Prima Donna Read Online Free PDF

the modesty or vanity of the civilian population. If he
wanted to be drawn nude, who was she to stop him?
    ‘There’s a bottle of vodka in my bag,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you pour us both a glass and chuck some of that ice into it? It’s not that cold, I’m
afraid,’ he said, disappearing into the bathroom.
    Sophie nodded and swallowed hard. She heard the water start running and she tried to galvanize herself into action but her heart felt like it was perilously close to having an attack and she
didn’t dare move for another minute. Adam Bridges was naked in her room! Christ Almighty!
    Oops. She caught herself blaspheming and cowered slightly, as though expecting a finger of lightning to strike her down. Think, Sophie! What would Pia do?
    She rolled her eyes. She knew perfectly well what Pia would do. She’d get naked too and that would work because she had the body of a goddess. Adam would come out of the shower and pick
her up and make sweet love to her right there. If he came out and found Sophie standing there naked, he’d call 911. Or security. Or his mum to come and take him home.
    She was still standing there when she heard the water turn off. Quickly, she ran to the bedside table and grabbed two water tumblers, half-filling them with the vodka. She was picking the ice
bucket off the floor as he walked back in, a towel round his waist.
    ‘Here,’ she said, dropping a clutch of ice cubes into the tumblers and handing him one.
    His eyebrows shot up and he burst out laughing. ‘Whoa! You’ll have me dancing on a hangover tomorrow!’ He looked down at her mischievously, a twist of hair flopping forward.
‘You’re not trying to get me drunk, are you, Miss O’Farrell?’
    Sophie blushed beetroot. ‘God, no!’ she said, her Irish accent getting stronger with her embarrassment. ‘I just thought it might calm your nerves a little.’
    ‘My nerves? But I feel fine.’ He paused, intrigued by her fluster. ‘Are
you
nervous?’
    Sophie swallowed nervously. ‘I feel fine,’ she croaked.
    ‘Okay, then,’ he said, clinking her glass and taking a huge glug. He looked around the small cuboid room. The hotel was a shrine to minimalism, with dark wenge-wood consoles, grey
walls and coir-covered floors, and on the more illustrious upper floors that restraint felt chic. But down here, where you could almost stand on the bed and touch the walls, it felt naked and mean.
Sophie must just have been grateful to find she had sheets on the bed.
    ‘So how do you want me?’ he smiled.
    ‘I was thinking maybe . . .’ She tried to think of a suitable pose. ‘How about if you sit on that chair?’ she said, pulling the chair out from under the desk.
‘It’d be good to get some kind of after-class, repose position.’
    ‘Okay,’ he said, whipping off his towel and sitting forward on the chair.
    Sophie blinked hard. ‘Great,’ she croaked again. ‘Can you, uh . . . yes, rest your elbows on your knees,’ she directed. She stepped back to look at him. His muddy-blond
hair – wet from the shower – could easily be passed off as sweaty from rehearsal, and his damp, pale gold skin glistened like it always did after sixty minutes of spins and lifts. His
eyes were blue and pronounced, his mouth wide, and he had a long, straight nose with fared nostrils,
à la
Nureyev, that added drama and passion to his heroic characterizations and
had audiences, if not Pia, swooning.
    He looked up at her. ‘This okay?’
    ‘It’ll do,’ she joked, hoping her knees wouldn’t buckle as she walked over to where she’d set up her easel, and shifted it into position. A shaft of light from the
window fell onto his shoulder and sat there like an angel. ‘Can you drop your head? Look exhausted.’
    ‘I can certainly do that,’ he sighed.
    She picked up her charcoals and began to draw. She didn’t need to watch what her hand was doing. She just let her eyes travel over him, absorbing his physique critically,