cash. This was personal.
‘Seven hundred and fifty.’
The numbers had no meaning. The rest of the room could have dissolved in a heap of ashes for all she cared. Darkness gathered and swirled in her head, and through it all she could see, all she was aware of, was the man standing a few feet away from her, his eyes searing into hers. She felt the colour rising into her cheeks and ran her tongue over lips that felt dry and oddly swollen. Suddenly she was unbearably hot, as if the blood in her veins had been heated slowly over a low flame.
Hastily she shrugged off her jacket, letting it fall onto the chair behind her and revealing the sober little black dress she wore beneath. She had lost all sense of time. Only the thud of her heart marked each passing second as she stared at him. His hair was dark too, an untamed halo of curls, like a knight crusader. Or a gypsy…or… Or a pirate. His mouth, she saw now, had a brutal sensuality about it that made her think of plunder, and was entirely at odds with the crisp perfection of his bespoke suit. The expression a wolf in sheep’s clothing drifted though her dazed, distracted mind.
He lifted his head, tilting it back against the wall, but still his eyes pinned her to the spot like a butterfly in a case. Slowly, deliberately, hardly moving those beautiful lips, he spoke with a light foreign inflection that was straight from every clichéd feminine fantasy, and he seemed to address her and her alone.
‘One thousand pounds.’
Bella couldn’t breathe.
‘Miss?’ The auctioneer’s voice was stiff with surprise, and it seemed to be coming from a long way away. ‘Any advance on one thousand? One thousand and ten?’
A terrible, languid recklessness stole through her. This must be what it felt like to jump from a plane, in the moment before the parachute unfurled: dizzying, terrifying, yet strangely peaceful. There was nothing to do but give in to the feeling, the irresistible pull of invisible forces beyond all control.
The painting was lost; that much was certain. There was no way she could compete. But there was more at stake now, and she wanted to push him just that little bit further, break through that infuriating, intriguing, madly provocative calm. She wanted to make him feel something. Even if it was only anger…
Defiantly she met his gaze in a look of silent, brazen challenge.
‘Yes. One thousand and five pounds.’
With an inner smile of triumph she waited for him to come back, upping the price. The room was very still.
‘Sir? One thousand and ten?’
The stranger’s eyes held her own, then with agonizing slowness travelled downwards. Her throat felt as if it was full of cement, and through the panicky darkness that gathered at the edges of her vision she thought she registered the slowly spreading smile on his lips. Then, as if from a great distance, through veils of horror and disbelief Bella saw him shake his head.
Her stomach tightened reflexively, as if she’d just been punched, and all the air was driven from her lungs in an instant. Her mouth opened in shock. Through the swirling haze of horror she was aware only of his eyes. Amusement and triumph shone in their dark depths.
‘One thousand and five pounds, then.’ The auctioneer’s gavel hovered. ‘All finished at one thousand and five…? Going once…’
With contemptuous grace the man levered himself up from the wall and stepped forward. His gaze was still locked on her, but suddenly all the amusement had gone from it.
‘Second time at one thousand and five…’
Bella’s heart raced and her lips felt numb and bloodless. She was suddenly horribly afraid that she might faint, and was just stumbling blindly to her feet when she saw the man give the auctioneer a curt nod.
‘Back with you, sir, at one thousand and ten?’ asked the auctioneer.
He nodded again, and turned away from her. Bella sucked in a wild gulp of air. The sharp rap of the auctioneer’s gavel shattered the bubble of unreality in her head, and broke the spell. Ducking her head, she pushed past the rows of curious onlookers and fled, too shattered by the emotions still rampaging through her to even feel relieved.
Eyes narrowed speculatively, Olivier Moreau watched her leave.
Interesting, he thought grimly. Very, very interesting. On several levels.
Notoriously cynical and quickly bored, he wasn’t a man whose interest was easily captured. But by offering approximately ten times too much for an anonymous painting that could be described, at best, as average, she’d got it.
And the hectic sparks in her wide, dark eyes interested him too. She’d wanted that painting very much—enough to almost lose all sense of rationality in the process. She’d been out of control there for a moment and it had scared her. He’d seen it, sensed it.
The thing that interested him most was why?
She’d been in such a hurry to leave that she’d left her jacket lying on the chair, and on his way out he leaned over and scooped it up. It was of soft black linen, and as he held it he caught a soft breath of jasmine in its folds which caught him unawares and rekindled the spark of desire that had been smouldering in the darkness inside him since the moment he’d first seen her.
At the porter’s desk he handed over his bidding number and a thick wedge of banknotes. Waiting for his receipt, he looked down at the linen jacket in his hand, noticing, with a faint, sardonic smile, the very exclusive designer label in the back. Very grown-up, he thought idly, picturing it lying against the creamy skin of her neck. Very expensive, but disappointingly conservative and predictable. He would have liked to see her in something more individual.
And what an enticing carnival of vivid images that thought introduced…
He crushed the fabric back into one hand, decisively squashing a wicked picture of dark, shining hair against crimson silk as he walked out into the humid London afternoon.
It had been a summer of seemingly endless rain, and once again the sky was low and sullen, but Olivier barely noticed as he stood at the top of the steps. He felt restless and unsettled, as if something momentous was about to happen; something he hadn’t quite planned for.
Maybe it was the painting, he mused grimly. Maybe this was it—the one he’d been looking for all these years.
Or maybe it was the girl.
* * *
Stopping dead in the middle of the pavement, Bella swore succinctly as she realised that she’d left her jacket behind in the auction room.
Knickers.
She was about to turn round when she hesitated. So what if the jacket was Valentino, and it belonged to her grandmother? So what if the heavens were about to open and she was only wearing a flimsy black dress? She should have been home ages ago—Miles always rang to check that she’d got back all right, and he’d worry if she wasn’t there when he called, so really she should hurry…
She didn’t move, paralysed by indecision and by the humiliating realization that her reluctance to go back to the auction house had nothing to do with lack of time and far more to do with lack of
