Chapter 38 Sam Dutifully

• SAM DUTIFULLY SMILED when the photographer said, “Smile!” but her mind was whirling with what Tommy had told her about showing him he was wanted. She’d never known how to do that. The feminine wiles used by other women had always seemed gross to her. She’d felt she should be valued for her worth as a person, not as a sexpot, trading on all the bits and pieces of her anatomy that could be displayed to provoke lust.
• But maybe they were the right signals to excite a man’s interest. Maybe she had it all wrong. Or maybe she’d been too frightened of failure to try in case she made a hopeless fool of herself. In moments of sheer desperation she had fantasised playing up to Tommy, but she’d never dared do it until today. Even now she felt self-conscious about it, half expecting him to drop her at the sight of someone more attractive, like Christabel Valdez.
• Yet he’d given her every reason to feel positive and confident about what seemed to be happening. Tommy was focusing on her, making her feel sexy and desirable, preferring her over Janice Findlay and every other woman here. All the same, she wished she could feel secure that this was real and not just another playboy game to him.