Read Online Photo Play by Pam McKenna - Free Book Online Page A

sharp relief. Her chestnut hair gleamed, and the earrings sparked with light, drawing the eye.
    “Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God—” She scanned the writing on the flyer, looking for the where and when of this exhibit, of which she was obviously the sole subject. She screamed again, a full-throated banshee howl. Monster dashed from the room, his nails clacking like castanets on the tile floor.
    Darla glanced at the clock on the sideboard. “I’ll kill the arrogant SOB!” She snatched up her purse and keys as she ran to the door. “He can’t do this to me.”
    The exhibit had opened precisely three minutes earlier at a private club on her small town’s main street. The Port Stanley Club was housed in a historic brownstone that was regularly rented out for exhibits, performances and receptions. Darla cursed Kon the whole way there, wondering how she was going to shut down an exhibit in progress, dreading even showing her face in a roomful of salacious photos featuring said face.
    In the photo Kon had chosen for the flyer, she’d turned her head aside. She recalled how conflicted she’d felt at that moment, unable to decide whether to put a stop to the session. She was unrecognizable in the flyer, but the exhibit was a different matter. Her face was clearly visible in the vast majority of pictures Kon had taken.
    Not that anyone would be focusing on the face. As the windshield wipers slapped at the rain, Darla leaned across the front seat and extracted her sunglasses from the glove box. The glasses were large and very dark. Not perfect as far as disguises went, but better than nothing.
    She pulled up to the Port Stanley Club, aglow in welcoming light. Her stomach lurched as she envisioned people she knew strolling through the exhibit and recognizing, with a shock, the subject of the erotic photographs. She didn’t doubt that many of her own friends and acquaintances were among those planning to attend this exhibit. It was quite a coup, after all, a small town like hers hosting an exhibit by an internationally known talent like Konrad Drummond.
    He’d done this just to get back at her. Just to hurt her. The evil fucking bastard.
    She braked to a halt in front of a hydrant and hurled herself out of the car, heedless of the downpour as she bounded up the front steps and yanked open the door. The entrance foyer was a study in architectural elegance, with its hand-carved woodwork and elaborate chandelier. The turn-of-the-century charm was wasted on Darla, who stood in a puddle of rainwater, gulping air. No one was there to greet her, but a signboard directed exhibit-goers up the wide, carpeted stairs, which she took three at a time, pushing the sunglasses up her nose.
    She hurried to the Bennington Room, straight ahead. Her heart jumped into her throat as she spied, through the open mahogany doors, framed photographs hanging on the far wall. In that instant she wanted nothing more than to turn on her heel and flee back out into the rain. Through sheer force of will she put one foot in front of the other, steeling herself to confront a roomful of pictures of Darla Carmody, buck naked and desperate for a cock.
    Inside the windowless exhibit room, she felt the first tiny spark of hope. She was the only one there. Dare she hope she was the first? Perhaps the rain had kept the crowds away or at least slowed their arrival. She might yet thwart Kon’s plan to punish and humiliate her.
    She might not have to move to Mongolia after all.
    Darla looked around. Shouldn’t the artist be on hand to discuss his work and bask in the adulation of his admirers? Maybe he’d run out to the little boys’ room. Here was her chance to rip all the pictures off the walls, to smash the glass and tear up the prints. There were several dozen of them, each large and detailed and unmistakably her . Where to start?
    She grabbed the nearest framed photograph and wrenched it off its hook. She raised it, intending to slam it against the