While she’d cleaned her face and scraped her hair back into a messy bun, Oliver had adjusted the lighting and brought a stool into the middle of the white backdrop. She crossed the bleak landscape and settled onto the seat, breathing deep to relax her muscles and free herself from tension.
“Tell me something you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t,” Oliver began, his tone warmer than she expected, inviting her to share confidences.
Sammi thought about all the conversations they’d had and what she hadn’t told him about herself. While he waited in silent stillness, she considered and discarded a dozen inconsequential things before settling on something she’d avoided.
“I’ve never gone to the Philippines to visit.” Sammi spoke the words quietly. “And I have family there that I’ll never get to meet.”
“Why is that?”
“Until I was ten, I had it in my head that there was a perfect family awaiting me on the other side of the world if only we had enough money to go visit them. But that wasn’t the case. My mom grew up dirt-poor. Her father died when she was five, and her mother had to work in the fields. She could barely make enough to feed them, much less keep a roof over their heads. When my mom was eleven, they moved to the city where my grandmother’s sister lived, and my grandmother got a job as a maid in a rich man’s house.”
Sammi paused to let Oliver absorb where she’d come from and wondered if that changed his perception of her. His mother had come from old money and grew up in the sort of house where Sammi’s grandmother had worked.
“Things improved somewhat for my mother after that. My grandmother was able to afford a studio apartment and send my mom to school. Neither one of my grandparents had anything beyond an elementary-level education, and my mother knew the only way to improve her life was through schooling.”
“Do you know if your grandmother is still alive?”
Sammi shrugged. “I have no idea or how to find out.”
“What about your father?”
“When my mom met him, he was already married.” Sammi noticed Oliver’s grim expression and shook her head. “She didn’t know until after she got pregnant.”
“Is that when she came to the US?”
“My father’s father-in-law paid her way here and made her promise never to contact my father again.” Sammi’s heart ached as she remembered the broken tears in her mother’s eyes the night she’d told the story. “He didn’t want his daughter to learn of her husband’s infidelity. Or for there to be an illegitimate child who might one day make trouble.”
“So you were her ticket out,” Oliver murmured.
“I guess I was.” Before her mother had revealed her assumption that Sammi would terminate her pregnancy, she’d always believed that Celeste had wanted to be a mother. Now she had a different perspective and still hadn’t figured out how to cope with this new reality. “I really don’t know if she wanted me.”
“Did you ever ask?”
“Until recently it never occurred to me that I had to.”
“That has to make you angry at your mother.”
“Of course.” Sammi sighed. “But it’s a little less every day. For a long time I resented the pressure she put on me to model and make money. Facing the loss of my income because I’m pregnant has given me a new perspective. I’m starting to appreciate how terrified she was of being poor again. I can’t blame her for doing whatever she needed to survive.”
“I suppose next you’re going to tell me you’ve forgiven her.”
Sammi heard the resentment beneath Oliver’s skepticism. “I need to let go of my resentment because it’s not doing me or my mother any good. I’m as angry with myself for not trusting my instincts and letting her run my life as I am angry with her for using me all these years.”
“The difference between us is that I’m not angry with myself,” Oliver pointed out. “I’m angry with my father.”
Sammi thought of her tumultuous relationship with her mother and knew that it wasn’t that simple. “The difference between us is that I recognize she’s the only family I have and I won’t be happy if she’s not in my life. I’ve decided to put the past behind me. We’re having lunch tomorrow to celebrate her new job. Hopefully it’ll be a fresh start for both of us.”
As she finished talking, Oliver walked over and set his camera on a nearby table.
“Is that it?” she asked, getting to her feet. “Did you get the shot?”
“I don’t know.” His gaze was fixed at a point behind her. “I took a lot of photos.”
“I thought we agreed that I would pay you to take one.”
“I realized that a single shot can’t capture who you are.” Oliver shifted his attention and looked directly at her. “I was wrong to think that it could.”
Sammi’s throat seized up, preventing her from speaking. Instead, she led Oliver to the couch, stripped him out of his clothes and took him into her mouth. Kneeling between his strong thighs, she blocked every thought from her mind and channeled each painful thump of her heart into pleasuring him. Gripping his shaft, she caressed the head while swirling her tongue along his velvet length. His sharp exhalation made her smile. His tortured breaths filled her ears as she worked over him with tongue, lips and hand. She knew he was close when he began bucking into her mouth.
“Stop!” He growled the word. Snagging fingers in her long hair, he tugged her head back. “Not like this. I need to be inside you.”
With an economy of movement, Sammi stripped off her robe and underwear. His hands reached for her as she straddled his lap. She tossed her hair away from her face and braced her hands on his shoulders.
“Like this?” Slowly she lowered herself, letting his erection
