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‘One day. Yes. I thought I’d spend my dotage here. And so did my dad. I guess we’re both coming to terms with that.’
‘Does it help if I tell you again that none of this is your fault?’
‘I’m not sure how that can be true, when I was the one who abandoned this place. Abandoned my dad to deal with it all himself. But I appreciate the sentiment. How about you distract me instead?’
She felt her lips curve into a wry smile, aware that Rufus was quite deliberately changing the subject. But there was no point pushing him to talk if he wasn’t ready.
‘And how would you like me to distract you?’ she asked.
He looked her up and down. ‘First, by masterminding these photos so your phone goes quiet.’
Right on cue, it buzzed with another message notification and she knew Lara was still sending through her instructions.
‘And then I’m going to trust your imagination.’
Good. Because her imagination was proving to be exceptionally vivid today, and she was looking forward to putting some of her ideas into action. All the more so now that she knew Rufus was along for the ride and wasn’t going to ask more of her than she had to give.
She layered up blankets on the bed, and then dug through her bag looking for the knee-high socks she knew that she’d packed. She snagged them from the bottom of the holdall and pulled them on over her leggings.
She knew what this really needed was a plaid shirt, which she didn’t have with her. But Rufus did. But it was a little early in this...whatever this was...to start wearing his clothes. Or undressing in front of him, come to that. She looked down at the soft fake cashmere she’d pulled on that morning. The colours and textures worked with what she had on the bed. It’d do for now. But if she found herself wearing Rufus’s shirt at some point over the next few days... It wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen.
‘Where do you need me?’ Rufus asked as she pulled her socks up to her knees. Well, wasn’t that the question...
‘Um, on the bedside table? Are you okay to stand on it?’
‘On the four-hundred-year-old antique? Sure.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘It’s fine,’ Rufus said, chuckling. ‘It’s survived four centuries. I think it can handle Instagram.’
‘Right.’ This had better be worth it. ‘On that side of the bed though,’ she said, gesturing over to the side near the window. ‘We want the natural light behind you.’
‘You’re good at this.’
She lifted her shoulders and let them drop. ‘When Lara started out it was mainly the two of us messing around, making things up as we went along.’
‘And you weren’t tempted to follow her into being an influencer?’
She shook her head. ‘I like my research. My job. I help Lara out because she’s my friend and I love her, but I wouldn’t want to do it all the time.’
She climbed into the middle of the bed, poured tea into the cup that Rufus had put on the tray with its saucer, and tried to arrange her limbs in a way that would get maximum knitwear into the shot and hide as much of her face as possible, all without spilling the tea. She’d seen Lara do this dozens of times, but had never tried contorting herself into these positions before.
‘How’s it looking?’ she asked Rufus, who had one foot on the corner of the bed, and one on the bedside table.
‘You look beautiful,’ he said, checking his phone. She felt the blood rise in her cheeks at his compliment.
‘This is meant to be about the house,’ she reminded him.
‘Yeah, that’s holding its own too,’ he said, snapping a couple more pictures.
Jess smiled to herself, deciding not to push any further. The sexual chemistry was crackling as tangibly as the logs in the fire on the other side of the room, providing a hum of tension in her belly. A warm glow full of promise for later.
Rufus leaned a little closer, bringing the camera right overhead, and she turned slightly, letting her hair fall in a curtain to block her from view. She’d been on Lara’s feed before, but wasn’t wild about becoming the face of Upton Manor. That was totally Rufus’s job. So if she could duck behind her hair, she absolutely would. Except Rufus seemed determined to capture her features. He leaned in closer still, causing the tray to wobble, and she looked up in alarm.
The click of the phone sounded just as her eyes reached the lens of the camera, and Rufus hastily backed up onto the bedside table and then dropped to the floor.
‘Wow,’ he said, looking at the screen. And Jess had to admit, she could see why he’d said it. He’d captured her as her eyes had widened when the tray wobbled. The doe-eyed result was pretty arresting, even if she said so herself. Rufus scrolled back so she could see some of the other shots and they had done Lara proud. The room looked beautiful, and she was happy that she’d managed to get all her limbs in the right place to set it off.
