Idlewile

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

He kept his arms firmly crossed over his chest, incidentally holding his jacket tight against him, and half-glared at the people around him. "I don't want to," he insisted.

"Please, Idlewile, we talked about this," Mingh said. Her words may have seemed pleading, but her tone was one of command.

He pressed his lips together. "No, you talked about this and I said it was something I was unwilling to do."

She stepped in front of him, her high heels clacking on the floor, and he couldn't help lowering his head. Her finger was hard and cold under his chin when she tilted his face back, staring down at him, forcing him to meet her china blue eyes. "We signed an agreement," she said. "If you refuse to do this, we will lose a lot of money, some of which we have already spent. You agreed that you would do this, don't you remember?"

He did. She'd kept at him until he'd finally, reluctantly agreed. She'd practically forced the promise out of him, but she'd got it.

"Yes," he whispered, reaching up to push her hand away from his face. "I'll do it."

"Good." There was satisfaction in her tone.

To keep from saying anything, he clasped his hands together and twisted his fingers so tightly that his bones hurt. It was a real battle to keep his cool when all he wanted to do was throw a screaming fit and storm out.

But he knew better than to test Mingh that way. She had a mean pinch.

Idle sighed and began to strip off his leather jacket, then pulled off the long-sleeved shirt he wore beneath. He shivered a little under the combined discomforts of an AC turned up too high and the eyes of everyone in the room being focused on him. Even as his skin prickled with awareness, he wanted to duck away and hide.

"Well, well, look what you've been hiding." Mingh's stiletto heels made a sharp sound on the floor as she circled him, her black skirt brushing against her knees with a "swish-swish" sound. "I wasn't expecting you to be so... developed."

Idle casually crossed his arms. "Can we just get this over with? I feel very uncomfortable."

"Oh, of course." She turned toward where the photographer had been waiting semi-impatiently. "Julio! He's ready for you now."

Julio Mendes had been talking to one of his people, his hands waving furiously, but he broke off at Mingh's voice and turned around. His eyes went wide when he saw Idle. "Oh wow. That's... wow."

Idle shifted from one foot to the other and refused to meet anyone's eyes. "I am not taking off my pants," he said firmly.

"That's fine," Julio said, hurrying over to tug Idle's arms away from his chest. His dark brown eyes made Idle feel completely naked. "You're a little powerhouse, aren't you? That's hot, hot, hot."

"Yeah, okay." Idle knew he was pretty fit, but there was no reason to make a big deal about it.

He let himself be pulled across the room toward the set that had been built for his photo shoot with "FasHonesta Magazine." It looked like some kind of high-class drawing room with a billiard table and plenty of dark paneling.

Considering he was wearing black jeans and no shirt, he really had to wonder what they were about to do to him. It made him nervous.

Julio nudged him in front of the billiard table, then pushed and tugged him until he was half leaned back over the table edge, his right arm splayed out expansively and his left arm crossing over his stomach. He felt like a life-sized poseable doll.

"There. You stay just like that," Julio ordered, then rushed toward where his assistants had been busily setting up his camera.

Idle focused his eyes on a spot high up on one of the walls and tried to imagine himself somewhere far away. The snapping whir of the camera made him shift to one side, half-turning away, and he heard a murmured, "Good, that's so good. God, you're a natural," but he ignored it.