Gibson's Girl Read online

  “Of courze I’m zupposed to be here!”

  But Gibson went right on. “Then somebody else is not.”

  And as one, they all turned to look at Chloe.

  She slapped her arms across her breasts and ducked behind the table. Her face—her whole body—was as red as Tasha’s hair. If he’d thought she was blushing before, it was nothing compared to this.

  “You’re not a model.” Gibson’s eyes narrowed. He glared at her accusingly.

  “A model? Of course not!”

  It was the last thing he expected her to say. If she wasn’t supposed to be here, he figured she was at least trying to horn in, to make a name for herself, take advantage where she could. It had happened before.

  He scowled now, unprepared for such a prompt denial. If she wasn’t a model, what the hell was she doing here and why had she taken her clothes off?

  “Who are you?”

  “I told you.” She sounded almost desperate now. “I’m Chloe. Chloe Madsen. Your sister sent me—”

  “My sister? Gina sent you?”

  Her head bobbed. Behind her hands, he noticed, her breasts bobbed, too. Gib shut his eyes.

  When he opened them it was to see her grab one of the robes that had been casually tossed across the table, and drag it on. Then she folded her arms across her chest. “Yes,” she said. “Gina sent me. To work for you. For the summer. To be your assistant.”

  “Assistant.” Gib dropped the word like a lead balloon.

  “Yes,” Chloe said firmly. “She said you’d agreed. Didn’t you?”

  Oh, God. Gib gritted his teeth.

  “Probably,” he said through them.

  “Just...probably?” Chloe looked doubtful.

  Oh, all right. “I suppose I must have,” he muttered.

  But only because he agreed to whatever Gina asked him to do. He owed Gina. Their parents had died when Gib was thirteen and Gina was twenty. She’d practically raised him, had given up college to come back and make a home for the two of them. Later she’d seen that he was able to go to university. She’d supported and believed in him his whole life.

  He could never say no to the few things she asked.

  But sometimes, when he really would have liked to, he let her know from the tone of his voice that he really didn’t want to do it. She’d never pushed it on him.

  Until now.

  Fury rising—though whether he was mad at Gina or Chloe or himself he couldn’t have said—he yelled at Chloe now. “If you’re supposed to be my assistant, what were you doing taking off your damn clothes?”

  “You told me to!”

  It was that easy? Gib stared, stupefied. “You mean if I just walked up to you on the street and said, ‘Take off your clothes, Chloe Madsen,’ you’d do it?”

  “Of course not!” Her face, he noted with some satisfaction, now turned an even deeper shade of red. “But,” she added after a moment, “when Gina told me I could come she stressed that I had to what you told me, that I was obligated to do whatever was required.” A pause. “Jobwise.”

  Their gazes met. Clashed.

  But she didn’t look away. Gib had to give her credit. Chloe Madsen was a tryer—and she didn’t back down.

  She was breathing so hard he could see her breasts heaving slightly behind the soft terry fabric. He had a memory flash of what they’d looked like bare.

  As blonde as she was, Chloe Madsen didn’t have a blonde’s fair skin. Her breasts had been a warm honey color, the peaks a dusky rose. Now she was wrapped in the equivalent of a terry bath sheet. He preferred her naked.

  He suspected he wouldn’t get to see her naked again.

  Just as well, he thought, still very aware of how the sight of her had affected him.

  Definitely just as well.

  “Why you use zat girl?” Tasha’s eyes flicked from Gibson to Chloe and back accusingly. “You cannot use zat girl! I am ze Zeven! girl!” She slapped hands on hips and glared at him.

  “Tasha...” Gib began to placate her.

  She took his face between her hands and planted a kiss on his mouth. “You ztart over, yes? You forgive Tazha for being late, yes?”

  “Yes,” Gib said automatically, stepping out of her reach. His gaze flicked back to Chloe who hadn’t moved an inch. She was still looking at him—and he was looking back at her, not making any move to shoot.

  “Gibzon,” Tasha said impatiently.

  He jerked his gaze toward her. “Huh?”

