The Look of Love (The Sullivans #1)(21)

The intensity of his gaze—the utter dedication and focus on her—nearly had her stabbing herself again with the needle.

“I need to concentrate on this,” she lied.

What she really needed was some breathing room from her budding feelings for him.

“Go check on something else,” she told him in her best no-nonsense voice.

Before she looked back down at the dress, she caught a flash of his gorgeous grin. A grin that told her he knew exactly why she was sending him away, darn it.

Ten minutes later, she helped Amanda put the dress back on and found herself blushing as everyone started clapping and telling her how great she was to have repaired it so quickly and so well.

It wasn’t long until the sun set and the models were really drooping.

“Let’s call it a day,” Chase said. “Great work, everyone.” He made sure to include her with his eyes, even though she’d barely done anything to help. “Really, really great.”

Chloe could see how much his praise meant to everyone. Including her.

“My brother, Marcus, is hosting all of us for dinner and drinks at his place tonight.” He pointed to the big house across the vineyard. “Jeremy, why don’t you take everyone over?”

Without being asked, Chloe helped the models out of their dresses, making sure to tell each one of them how impressed she was with the work they’d done. “How do you hold those poses for so long?”

Amanda was already on her cell phone, but Jackie, a shy “older” girl (who was barely twenty-one, but Chloe had already learned that was borderline ancient in their business), said, “I do a lot of yoga.”

The girl’s smile was beautiful and Chloe immediately grinned back at her.

“It was nice to have you on set,” Jackie said. “Kind of like having my mom here to take care of us.”

Chloe somehow managed to hold her grin.

She was only nine years older than Jackie. And yet, she supposed the model was right. If life experience was anything to go by, they were a century apart.

Jeremy loaded the huge van with trunks and racks of clothes and camera equipment, then called everyone together. “Are you coming, Chloe?”

She was tempted to go with the group, rather than stay behind with Chase. But she felt grimy. Even if she didn’t have nicer clothes to wear to Marcus’s house, the least she could do was smell better than this. A shower was definitely necessary.

“I’m going to freshen up a bit. I’ll see you all there soon.”

Freshen up a bit. Seriously, she even sounded like she was Jackie’s mom.

After everyone left, she turned to look for Chase. Thinking of him made her insides go soft and warm.

At first she couldn’t find him, and then she realized he was standing behind one of his big cameras…and it was pointed straight at her.

She instinctively put her hand over her cheek. Oh God, what was he doing? And what would he see? Would he be able to look beyond the ugly bruise and see that she was a quivering mess of jelly on the inside? Would he see what a coward she felt like for not having called the police yet, for just hiding out here with him and the models and his crew?

And would he see the feelings that had grown for him inside of her heart all day, despite the fact that she knew better than to feel anything at all?

Angry at him—and at herself for even caring in the first place—she started toward him. He’d already lowered the camera by the time she said, “I thought you put all your equipment away.”

“I always feel better if I’ve got at least one on me. Just in case there’s something I need to take a picture of.”

“You don’t need to take pictures of me.”

“I’ve never been able to resist photographing loveliness,” he said softly, before tucking the camera inside his bag. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

The look he gave her—warm and soft, yet full of a desire he didn’t bother to hide—had her realizing just how ridiculous she was being.

“It’s just with this bruise…” she began, lifting her hand to cover it again.

But before she could say anything more, he said, “You’re lovely.”

Her hand was halfway to her face when she realized she didn’t need to hide the bruise from him anymore. Because he didn’t seem to think it made her look ugly. And he didn’t seem to think it made her look weak, either.

Their slow walk back to the guest house through the darkness with only the moonlight to light their way felt impossibly romantic. Far more romantic than she could allow it to be.

“So, when did you start taking pictures?”

He gave her a look in the near-dark, one that said he knew what she was after with her small talk. “I used to steal my father’s Polaroid camera and annoy everyone with it.”

She grinned at the vision of a mini-Chase documenting the world around him. “Did you always concentrate on photographing people?”

“I’ve tried it all, but in the end I’ve always found people—and their emotions—to be more interesting than anything else.”

All day she’d been trying to put her finger on Chase’s magic. “That’s what you were after today,” Chloe said with a sudden hit of awareness. “Emotion.” She met his gaze and knew that even though she wasn’t one of his models, it was exactly what he was tapping into with her, too.