs.

‘Only for people close to me. That one’s Ashleigh, one of my best friends, on Capri last year.’

‘It’s a beautiful setting.’

‘Really romantic,’ she agreed. ‘The bridesmaid is my other best friend, Claire. She and I went to the Blue Grotto, the next day. It was for a commission, I admit, but I would’ve gone anyway because the place is so gorgeous. You had to lie down in the boat to get through the entrance, but it was worth the effort. The light was really something else.’ She flicked into another file and showed him some of the photographs. ‘Look.’

‘I like that—it’s another of the sort of scenes I’d like to have on my wall,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘Like that misty seascape in your living room. That’s the kind of thing I like to shoot at dawn or dusk. If you do it with a long exposure, the waves swirl about and look like mist.’

‘That’s clever,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘No. That’s technique. Anyone can do it when they know how.’

When their food arrived, Sammy put her laptop away while Nick brought out plates and cutlery.

‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Thanks for the offer, but I’m driving so I’d rather not. A glass of water’s fine, thanks.’

He poured them both a glass of water from a jug in the fridge—filtered water, she thought. Nick Kennedy clearly dotted all his I’s and crossed every T.

‘Help yourself,’ he said, gesturing to the various dishes in the centre of the table.

‘Thank you.’ She noticed that he eyed her plate when she’d finished heaping it. ‘What?’

‘It’s refreshing, eating with someone who actually enjoys food.’

‘That sounds as if you’ve been eating dinner with the wrong kind of person,’ she said dryly. ‘Most people I know enjoy food.’

‘Hmm.’

She finished stuffing one of the pancakes with shredded duck and cucumber, added some hoi sin sauce and took a taste. ‘And this is seriously good. I haven’t had crispy duck this excellent before. Nice choice, Mr Kennedy.’ She paused. ‘As we’re going halves on this, how much do I owe you?’

‘My house, my hospitality, my bill,’ he said. ‘No arguments.’

‘Thank you.’ Though there was more than one way to win an argument. Maybe she could print one of her seascapes for him, the one he’d really liked, to say thank you for the meal. ‘So you like modern art rather than, say, reproductions?’ she asked.

‘Some. I’m not so keen on abstract art, which probably makes me a bit of a philistine,’ he admitted.

‘No, you like what you like, and that doesn’t make you a philistine—it makes you honest,’ she said. ‘And your taste is quite diverse. I’m assuming they’re original artworks, given that one of them is acrylics?’

He nodded. ‘I like to support local artists where I can. There’s a gallery not far from my chambers. The gallery owner gives me a call if something comes in that she thinks I’ll like.’

‘That’s fabulous. It means both the artist and the art-lover win. Well, obviously, and the gallery owner, because she gets her commission.’

‘Something like that.’ He paused. ‘Can I ask you something personal?’

Her heart skipped a beat. From his body language and the way he’d relaxed with her, she had a feeling that the attraction was mutual. Was he going to ask her out?

And, if he did, would she have the courage to act on that attraction and say yes?

‘Sure,’ she said, affecting coolness.

‘Your hair,’ he said. ‘What you said about me being in the military—is that why your hair’s so short, too? You spent time in the Forces?’

The question was so unexpected that she answered it honestly before she realised what she was saying. ‘No. I have a crop like this every two years.’

He blinked. ‘Why two years?’

She could try and flannel him and say that it was a fashion statement, but he was observant. She was pretty sure he would’ve picked up the cues. ‘Because it takes that long for my hair to grow twelve inches.’

He looked puzzled. ‘Why do you need to grow your hair twelve inches?’

‘Because seven to twelve inches is what they need for wigs,’ she said softly.

The penny dropped immediately. ‘You donate your hair?’

She nodded. ‘There’s a charity that makes wigs for kids who’ve lost their hair after chemotherapy. My sister Jenny and I have our hair cut together every two years. We normally get people to sponsor us as well, and the money goes to the ward so they can buy things for the kids. You know, things to keep them occupied and cheer them up, because being stuck in hospital isn’t much fun—especially when you’re a kid.’ The hair cut before last had been on the actual day of Sammy’s test results. She and Jenny had celebrated the news with a hair cut and a bottle of champagne.

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