  She tapped her bare foot. “We zhoot now?”

  “Uh, yeah. We zhoo-shoot now.” At last Gibson managed to tear his eyes away from Chloe Madsen. “We shoot.” He turned back to the camera. “All right, let’s start again,” he said to the other women. “We’ll take it easy. You know what to do.”

  They started to move in the circle again, Tasha sliding into the formation easily, not jiggling, Gib was happy to note.

  “What about me?” Chloe asked. “What should I do now?”

  Gibson looked at her once more. His mind saw everything the white terry robe covered. His body tightened.

  Fortunately so did his resolve.

  “Go home.”

  Go home?

  Go home?

  She would never dare to show her face in Collierville, Iowa again!

  Not after baring everything else in New York City! Chloe huddled in the tiny dressing room and listened to Gibson Walker’s gruff seductive baritone encouraging the models to reach and stretch and swim. Just the way he had encouraged Chloe to reach and stretch and swim.

  Oh, God. She pressed her palms to her cheeks—the ones on her face!—and tried to stop them glowing. Fat chance.

  Her whole body was glowing. Burning. From the inside out. If this was what hot flashes were like, she had no desire to hit menopause. Ever.

  Not that she would.

  She would surely die of embarrassment first.

  She pulled on her underwear, then yanked her dress over her head, all the while breathing as if she’d just run a marathon. She could barely get the dress buttoned, her hands were shaking so badly. She stuffed her feet into her sandals, and thought she would never get the straps fastened. She didn’t even try to refresh her gnawed-off lipstick. She was sure, if she did, she would look as if a demented three-year-old had colored all over her mouth.

  So finally she was finished. Dressed. Armored.

  And absolutely unable to leave the dressing room.

  There was no way she was walking back out into that studio. No way on earth she was going to face the world—or Gibson Walker—again.

  She was mortified.

  And he’d been furious.

  What did he have to be furious about?

  She was the one who had taken off her clothes! He’d merely asked her to.

  What had she been thinking?

  Well, she hadn’t, really. That much was obvious. If she had, she’d have realized that a photographer of Gibson Walker’s stature had no interest at all in photographing a silly bumbling twit from Iowa, for goodness’ sakes!

  But at the time, with his demand ringing in her ears and the memory of his sister Gina telling her that Gibson might ask her to stand in for a model while he sets lights and things, well, she’d misunderstood! That was all.

  Heck of a misunderstanding.

  A tiny giggle escaped her.

  It wasn’t much of a giggle. The misery of it, the disgrace and embarrassment of it were still too new and raw. But if she was honest, there was a funny side to it.

  What on earth would Dave say?

  Of course, he’d never know because Chloe was never, ever going to tell him! Dave Shelton, her fiancé, had enough misgivings about this summer job she had taken in the “big bad city.” He still couldn’t understand why she needed to go to New York at all.

  “New York? You want to go to New York? What do you want to go out there and get corrupted for?” he’d asked more than once.

  “It’s a wonderful city. A fascinating city. There’
s so much to see and do. I just want to experience it. I’m not going to get corrupted,” Chloe had assured him.

  And she wasn’t! But even so, he didn’t need to hear how she’d paraded around naked in front of her employer!

  No one was ever going to hear about that!

  Unless—and here she gulped—unless Gibson Walker told them.

  He wouldn’t! Would he?

  That thought zapped her with another flush, even hotter than the first. Oh, please, no! He couldn’t!

  “Kissing, ladies. Purse those lips,” she heard him say.

  She put her hands over her face, remembering how she’d looked straight at him and pursed hers. Merciful heavens! She truly might die.

  And then, at last, he said, “Okay, that’s it. Thanks a lot. I think we got some great stuff.”

  At once she heard the models begin chattering, the redheaded latecomer with the sexy accent—her replacement!—louder than all the rest. It was all “Gibzon thiz” and “Gibzon that.” And Gibson answered, gruff but perfectly matter-of-fact, as if he worked with beautiful naked women every day of the week.

  For all Chloe knew, he did!

  There was the sound of shuffling bare feet as the models came toward the dressing cubicles and doors opened. Someone rapped on her door.

