Veiled Read online

  Veiled

  By

  Summer Wynter

  Copyright © 2017 by Summer Wynter

  Cover by: Swoon Worthy Covers

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book contains mature scenes and is not meant for those under 18. All characters in the book are over the age of consent and are at least 21 years of age.

  I'm just your normal, everyday woman who can't get enough out of life. When it comes to writing, I enjoy stories about couples who just can't say no, even when life says that they should.

  Come get passionate with me and see where my dirty little mind can take you.

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/summerwynter2017/

  Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/cpQOpn

  I'm a model, but not for anything you'd notice. Those are my hands in the viral fragrance ad you saw yesterday, and those will be my diamond crusted lips on the latest romance novel you'll read tomorrow. I'm famous for being unnoticeable.

  That is until my photographer Martin not only takes notice, but takes a firm hand to me. Despite him being my father's age, he's erupted feelings and pleasures I never knew I could have.

  And it all started the first time I put on the mask...

  CHAPTER ONE

  In the dull, grey light of an ordinary late-winter morning, I duck beneath the plastic cover of the bus-stop and lean up against the curved Perspex frame, watching the faces of people scurrying past, chins tucked into scarves, already late for where they’re going. I’m shivering beneath the thin, black leather jacket I have on; it looked warmer from the bedroom window, and I wanted to make a good impression. Someone told me that the less you wear, the better idea they can get of your potential. The black skinny jeans, thin white t-shirt and jacket don’t seem worth it against the biting cold that is setting in. It’s only January after all, and I am dressed for spring.

  The traffic disperses as rush hour comes to an end, my body starting to shiver as I fold my arms across my chest; a defensive stance I always seem to take, hiding myself. I look constantly at the small circular clock-face of the watch on my wrist, watching the hands move, nervously glancing up the empty road for the bus that isn’t coming; it’s half past nine and the bus is running late. My heart beats a little quicker, anxious.

  It’s just starting to drizzle as the bus finally turns around the corner and pulls up to the stop, the first tiny droplets spattering the roof over my head.

  I smile at the driver and pay the fare, awkwardly shifting my bag to get the coins out of my jeans pocket. The driver raises an eyebrow at me, bored already with the morning shift. The coins clatter onto the little counter, and the machine whirrs and spits out a ticket which I take gratefully, tearing it haphazardly as I turn my face away with a mumbled ‘thank you’ and dart towards the steps leading to the top deck. I am halfway up when the bus begins to move, and almost lose my balance; the heeled boots, it seems, were a bad idea too. Someone tuts behind me, but the driver doesn’t care. I stagger up the rest of the narrow staircase onto the top floor and move towards the back, sliding onto one of the old, red-vinyl seats, the rank yellow foam beneath poking out through ancient cracks and tiny craters where fingers had picked and scraped. Only then do I realise I have been holding my breath.

  Nervous, I open my bag out on my lap and rummage around inside for the crumpled piece of paper I am looking for; it’s tricky to find, amongst the rest of the mess inside the belly of my bag, but I manage to pluck it out from beneath an uneaten granola bar I am saving for later. A treat for after the ordeal I am about to put myself through. On it, there is a name and an address; I have memorised both, and yet I am worried I’ll forget them. An arty black and white picture of a beautiful woman is on the front, beneath the gold, embossed words Schneider Photography. The eyes of the woman look out seductively, her arms framing her beautiful face; my own eyes are drawn to the delicate hands of the woman, expertly placed, the fingers long and elegant, and her mouth is slightly open in a way I know is deliberate, all perfectly constructed by the man behind the camera. I have yet to meet him, but I know he is one of the best in the business; I’ve heard girls in casting rooms talk about him, showing off their portfolios and the images he has taken of them. There is a distinct style in his work, and when the call had come, asking me to come in, I couldn’t say no, though now I wish I had.

  It was only for my lips and my hands, that is what the email from his secretary had said; he was interested only in my mouth and my hands. Surely that won’t be too hard, I keep telling myself, though my stomach is doing butterflies at the very thought of standing in front of this man’s lens. I don’t feel worthy, as I look again at the stunning, otherworldly creature on his calling card. In the bus window, I catch sight of my reflection; pale and innocent-looking, wide-eyed and somewhat awkward. I am a world away from the girl in the picture.

  Slowly, I open my own portfolio and flip absently through the pages. There aren’t many, as I am still building it up, but the ones that are there don’t seem too bad; some are full-length, the angles and long limbs of my body placed in edgy shapes and dimensions, my plain, fair hair coaxed into doing something to frame my peculiar face. There are profile images, in which my blue eyes stare out intensely from the print, my bitten-red lips shapely and almost seductive, though I wouldn’t know how to be sexy if I tried, and believe me I have tried. High cheekbones create shadows on my pale skin, and I look … interesting – certainly not beautiful, not like the models I have seen in the casting rooms; those white-walled, haughty boxes whose corners I have huddled in, afraid of being stared at. I know they know I don’t belong, and yet, somehow, I have been booked once or twice, and I have the images to prove it. Although, looking down, I’m still not sure of the girl staring back.

