A Court Gesture by Jenny Gardiner

Author:Jenny Gardiner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: European royalty, Modern Fairy Tale, contemporary romance, chick lit, Romantic comedy
Publisher: Jenny Gardiner Books
Published: 2016-08-15T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

“I’m super excited you reached out to me,” Taylor said as she settled her lithe frame into a seat on the tiny patio of Cantinetta dei Verrazzano, down a quiet side street in Florence. “I really thought we hit it off the last time and I just knew you’d take me up on my offer to help you.”

Larkin knit her brows as she opened her laptop on the wrought iron table, preparing to conduct her coerced interview with the most beautiful person within a ten-mile radius. Taylor McFarland’s beauty shone so brightly it hurt; anyone in its path was in danger of securing a dangerous sunburn from it. Taylor modeled a lot for Ralph Lauren, and her good looks reflected that brand: classic, timeless, elegant, aspirational. Her delicate bone structure alone could launch a thousand poems, no doubt. Not to mention the ding of a million cash registers.

Their handsome Italian waiter—scruffy, long brown hair; brown eyes; great butt, natch—brought them an antipasti plate with local prosciutto di cinta senese, a specialty meat from Tuscany, along with fresh local pecorino cheese. One of the happy side benefits of Larkin’s job was being able to partake of the best local food and drink specialties wherever she was, which meant she got to eat amazingly well throughout Europe—even better, sometimes on the paper’s tab. Their waiter then poured them each a glass of the Chianti Classico Sassello while staring at Christie—er, Taylor. Larkin felt certain he’d overflow their wineglasses, he was so glued to her face rather than the task at hand.

Sigh... To have a man be so transfixed by your beauty that he forgets to do simple things? Unfathomable. She had to remind herself that the higher the climb, the harder the fall. If you rely so desperately on your looks to get ahead, what happens when those looks start to falter? You have no you, but rather an optical illusion of who you are, or were. She wasn’t sure if this was a risk she wanted to ever learn about. Not that that was an option. Larkin was plain ol’ Larkin, period. She wasn’t going to morph into Cinderella in this lifetime.

“The thing is, my editor really liked what I wrote about you in that piece, so he wanted me to interview you in more detail, find out about your life, your aspirations, how you ended up modeling professionally, that sort of thing.”

Taylor’s face fell ever so slightly. “Oh,” she said, her pert, cherubic supermodel lips bending into a tiny frown. “Okay. Sure,” she said quietly. “I guess I just thought you wanted to meet up with me for me. I didn’t know you had to do this for your job.”

Larkin took a sip of her wine. “No. I mean, I did want to meet up with you,” she said. “It’s just that this is an added reason to get together.”

Taylor grinned. “In that case, have you thought more about my helping you with a makeover?”

Oh, boy, here comes the guilt response.

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