Sighing, Lindsay slowly ate her melon while Chris twirled spaghetti on his fork. 'This is delicious, you should have had some,' he told her.
She averted her eyes. 'Are we really going to discuss The Face? Have you had any new ideas?'
'I'm hoping some will come,' he said, his eye roving over the other tables. 'What we want is a new face…'
'Someone who isn't a professional model, you mean?' Lindsay asked, and he looked back her, blue eyes blazing.
'Why not?' he stopped talking, stared at her fixedly. 'Like you,' he said. 'You're the sort of girl I'm looking for—a girl with a vital, alive face, someone special but not artificial.'
Lindsay laughed, her green eyes vivid with amusement. 'You'll never sell that idea to Charles, he'll send you to the funny farm.'
Chris put down his fork, his face alight. 'I'm serious, I just looked at you properly and you're terrific. Bone structure sensational, eyes beautifully spaced, good nose…'
'Hey, do you mind?' She was beginning to get alarmed, she did not like being analysed feature by feature, even though Chris was being heavily flattering. She knew he was using only the best butter, he didn't mean those things, and it made her feel uncomfortable.
'Sexy mouth,' he said, taking no notice. 'Nice rounded chin, slim neck.'
'Stop it!' she protested, very flushed, then, as his eyes moved lower and he opened his mouth, 'I mean it—you can stop right there.' She did not want to hear his description of her breasts, the way he was looking at her made her feel like a slave on the auction block, she objected to his stare and his personal comments.
'What's the matter?' he asked, all innocence. The blue eyes were open and frank, smiling at her. 'I'm perfectly serious.'
'Don't be so ridiculous,' Lindsay muttered.
'It came to me in a flash,' said Chris, looking quite excited for him. 'I looked at you and I knew… you're The Face.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
'I don't think that's funny,' Lindsay said.
Chris leaned towards her, his fingertips drumming on
the table. 'But don't you see—it could be you? It could be her.' he flung out a hand at the small, dark waitress who was serving the next table. 'It could be that tall blonde over there. It could be anyone.'
She relaxed. 'Well, obviously…'
'Hang oh,' he said impatiently. 'I haven't finished my point. We're not looking for a professional model, we're looking for an ordinary girl. So where do we look?'
Lindsay thought, frowning. 'Well, I suppose…' She hadn't got a clue.
'We run a competition,' Chris, said triumphantly.
Her mouth parted on a gasp, and he laughed at her expression, nodding.
'That's right, a Competition,' he repeated. 'For our girl, The Face, the girl who could be anyone in the country.' He was talking faster than she had ever heard him talk before, his words tumbling over each other to get out. 'Anyone who wants to enter will have to buy one of our products to get an entry form. They have to send in their photograph and…'
'My word!' Lindsay had caught fire from him, she was so staggered she couldn't think of anything else to say, so she said: 'My word !' again, and he laughed, highly delighted.
'Think Charles will like it?'
'He'll eat it,' she said without a shred of doubt, 'It will be terrific publicity, it will sell products like hot cakes and we'll get an entirely new face out of it, someone special is bound to be thrown up by a campaign like that.' She looked at him with admiration. 'You're a genius!'
Chris relapsed into his normal torpor, smiling lazily. 'You've noticed at last! I wondered how long it would take for the light to dawn.'
'Did it just come to you in a flash?' Lindsay asked curiously. 'I mean… just now? Did you really just think it up or…'
'I've had it hovering around, my mind,' he admitted. 'Ideas are like that sometimes, you just catch a glimpse of them out of the corner of your mind's eye, then they're gone, but if you sit round without worrying and wait—they come back.'
'So that's what you're doing for most of the day,' she said drily. 'Just waiting for ideas. I've often wondered.'