  “I’m...n-not ready,” Chloe managed.

  She would never be ready. If she could, she would stay in here the rest of her life.

  Her fingers were trembling less. So she finished buttoning up her dress—closing it clear to the neck. Then she ran her palms down her sides, cinched the belt, and drew in a deep and—she hoped—steadying breath.

  She tried to look sensible, demure, competent. She did look sensible, demure, competent—if you discounted the disarray of her wavy blonde hair and the hectic blush on her cheeks.

  Yet scant moments before she had been anything but!

  Beyond the door she could hear the other girls getting dressed. They laughed and chattered. The doors to the dressing rooms banged open.

  “Bye, Gib!”

  “See you soon!”

  “Love you, Gib.”

  With a chorus of cheery goodbyes, they departed—until there remained only silence.

  And Gibson Walker.

  It was, Chloe knew, the moment of truth.

  Some would say, Chloe was sure, that cavorting naked around a room was a moment of truth of sorts.

  Perhaps it had been. After all, could whatever came next possibly be worse? As far as she could see, she had two options. She could sneak out, never show her face here again, and take the next plane back to Iowa, admitting defeat before she even got started. Or she could face the man on the other side of the door, swear that she would be a good assistant, and buckle down and live up to her word for the rest of the summer.

  Put like that, there wasn’t any choice.

  Chloe wanted this summer. She needed this summer. She had turned her own and Dave’s lives upside down for this summer. It was on the order of a spiritual journey, she’d told him.

  He hadn’t understood. She supposed she couldn’t really expect him to. But if she really believed what she’d told him, she couldn’t go home.

  Not now. Not yet.

  Chloe took a deep breath, crossed her fingers, and opened the door.

  “I’ve got you a plane reservation,” he told her briskly the minute the door opened. “You leave at six, get into Chicago at nine. There’s an hour layover. You’ll get the last flight to Dubuque and be there by 11:15. You can call someone to pick you up.”

  He gave her one quick glance—and not only to see if she was wearing clothes and if her breasts still jiggled. Though he couldn’t help noticing that she was and they weren’t. Then he made himself concentrate on the pile of junk that had been accumulating on his desk for the past twelve years.

  It seemed suddenly imperative that he sort through it.

  When she didn’t reply, he glanced up again, careful to keep his eyes firmly on her face. Unfortunately that was where her lips were. Damn.

  She was looking at him with a worried, woebegone expression on her face.

  “I’ll pay for it,” he said impatiently, because he was willing to bet she was worrying about the cost.

  “It’s...it’s not that. It’s...I can’t go home.”

  “What?” Gib’s brows snapped down. “What do you mean, you can’t go home? Of course you can go home!”

  But Chloe Madsen just shook her head adamantly. “No. I can’t. Not until August 15th, anyway.”

  “They banished you from Iowa until August 15th?”

  Granted, he hadn’t been back to Iowa once in the past dozen years, but it didn’t seem likely they’d instituted quota laws that would prevent people from returning.

  “I said I would be back August 15th,” she said as if that were explanation enough.

  It wasn’t. “So? They got a phone? Call them and tell them you’ll be back sooner. Call them now and tell them you’ll be back tonight.”

  But she only shook her head. “I can’t.”

  Gib felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. “Why the hell not?”

  Chloe Madsen twisted her fingers. Her gaze flicked just a second in his direction. The blue-violet eyes blinked rapidly.

  “Stop that!” Gib snapped.

  Her eyes went wide. “Stop what?” She looked baffled.

  “Crying. Don’t you dare cry.”

  Her chin lifted. “I never cry.”

  Gibson snorted a reply. He wasn’t going to argue about it.

  “I don’t,” Chloe said firmly, taking his snort in exactly the vein in which it was intended. “Not about jobs, anyway,” she qualified after a moment. She hesitated, then took a deep breath. It made her breasts lift—and settle.

  Gib shut his eyes. He turned away, headed for the door, opened it and stood waiting for her to go.

