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hours if she was still interested. She had appreciated that he had made some effort to disguise the raging hope that she might have changed her mind in the interim.
     
    So far he had been an ideal model, statue-still and not inclined to chatter, although the first half-hour had been a bit excruciating. Paid life models were accustomed to the process, could discard the entirety of their clothing as calmly and carelessly as the average human being would take off their gloves or coat. Roped-in amateurs usually had a few more qualms. And Sophy suspected that Mick had more than most.
     
    For a man who had a body from the cover of a fitness magazine, he was either remarkably modest or just seriously lacking in self-esteem. His face was not, perhaps, the stuff of teen idols, but she was truly unable to see it as anything but striking. There were millions of different faces out there, features that ranged from clean-cut and symmetrical to weak-chinned and beady-eyed, but on the whole many people began to blur together. Mick was so distinctly his own person that she found it difficult to tear her eyes away from his face and keep track of what her fingers were doing.
     
    He was starting to roll his left shoulder just a fraction, keeping the movement slow and narrow in case it distracted her focus. Sophy flicked a glance at the clock and winced.
     
    “Sorry, it’s been almost two hours. Do you want to take a break?”
     
    “No, I’m good.” Mick stood up and did a full stretch, rotating his neck and arms in a way that set off a chain reaction through his pectoral and abdominal muscles, like a ripple through a wave pool. Sophy hastily averted her gaze. “Keep going. You seem to be on a roll with it.”
     
    “You’re doing great. I really appreciate this, Mick. I’ve had a concept sketch in mind for this piece for weeks, but I haven’t been able to find a suitable model anywhere.”
     
    He seemed uncomfortable with any subject that touched on his appearance, so she didn’t elaborate. It was true, however. This work was her intended entry for the upcoming national sculpture competition and the rules were explicit that artists could not draw on their imagination but must use a life model. As Sophy literally needed an Olympian-sized figure from which to sketch and the bars and souvenir shops of Queenstown were rife with lanky tourists but distinctly lacking in body builders, she had been out of luck.
     
    “You’re interested in Greek mythology, then?” Mick broke a long stretch of silence to ask, taking the opportunity to move as he did so. At her impatient gesture, he grinned and returned his fist to the arranged position, folded knuckles pressed to his denim-clad thigh.
     
    She had to be fully immersed in her art before she dared to be bossy.
     
    “Love it. I did my undergraduate degree in Business Studies at the university in Dunedin,” she said. “But I minored in Classics and those were my favourite papers. I was always fascinated by Hades and I’ve been wanting to do an Underworld sculpture for years.”
     
    Mick’s attention seemed to have stopped at the first part of her explanation.
     
    “ Business Studies? ” he repeated, and his tone would have been more applicable had she confessed to an educational background in the circus ring or strip club.
     
    Sophy couldn’t help laughing.
     
    “For the record, it’s going to ruin my sketch if your jawbone drops to the floor again,” she said, smudging a charcoal shadow with the side of her thumb. “And I might have taken exception to your raging scepticism if it hadn’t been the most boring three years of my life.”
     
    “I wasn’t implying that you don’t seem particularly commerce-minded,” Mick said hastily, then paused. “No, actually, I was implying that. You don’t seem at all commerce-minded.”
     
    “I’m not,” replied Sophy, not offended. “Sorry, could you just move your arm up a little? No, the left one. Thanks. I learned to