  I close the book and place it back in my bag, leaning up against the bus window for the rest of the journey, as I watch the world flit past outside. It is gloomy and the sky is a darkening grey, as rain begins to spit more heavily from the skies.

  The time gives me chance to worry about what is waiting for me on the other side. I huddle into myself, as I always do. Already, my stomach is tightening at the thought of being prodded and poked and arranged into all manner of poses and positions. I’m glad I didn’t eat breakfast. I know my limbs are going to shake as I try and take a nice picture, and this Mr Schneider and his assistants will all stare at me with their open disapproval at my weakness; my inability to sit still and do as I’m told, my woeful ineptitude at this job. Yet, I remember the number at the bottom of the email the secretary sent, and I know I have to focus on it – a £2500 buy-out for the images, should they be ‘of use to Mr Schneider’s work’. That is a big chunk to be able to put away into my college fund, and that is the beacon at the end of this gloomy, anxious day; the possibility of putting money away for my education.

  My family aren’t rich; they can’t afford to send me to college, and I missed out on the scholarships, not being particularly good at sports, and not wanting to study mathematics or medicine. I want to be a zoologist; ever since I was little, it’s all I have wanted to be, and yet, when it came down to it, the money just wasn’t there. I worked hard, buckled down, got the grades, but it doesn’t matter; there’s no cash, so no future, not unless I can make it for myself. So, it’s up to me,
and seeing that number, two-thousand-five-hundred, against the pittance I would be making at some dead-end waiting job, it makes sense. People have always had something to say about the way I look, so why not use it? So far, it seems to be working. I get stared at, looked at, talked about, but they book me anyway, and slowly the amount in my bank account will rack up, if I just keep at it. After all, this job isn’t hard; that is what I have to remember. This job isn’t hard. I could be up at five a.m. washing down the grime from last night’s service in some greasy dive on the highway, making minimum wage a day and maybe thirty dollars in tips, on a good day. Instead, I have an opportunity on a crinkled-up card in the bottom of my bag, and a hope, written in cold, hard black and white on a computer screen. It would go such a long way to providing the money I need to get out; to do something properly with my life.

  I know my family wish I’d get a normal job; something stable and secure, something like the retail job my mother does, or the service job my dad does, but I can’t. I did it when I was younger, and have nothing to show for it. When something broke in our house, or I needed a new part for the dodgy car I’d bought second-hand with whatever I had scraped together already, that money I made went towards it, instead of my future. Then I saw what you could make from modelling and, though the thought of sitting in a stark studio with all eyes on me, camera lens clicking and glaring lights flashing, fills me with dread, I know it’s an easier way; it’s a quicker way to get to what I have been waiting for, all these years. I don’t have any more time to waste, and though it would be months and months to make a couple thousand, in one of those jobs my parents would prefer, I could make it in a day here. I might not have liked mathematics much at school, but I can do the sums for this one; it isn’t hard to decide.

  I just have to remember; this job isn’t hard. All I have to do is do as I’m told, move my body as he tells me, be the girl they want to see, and that money will come in.

  I can do that. I have to. This job is not hard, rinse and repeat.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘This job is so hard!’ I hear his voice from inside the studio, as a girl comes running out the door, streaking past me to gather her things before running from the building, one hand brushing away what look like tears from her eyes. I watch in horror as she leaves, though my ear is caught by the tenor of the voice, still yelling behind the now-closed door of the studio. It shuts too quickly for me to get a good view of the man the voice belongs too, but my imagination fills in some of the gaps. The voice is rich and deep, with a firm authority to it; there is command and dignity in the pitch and delivery of his words, but there is also exasperation and frustration, borne from a place of passion. I know this from the pictures hanging in the waiting room; they are specific in their form and frame and structure. There is an intense attention to detail in the way hands have been moved and tiny alterations have been made; I pick up on them only as I have had plenty of time to observe and study the images, as I sit uncomfortably on the sleek, cream leather sofa, with only the tap of the secretary’s fingers on a keyboard and the low hum of classical music for company.

  Despite the late arrival of the bus, I am both early and he is running late with the previous girls. The building in which the studio is housed is not exactly what I was expecting; it doesn’t look like much from the outside, just a plain, grey-painted warehouse with grim windows and a very pedestrian feel to it, as if it once housed a wool factory or something equally everyday. However, setting foot inside is a whole other story. It is exactly as I should have expected, with chic exposed brickwork and clean lines, darts and shocks of bright, rich colour coming in every now and again, unexpectedly on a shelf or a thin strip of wall. Even the light fixtures look as if they should be in an art gallery, all brass trimmings and moody amber glow. The reception is large and elegant, with enormous leather sofas backing up against more exposed brick and metalwork, a desk at the far end, manned by only one woman, who looks painfully fashionable with her hair pinned in an elaborate chignon, her dress designer and figure-hugging, her spectacles glamorous on her expertly painted face. However, when I talk to her to tell her who I am, and that I believe Mr Schneider is expecting me, she is polite and sweet, offering me a bottle of water and ushering me over to one of the expensive-looking sofas, which is where I am sitting as the poor girl before me comes running out in her precarious heels, looking crushed and humiliated.