  Edith, his office manager, was still sitting at her desk. She looked up now with interest. Gib hoped her being there would encourage Chloe not to continue the discussion.

  “I know I made a fool of myself this afternoon,” Chloe said, her voice soft but firm. So much for his hopes. “But when we were talking about the job, Gina and I, I told her I was willing to do whatever an assistant did. And, well, one of the things she said they did was to stand in for models. I...wasn’t thinking. I should have realized you weren’t just setting up and running through. But I thought it was...expected of me. And then when you told me if I didn’t want to do it, to get back on the plane and go home...well, I couldn’t do that, either!”

  “Why not?”

  She looked at him as if he were crazy. “Because I couldn’t! Not after I’d made such a fuss and—” She stopped, clamped her lips together, didn’t say another word.

  “Fuss?” Gib encouraged helpfully. What sort of fuss?

  But she didn’t respond. Eventually she said, “Look, it was an honest mistake. I feel like an idiot. I must have looked like an idiot.”

  No, she had looked...memorable. He didn’t figure he would forget Chloe Madsen swimming naked around his office as long as he lived. He also didn’t figure she wanted to hear that.

  She bit her lip. “I really want to do this. Be your assistant, I mean. Please, don’t hold what I...what I did...against me.” She looked at him beseechingly.

  “I don’t hold it against you,” he said roughly. “But you still can’t stay.”

  “But you told Gina—”

  “No,” he corrected her, “Gina told me. Gina is always telling me what I need to do, and I just sort of let it go in one ear and out the other. I go uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh at appropriate intervals.”

  “Well, you obviously should have gone ‘huh-uh’ at one of them,” Chloe said just a little tartly. It was the first bit of spirit he’d seen from her since she’d come out of the dressing room.

  “I never thought she’d actually send you!”

  “Well, she did. She assured me that you’d agreed. She said you would let me work for
you for two months. It’s not a big deal.”

  “It’s a big deal!”

  She looked astonished. “Why?”

  The innocence of her query stopped him dead. “Because... because...” Because he didn’t want an assistant like her—an innocent from Iowa, for heaven’s sake! New York was a rough place, a hard place. A person needed to be sophisticated to survive. Chloe would get eaten in a matter of minutes.

  “It wouldn’t work,” was all he said.

  “You don’t think I can do it! You think I’m incompetent.” Her eyes accused him.

  Gib scowled. “I do not! I’m sure you’re very competent—”

  “I am.”

  “—and I’m sure you’d make a fine assistant—”

  “I would.”

  “—but I don’t want an assistant!”

  “You need one,” Edith said.

  Both Gibson and Chloe snapped around to stare at the older woman sitting behind the reception desk. She gave Chloe a little nod and Gibson a benign smile.

  “You need one,” she repeated.

  “I have...what’s her name...?” He could never remember their names. They didn’t last long enough for him to bother to learn them. “Frosty?”

  “Misty,” Edith said patiently. “And she’s about as reliable as her name.”

  “Right. Misty.” He tried to make her sound tough and competent. She was neither. Misty was the latest in a long line of what Gibson called his “girls.” The young women who schlepped and carried, set up lights and reflectors, ran errands, loaded film and lugged power packs.

  “Girls.” Edith sniffed every time he used the term. “That is totally politically incorrect.”

  “So sue me,” Gibson muttered.

  They were lucky he even recognized them as members of the species. Misty and her forerunners—he was sure there had once been one called Frosty—came in all shapes and colors and sizes. They also invariably came with nose rings, spiked hair, black leggings and very little brain. They had the half-life of a loaf of bread. And were as memorable.

  Gibson figured he’d remember Chloe for a good long while.

  “We’re going to need someone reliable,” Edith reminded him, “because I’m going to Georgia’s next week.”

  Gibson scowled. He didn’t want to think about that. He relied on Edith for everything unconnected with the actual shooting of photos. She ran the studio, kept the ad reps at bay, dealt with the agencies, the caterer, the legion of bike messengers who rang the buzzer in the middle of his work. She was the person who kept him sane. He’d been appalled when she’d asked for a month off.