Smile

6 Chapter

I'm still in love with Nick Holmes' photography style and I thought it would be fun to add some quotes from him that were on his twitter account and HP. If you recognize some they're not mine, just borrowed for #TeamRobert. Hopefully Nick doesn't care.

Due to vacation of my lovely beta, I will not bring out any new chapters of this story in the next three weeks. With a bit of luck, you will like this one, it's a bit more serious than the ones before, but also a little longer, ClaudiaCleland

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Robert loves watching Rory flirt. In his opinion she still has an innocence about her, and yet this new confidence suits her very well.

"Okay, let's get back to work," he says seriously.

She leans back from the desk, knowing his words are not meant to reject her, but he wants to get work done without her flirting with him. Rory likes his seriousness now.

"The last condition for this interview is when you have finished writing your interview, I will edit it before you turn it into the Times," he continues calmly.

"Editing it?" Rory asks, nobody she does an interview with edits her work. She knows he means only its content and not its form.

"Mr. Baquet told me these rules would be okay. Is there a problem?" He checks, noticing how tense she becomes after he tells her his last condition.

"Sorry, Robert, I'm just not used to someone editing my stories." Thinking about how important this is for the Times she replies, "Ok, its fine for me."

"I have successfully kept this career a secret for many years, however I began to think that an interview could push my career a bit. I have never trusted any reporter enough until now," he confesses, his voice quieter than before.

Feeling more than honored, she asks, "You trust me?"

"I decided to give you the chance after Mr. Baquet convinced me to do an interview and that you would be his choice. From our time in Yale, I knew you would not reveal my secrets or your sources. I saw how discrete you were at Yale when you wrote the LDB article," he explains.

Seeing her disappointment, he knows she probably thought it was due to their evenings at his club. In reality he accepted the offer before they met again. He thought he might be able to mix business with pleasure, but he knew that Rory would act professionally making this the reason he finally agreed. He had never thought about kissing Rory, he simply had hoped for another meeting and perhaps the start of a real friendship.

He continues, "I never told any of my friends or family, because I'm sure they couldn't keep a secret, especially our friends of the LDB," he chuckles. Loving the boys more than his real brothers he's sure they never could have kept their mouths shut with him taking nude images. He often thought about telling them, but due to their lifestyles as players he decided against it. Naturally they helped him through his worst life crisis. Thinking back, he smiles, however this was no secret, and everybody knew what happened. Feeling his eyes get a bit watery thinking about the incident, he distracts himself by looking back at Rory.

"I liked you at Yale, but we were never really close, I was the boy you used to make Logan jealous," he confesses embarrassed.

Nobody knew at Yale that he tried to seriously date Rory. He was sure back then that Logan would never be able to be a one-woman-man. Therefore, he thought he should seize the chance to woo Rory. Once they faced Logan at Finn's birthday party he realized for the first time how serious Logan's feelings were for Rory. He had enjoyed her company, but when he saw her kissing Logan covertly in a dark corner at Finn's party, he never tried to make another move.

Rory gulps, admitting to herself that he's right. At Yale, she accepted his presence as a companion of Finn, Colin and Logan, however they were never close friends. When he asked her to go to Finn's birthday party she absolutely used him. Feeling guilty for her behavior and seeing sadness in his watery eyes, she whispers, "Sorry."

"Well, we all did things while in college we were not proud of," he reassures her kindly.

Reflecting of her horrible behavior on their first date, she wonders how her life would have been different if she had chosen him at Finn's party. Realizing it's already the second time today she thinks about her choice of men at Yale, she switches into her reporter mode.

The interview finishes quickly since she was prepared with the right questions and answers that were designed on keeping his identity secret, but giving the readers an insight on his passion for his work and his career.

"Okay, I must admit, you're a great reporter, Rory," he compliments her once the interview was completed.

"Thanks," she replies, causing a light blush to overcome her cheeks.

"Let's go in to my kitchen," Robert suggests, standing up from his office chair.

"Kitchen? I thought work comes first?" She replies interested. Indeed, the image of Robert cooking her dinner sounded nice, she admits to herself. She likes the idea of a new relationship after all these years.

"Shooting in studios often misses the warmth I need for my pictures. Furthermore, my kitchen is comfortable and a perfect topic to lighten the mood before the photography sessions," Robert explains smiling at the memory of several interesting conversations he has had in there.

Leaving his office together, Rory excuses herself to go and use his bathroom.

In the bathroom, she looks at her reflection in the mirror. Okay, she is going to freak out due to the upcoming photography session. Robert loves taking nude pictures and my bra looks like a part of my school uniform, but not naughty or sexy. Before she left she had chosen comfort over sexy. She never thought about showing it to a gorgeous man today. Spontaneously she decides it was time to remove her bra. Still out of her comfort zone, she realizes that at least she could hide her ugly bra.

Quickly taking it off she stuffs it in her purse, hiding it under her other stuff. Putting on her blouse again, she relaxes a bit after checking that to see if you could tell that she was no longer wearing it.

Identifying her stress, he tries comforting her with a calm, gentle voice, "Today I will take some headshots, because I love doing them. I'm sure you will be pleased with the outcome. The picture should show a kind of beautiful and accurate representation of you. Just get comfortable and I start shaping the lights to make beautiful images."

Robert arranges everything once she took her place. He adores the mixture of her look of innocence and playfulness.

"First, I will shoot some pictures to get you use to the whole thing and the interaction to get great images," he explains softly.

"Okay, Robert," she answers coyly. The headshots are not the problem she thinks, but what follows afterwards.

"Our session is not like modeling, we talk with each other about whatever you want to talk about and I take pictures along the way. At the end you decide which images you like and what to do with them. You just need to pick one for the Times as discussed with your boss."

All Rory can think about is she needs to show a nude picture in the Times!

Robert doesn't understand why she is so afraid showing how beautiful she is, but he doesn't know what she is thinking that she needs to choose.

After shooting for some time and making more small talk, Rory relaxes more and more. He manages to create a safe space for her. Feeling safe, she decides that she feels comfortable enough to take her blouse off and starts the real photography session. She's thankful Robert took his time, but she thinks he did everything he could and now it's her turn to get serious.

Rory slowly unbuttons her blouse starting from the bottom. Due to her careful consideration, opening the blouse this way should take longer to reveal her whole torso.

Meanwhile Robert never thinking that Rory would take off her blouse focuses instead on taking her headshots. When he notices her open blouse, she had nearly opened all the buttons, he's too surprised to stop. She looks gorgeous with her rosy cheeks which redden deeper as she lets her blouse fall off her shoulders.