Unveiling the Bridesmaid by Jessica Gilmore Page A

leaned on the counter close beside her. He was casually clad in dark blue jeans and a loose, short-sleeved linen shirt. Hope could see every sharply defined muscle in his arms, every dark hair on the olive skin. ‘ Expose was a blog I set up when I was at prep school. My plan, not surprisingly given the name, was to expose people. The people I went to school with to be more precise. I took photos chronicling the misadventure of New York’s gilded youth. It just skated the legal side of libellous.’ His mouth curved into a provocative smile. ‘After all, there was no proof that the senator’s son was going to snort that line, that couple on the table weren’t necessarily going to have sex, but it was implied.’ The smile widened. ‘Implied because generally it was true.’
    Hope thought back to the hundreds of black and white photos she had already seen today, stored on hard drives, in the box, some framed and hung on Gael’s studio walls, the attractive, entitled faces staring out without a fear in the world. What must it be like to have that sort of confidence ingrained in you? ‘And they let you just take photos, even when they were misbehaving?’ She cursed her choice of word. Misbehaving! She was living her own stereotype. She’d get out a parasol next and poke Gael with it, saying, ‘Fie! Fie!’ like some twenty-first-century Charlotte Bartlett.
    He laughed, a short bitter sound. ‘They didn’t even notice. I was invisible at school, which was handy because nobody suspected it was me. They simply didn’t see me.’ How was that possible? Surely at sixteen or seventeen he would still have been tall, still imposing, still filling all the space with his sheer presence? ‘By the time I was outed as the photographer the blog had become mythic—as had its subjects. To be posted, or even better named and the subject of a post? Guaranteed social success. The papers and gossip magazines began to take an interest in the Upper East Side youth not seen for decades—and it was thanks to me. Instead of being the social pariah I expected to be I found myself the official chronicler of the wannabe young and the damned. That was the end of Expose , of course. It limped on through my first years at college but it lost its way when people started trying to be in it. I became a society photographer instead as you said, portraits, fashion, big events; lucrative, soulless.’
    â€˜But why? Why set it up in the first place? Why run the risk of being caught?’ She could understand taking photographs as a way of expressing his loneliness—after all, she had been known to pen the odd angsty poem in her teens. But that was a private thing—thank goodness. She shivered at the very thought of anybody actually reading them.
    Gael straightened, grey-blue eyes fixed on Hope as if he saw every secret thought and desire. No wonder he’d been so successful if his camera’s eye was as shrewd as his own piercing gaze. She swallowed, staring defiantly back as if she were the one painting him, taking him in. But she already knew as much as she was comfortable with. She knew that his hair was cut short but there were hints of a wild, untamed curl, that his eyes were an unexpected grey-blue in the dark, sharply defined face. She knew that he could look at a girl as if he could see inside her. She didn’t want to know any more.
    â€˜Because I could. Like I say, I was invisible. The people at the schools I went to cared about nothing except your name, your contacts and your trust fund. I had none of the above, ergo I was nothing.’ His mouth twisted. ‘The arrogance of youth. I wanted to bring them down, show the world how shallow and pathetic the New York aristocracy were. It backfired horribly. The world saw and the world loved them even more. Only now I was part of it for better or for worse. Still am, I suppose. Still, at least it should