  However, before this, I sit awhile and look at the unframed pictures which line the walls; they are held up with miniature bulldog clips, and must be part of an ever-changing roster, I imagine. My eyes move from one to another, admiring the craftsmanship. I feel very much as if I am in a gallery and, once more, feel my inadequacies begin to set in. The bellow of this man’s voice does nothing to settle my nerves, nor does the sobbing model before me, far more beautiful and elegant and traditionally model-like than I can ever hope to be.

  I think about leaving, my eyes on the door.

  Inside the studio, behind the wooden door at the very end of the reception area, I can still hear the voice yelling about various inconsistencies and dislikes, the frustrations venting from him, instilling fear and a kind of admiration in me, as I listen.

  ‘Where are you getting these girls, Deborah? Is it so much to ask that at least one of them be right? I’ve seen fifty girls, Deb, fifty! And not one of them has done as I asked,’ he shouts, something slamming as he says it.

  I can’t hear the reply of this ‘Deborah’, but whatever she says seems to incense him all the more, as I eavesdrop as best I can. The receptionist seems to be doing the same, as she stills her hands over the computer keyboard and tilts her head towards the door.

  ‘Look!’ he cries. ‘Look at these images, Deb. All of them are unusable! Utterly unusable. Every single frame, and her neck twitches – look! Tell me you don’t see that?’

  Again, another indiscernible reply, and Mr Schneider’s ensuing fury.

  ‘Well that’s why my name is above the door! Look, every single time. I asked her not to, I sat her in different positions, asked her to sit in a way in which her neck was relaxed and yet she did it again and again. What else am I supposed to do? I will not tolerate inferior work. I will not simply print something that is ‘good enough’, because that is not art – if I wanted to do that, I’d get some cushy job at a catalogue, churning out images of models and pictures that are just ‘good enough’. I’m an artist, Deb. I won’t accept inferior art.’

  ‘She’s done Vogue, Martin,’ this time I hear the muted voice of the woman in there with him, Deb.

  ‘I don’t care what campaigns any of them have done, Deb – they’re not good enough. I asked you to find the best, and you’ve brought me a load of useless cattle. Is there anyone else?’ he asks.

  I look again to the door, suddenly very panicked. Even the receptionist looks over at me with an apologetic concern, clearly seeing I am a hopelessly inappropriate choice. I get up quickly, clutching my bag to me, and make for the exit.

  Before I can manage it, the door at the end of the waiting area bangs open and my name is called, in the same deep, rich, commanding voice I am not sure I wish to be on the receiving end of. I stop in my tracks and turn, stuck to the spot.

  ‘Zoey Miller?’ the voice calls again, more impatiently this time. He doesn’t step out of the doorway, and I am helpless to follow the call of my name as I make my way towards the studio, flashing a worried look at the receptionist as I pass.

  As I enter the studio, I see nobody is there except the assistant, Deb. She looks frazzled, pushing sheet after sheet of useless prints through a shredder, as I stand there, unsure what to do. She looks me up and down with something akin to amusement, and points to another doorway at the back of the clean, sterile-seeming room. I scurry in the direction she is pointing, and knock feebly on the door, awaiting the voice who called my name and made that other girl cry.

  ‘Come in!’ the voice calls sharply.

  I do so.

  He is si
tting behind a desk, holding a folder in his hands. The file shrouds his face from view, as I wait to be spoken to.

  ‘I am Zoey Miller,’ I explain, my own voice shaking, as I wait.

  He lowers the folder, which has my name written on the side in thick, black marker pen. He is a little older than his voice would suggest, but undeniably handsome. His hair is a thick dark brown, casually styled, stubble ruggedly shaping a defined jawline that wouldn’t look amiss on any male model, his eyes a deep hazelnut colour, peering thoughtfully from beneath a brow furrowed in frustration. His lips are passionate, his bone structure angular and strong, giving him a masculine, commanding appearance; I can see how he has garnered his reputation. He certainly isn’t the type of man you look at once and forget about.

  His focus is still elsewhere, and he looks furious. I can feel myself trembling, as his annoyance permeates the room, playing on my insecurities. He will not look at me, and I wonder why; has he seen something in my portfolio that he doesn’t like? Has he already decided I am no good? Questions race through my mind as I wait for him to acknowledge me.

  Finally, after what seems like an hour, he lifts his gaze in my direction. The expression on his face begins aggressively, his anger still sitting amongst his handsome features but, slowly, as he observes me a little more, his features begin to soften; it is a minute gesture, a tiny relaxing of the muscles around his eyes and mouth, but enough to set me a touch more at ease. Not much more, but enough that I am not a bumbling wreck in his presence.

  ‘Zoey Miller?’ he asks, though he knows full-well.

  I nod anxiously. ‘Yes, Mr Schneider,’ I manage to say.

  ‘You’ve not done much modelling,’ he says, a statement not a question. He doesn’t wait for me to answer. ‘I am looking for very specific things, Miss Miller. I am not in the habit of photographing novice and first-timers, do you understand?’ he continues, though his words do not fall as coldly as I imagine. He is merely telling me the truth, as brutal and harsh as it might seem.