Brothers of Paradise Series

“Sounds good,” I say. “But I think I should change.”

He hands me the bag of outfits that he’d insisted on carrying. “Where?”

“Here?”

He glances from left to right. “You can’t change out here.”

“Then where else?” I head into one of the more quiet alleys and hear him following me. There are no tourists here. “This is the life of a model.”

“Changing out in the open?”

“Yes. If you’ve ever been backstage at a fashion show, you know there’s no such thing as modesty.” My words are confident, strong, but my heart is beating fast. It is normal, that’s true. But not with him here.

I find the garment bag labelled Louvre, stuffed in the bag. Short skirt, blazer, camisole-and I get to wear the flat loafers. Victory.

Rhys scoffs as soon as he sees the blazer. “They’re dressing you up like the stereotypical Parisian.”

“I’m selling the dream,” I tell him, glancing past his shoulder toward the main street. A few people are passing by in the distance, but none really look into this alley.

So I reach down to the hem of my dress and start pulling it off, only to discover that Rhys has acted just as quickly. He’s holding up the blazer like some sort of shield.

It’s tiny, it covers almost nothing, and I’m still in my underwear-practically like I’m wearing a bikini. But Rhys is looking away with his features locked in iron, the face of a man completing a herculean task.

I laugh, and he glances at me at once. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing.” But I’m chuckling as I reach for the skirt, tugging it up my legs. “I don’t think that blazer covers anything.”

He glances down and frowns, coming to the same realization. “Worth a shot.”

I put on the camisole, and then, because the list of outfits had dictated it, I take off my bra. I do it underneath the shirt, the way every woman who’s ever lived knows how to.

Rhys raises an eyebrow but doesn’t look away. “They want you to go without underwear?”

“The straps,” I say, tapping my shoulder. “They’ll show whenever we photograph sans blazer.”

He mutters something that sounds like Jesus Christ. Perhaps it’s that, or perhaps it’s the warm Parisian air, but it gives me courage. “What?” I ask him. “I thought you said you were unaffected by models. What was the word you used? Immune.”

He looks up at the sky as if it might give him strength.

“You did say that,” I point out.

“I say a lot of things.”

I grin.

Above us, out through one of the many open windows, someone calls something in French. I don’t catch a word of it, not that I would have understood it if I did. Rhys does, however, and he looks up to yell something back. Whatever it was sounded decidedly un-nice.

“Someone commenting on me changing?” I grab the blazer he holds out to me and shrug into it.

“Someone who didn’t know their manners.” Rhys grabs the bag and shoulders it for me again. “Shall we?”

“Sure.” I run a hand over my hair. “I’m actually a little bit surprised that they just let out us out like this.”

“What do you mean?”Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

“Rieler Travels is a big company, right? I was told this campaign was really important to them. That it would make or break the coming year for them, and that we’d be given help on each location. And, I mean, we have been-but not as much I would have expected.” I hurry to keep up with his sudden very long strides. “I don’t mind changing on the street, but I just didn’t think I would be.”

“Yeah,” Rhys says, raising a hand to flag down a cab. “Well, I guess they decided we could handle it.”

“I suppose so.” I shrug and follow him into the cab. It didn’t change the fact that it was an amazing opportunity for me, both personally and professionally. The biggest campaign I’d ever booked.

And any thoughts of that evaporate as the cab rolls down the cobbled streets of Montmartre toward the center of Paris, toward the Louvre and art and culture and life and everything I’ve ever wanted to see.

We spend the rest of the day working. Rhys is relentless, but so am I, and we try every angle, every possible idea he has. He listens to mine, too, when I suggest that he film me running through the maze labyrinth in the Tulières Garden or sitting on a balustrade by the Seine, my blazer around my shoulders. Getting material to be used in the editing room.

The sun is beginning a slow descent when Rhys puts down the camera and leans against the bridge railing beside me. His linen shirt clings softly to his chest, his shoulders, and his hair is tousled by the wind and the long day’s work.

It’s not the first time my fingers itch to photograph him instead.

I don’t think it will be the last, either.

“Back in your old hometown,” I say. “Have you missed it?”

“Yes and no.” He looks out over the gilded bridge, the statues that line it, the Place de la Concorde to our left. “Remember Paolo?”

“We met him yesterday, so yes, I remember him.”

“I don’t want to sound like him,” Rhys says, “but I’m afraid I might.”

“Oh?”

“I’m having dinner with my cousin tonight. Care to join?”

I can’t help it. I laugh. “What part of that sounded like Paolo?”

“I could try it in an Italian accent.” But Rhys’s lips are curved.

“I’d pay good money to hear that, actually.”

“My cousin is insufferable sometimes, but harmless. Join us.”

We’re not friends. And yet…

“Are you sure? I won’t be able to speak French. And perhaps you want to talk about family business.” Why am I talking him out of this?

He snorts. “He speaks English, and if you’re there it’ll save me from the latter.”

“Ah.” I push off from the railing and walk backwards, away from him. “So I’m supposed to be your buffer.”