risen at her entrance.
“You are Sydney’s mother?” Mikhail asked before Sydney could shoo Margerite along.
“Why, yes.” Margerite’s smile was reserved. She didn’t approve of her daughter being on a first-name basis in her relationships with the help. Particularly when that help wore stubby ponytails and dirty boots. “How did you know?”
“Real beauty matures well.”
“Oh.” Charmed, Margerite allowed her smile to warm fractionally. Her lashes fluttered in reflex. “How kind.”
“Mother, I’m sorry, but Mr. Stanislaski and I have business to discuss.”
“Of course, of course.” Margerite walked over to kiss the air an inch from her daughter’s cheek. “I’ll just be running along. Now, dear, you won’t forget we’re to have lunch next week? And I wanted to remind you that…Stanislaski,” she repeated, turning back to Mikhail. “I thought you looked familiar. Oh, my.” Suddenly breathless, she laid a hand on her heart. “You’re Mikhail Stanislaski?”
“Yes. Have we met?”
“No. Oh, no, we haven’t, but I saw your photo in Art/World. I consider myself a patron.” Face beaming, she skirted the desk and, under her daughter’s astonished gaze, took his hands in hers. To Margerite, the ponytail was now artistic, the tattered jeans eccentric. “Your work, Mr. Stanislaski—magnificent. Truly magnificent. I bought two of your pieces from your last showing. I can’t tell you what a pleasure this is.”
“You flatter me.”
“Not at all,” Margerite insisted. “You’re already being called one of the top artists of the nineties. And you’ve commissioned him.” She turned to beam at her speechless daughter. “A brilliant move, darling.”
“I—actually, I—”
“I’m delighted,” Mikhail interrupted, “to be working with your daughter.”
“It’s wonderful.” She gave his hands a final squeeze. “You must come to a little dinner party I’m having on Friday on Long Island. Please, don’t tell me you’re already engaged for the evening.” She slanted a look from under her lashes. “I’ll be devastated.”
He was careful not to grin over her head at Sydney. “I could never be responsible for devastating a beautiful woman.”
“Fabulous. Sydney will bring you. Eight o’clock. Now I must run.” She patted her hair, shot an absent wave at Sydney and hurried out just as Janine brought in a soft drink.
Mikhail took the glass with thanks, then sat again. “So,” he began, “you were asking about windows.”
Sydney very carefully relaxed the hands that were balled into fists under her desk. “You said you were a carpenter.”
“Sometimes I am.” He took a long, cooling drink. “Sometimes I carve wood instead of hammering it.”
If he had set out to make a fool of her—which she wasn’t sure he hadn’t—he could have succeeded no better. “I’ve spent the last two years in Europe,” she told him, “so I’m a bit out of touch with the American art world.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” he said, enjoying himself.
“I’m not apologizing.” She had to force herself to speak calmly, to not stand up and rip his bid into tiny little pieces. “I’d like to know what kind of game you’re playing, Stanislaski.”
“You offered me work, on a job that has some value for me. I am accepting it.”
“You lied to me.”
“How?” He lifted one hand, palm up. “I have a contractor’s license. I’ve made my living in construction since I was sixteen. What difference does it make to you if people now buy my sculpture?”
“None.” She snatched up the bids again. He probably produced primitive, ugly pieces in any case, she thought. The man was too rough and unmannered to be an artist. All that mattered was that he could do the job she was hiring him to do.
But she hated being duped. To make him pay for it, she forced him to go over every detail of the bid, wasting over an hour of his time and hers.
“All right then.” She pushed aside her own meticulous notes. “Your contract will be ready for signing on Friday.”
“Good.” He rose. “You can bring it when you pick me up. We should make it seven.”
“Excuse me?”
“For dinner.” He leaned forward. For a shocking moment, she thought he was actually going to kiss her. She went rigid as a spear, but he only rubbed the lapel of her suit between his thumb and forefinger. “You must wear something with color.”
She pushed the chair back and stood. “I have no intention of taking you to my mother’s home for dinner.”
“You’re afraid to be with me.” He said so with no little amount of pride.
Her chin jutted out. “Certainly not.”
“What else could it be?” With his eyes on hers, he strolled around the desk until they were face-to-face. “A woman like you could not be so ill-mannered without a reason.”
The breath was backing up in her lungs. Sydney forced it out in one huff. “It’s reason enough that I dislike you.”
He only smiled and toyed with the pearls at her throat. “No. Aristocrats are predictable, Hayward. You would be taught to tolerate people you don’t like. For them, you would be the most polite.”
“Stop touching me.”
“I’m putting color in your cheeks.” He laughed and let the pearls slide out of his fingers. Her skin, he was sure, would be just as smooth, just as cool. “Come now, Sydney, what will you tell your charming mother when you go to her party without me? How will you explain that you refused to bring me?” He could see the war in her eyes, the one fought between pride and manners and temper, and laughed again. “Trapped by your breeding,” he murmured. “This is not something I have to worry about myself.”
“No doubt,” she said between her teeth.
“Friday,” he said, and infuriated her by flicking a finger down her cheek. “Seven o’clock.”
“Mr. Stanislaski,” she murmured when he reached the door. As he turned back, she offered her coolest smile. “Try to find something in your closet without holes in it.”
She could hear him laughing at her as he walked down the hallway. If only, she thought as she dropped back into her chair. If only she hadn’t been so well-bred, she could have released some of this venom by throwing breakables at the door.
She wore black quite deliberately. Under no circumstances did she want him to believe that she would fuss through her wardrobe, looking for something colorful because he’d suggested it. And she thought the simple tube of a dress was both businesslike, fashionable and appropriate.
On
