shrugged. ‘Then that’s all right, isn’t it?’
‘Don’t look so smug, Miss Smith,’ Audra rasped. ‘He may find you attractive now, but it won’t last.’
‘I hope not,’ she said quietly, the sketch not going quite as well as she wanted it to. ‘Could you please sit perfectly still while I do this?’ The other woman was moving about in her agitation. ‘It’s difficult for me to sketch you if you don’t.’
‘That can wait for a few minutes,’ Audra dismissed impatiently. ‘Are you trying to tell me you don’t find Nick attractive?’ she sounded sceptical.
Danielle sighed, nodding. ‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Miss McDonald.’
‘I don’t believe you!’
‘Oh I should,’ she mocked. ‘Because it’s the truth. Not every woman finds him as attractive as you do,’ she added dryly.
‘I’ve never met one yet who didn’t!’
‘You just did,’ Danielle snapped.
‘And that little scene I witnessed between you a few minutes ago?’ Audra reminded waspishly.
‘I agree with you that it was a scene,’ she sighed. ‘But it wasn’t between us, as you suggest it was, it was all Mr Andracas’ idea.’
Audra frowned. ‘You really don’t like him?’ she made it sound as if that were impossible.
‘Not in the least,’ she replied flatly.
‘Don’t you realise the challenge of that will only make him more interested than ever?’
‘What are you suggesting I do?’ she mocked. ‘Pretend an interest in him I don’t feel just to get him to leave me alone?’
The other woman flushed. ‘Of course not,’ she bit out. ‘That would be stupid.’
‘Yes, it would.’ And it was something she could never do.
The brown eyes narrowed. ‘I’m very much afraid that I don’t like you, Miss Smith,’ Audra said slowly.
Danielle was very much afraid she didn’t like the other woman either. Audra seemed to be an intelligent woman, seemed to regard Nick Andracas as an asset in her life rather than the man she was actually in love with. Maybe the two of them deserved each other!
‘Do you have to?’ she raised mocking brows at the other woman. ‘I mean, is it necessary?’
‘No, thank God,’ Audra’s mouth twisted disgustedly. ‘Let’s get on with this damned portrait.’
This ‘damned portrait’ was probably going to be the hardest piece of work Danielle had ever done. It was not just the hardness of the other woman’s features that was making it difficult, it was also the actress’s attitude. Audra was not at all enthusiastic about being painted in the first place, was very restless in the chair, and Nick Andracas had further complicated matters by making the other woman resent her before they had even begun.
It was a difficult hour, and Danielle felt drained at the end of it, her main feeling one of relief when the doorbell rang shortly after three. Although she wasn’t looking forward to seeing Nick again, hadn’t realised he would continue to be quite so involved, knowing that he didn’t need to be after that initial meeting, that he had chosen to do so.
She went to answer the door while Audra used her bedroom once again to get changed. That was something else she didn’t like about this commission. With the studio being in her home she naturally had a certain amount of invasion of her privacy, but her bedroom had always remained apart from that before, none of her other clients needing to change before she painted them. Although she could understand the other woman’s reluctance to arrive in the gown; it was for evening wear, not for driving about London on a sunny Saturday afternoon. But even so, Danielle couldn’t say she exactly liked the other woman using what was, after all, her own personal room.
Nick looked much the same as he had an hour ago when she opened the door to him, tall and arrogant, striding confidently into her home. ‘You look tired,’ he turned to say bluntly.
She knew exactly how she looked—and felt. Her hair was tousled into disorder, her face slightly pale from the intensity of the work she had been doing the last hour, the peach lipgloss all but gone from her mouth where she had been chewing her lips in concentration. ‘And I had been led to believe you were a very charming man,’ she mocked.
His eyes narrowed. ‘By whom?’
‘Guess,’ her mouth twisted.
‘Audra,’ he derided. ‘Did she tell you that before or after she warned you off me?’
Her mouth tightened at his astuteness. ‘During, I think,’ she taunted.
‘I see,’ he drawled. ‘And did you tell her the warning was unnecessary?’
‘Of course,’ she replied with sarcasm. ‘I made very sure she knows I have no interest in you whatsoever,’ she added insultingly, hating his arrogance all over again, his self-satisfaction about how the other woman would react to seeing them together earlier.
‘Then you may have done me a favour, Miss Smith,’ he taunted.
‘Oh?’ she eyed him cautiously, knowing she wouldn’t offer him help if he were bleeding to death, that she hated him enough to stand and watch.
‘Audra is inclined to be a little bit more—attentive, when she believes, erroneously or not, that she has competition,’ he eyed her mockingly.
Danielle flushed as his meaning became clear. ‘Then I mustn’t keep either of you any longer than necessary,’ she dismissed coldly. ‘I’ll go and see if Miss McDonald is ready to leave yet.’
‘Danielle!’ His fingers bit into her arm as he dragged her round to face him.
‘Take your hands off me, Mr Andracas,’ she instructed in an icy voice, not at all surprised when he, with a chagrined frown, released her. She looked at him with cool disdain. ‘Your affair with Miss McDonald is your business,’ she told him emotionlessly. ‘As is the way you treat her,’ she added contemptuously. ‘But I will not be used by you as a means of making her jealous, and so more attentive. Do I make myself clear?’
‘As crystal,’ he drawled unconcernedly.
‘Good,’ she nodded. ‘Because I would also like to add that you have hired my services as a portrait painter, nothing else. And if you can’t, or won’t, accept that, then I suggest you get yourself someone else for the job.’
He gave an exaggerated sigh of relief that her tirade was over. ‘You can really let fly when you want to, can’t you,’ he mused, his arms folded in front of his powerful chest.
‘When I have to,’ she corrected pointedly, hating his condescending attitude to her anger.
He quirked dark brows over mocking eyes. ‘And with me you have to?’
‘With
