She knew what he’d see: her spiky hair, its tips dyed bright orange, her elaborate makeup, contacts that made her eyes almost purple, and an outlandish beaded leather outfit that more than hinted at a sexuality she wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge. For the first time, she found herself regretting she’d succumbed to the peer pressure of the other art students with their outrageous outfits; that her father would be appalled by her getup wasn’t much help.
She should have toned herself down for this all-important meeting with Bryce Laribee.
As if proving her point, Bryce wasn’t bothering to hide his amusement. “You’re quite a creation. A work of art in itself.”
Jenessa looked pointedly at his tailored business suit and impeccable tie. “You have your uniform, and I mine.”
“Yours is more fun.”
“Either way, they’re what we hide behind.”
“So we’re basically the same underneath?”
She bit her lip, not sure what he was implying. “I didn’t say that.”
“And just what part of me did you want to sketch, Jan Struthers?”
She flushed; simultaneously, anger flickered to life. He was playing with her, cat to mouse. She could have told the truth: a head and shoulders portrait. Instead she said, “A good artist never narrows her options before she begins.”
“She stays open to all the possibilities?”
“Of course.”
The sparks in his eyes made her feel weak at the knees. Virgin though she was—a rarity among her classmates—there was no mistaking that he was flirting with her.
Flirting? Or was he putting the moves on her?
He couldn’t be. She was being overly sensitive to innuendo.
He said, “I have to say goodbye to the organizers of the lecture…do you mind waiting for a few minutes?”
“I’ll sharpen my pencils,” she said demurely.
He laughed, his white teeth flashing, his whole face alive with a masculine energy that shuddered along her nerves. “I’ll be as quick as I can,” he said, and strode across the room toward a couple of tweed-jacketed professors.
Jenessa tossed back the last of her glass of wine. She’d suggest they go to a restaurant for coffee, or to a bar, where there’d be other people. She’d be quite safe.
She didn’t feel safe. She could recall every detail of Bryce’s face: the dark flecks in his irises, the determination in his jaw, the sensuality of his strongly carved mouth. He was a big man, towering over her, making her feel small and feminine. Oh, God, she thought helplessly, what was going on?
Then Bryce crossed the room toward her, and in a rush of adrenaline she knew she should have run for her life. Safe? Anywhere in his vicinity? Nothing about him was remotely safe. She was way out of her league.
But Jenessa, only a few months ago, had run away from home, obeying every instinct of body and soul that had urged her to forge her own destiny. Why should she play it safe now? Art was about risks, and how could she take risks on a square of canvas if she never took them in her personal life? Doing her best to look cool and sophisticated, she asked, “Are you ready?”
“I have a rented car outside. Let’s go.”
She glanced down at her attire. “You don’t care if they see you leaving with me?”
He raised his brows. “I don’t live by anyone else’s rules—maybe you should know that about me.” He took her by the elbow, the warmth of his fingers on her bare skin sending ripples of heat through her body.
“Where are we going?” she faltered. “A bar would be fine, providing it’s not too dark for me to see what I’m doing.”
“Oh,” he said deliberately, “I thought we’d go to my hotel. That way we won’t be disturbed.”
“I want to sketch you—that’s all!”
“Is it? Is it really, Jan Struthers?”
They’d left the auditorium; the corridor was deserted. Lifting his hand, Bryce traced the softness of her lips with tantalizing slowness, his fingers lingering on the silky skin of her cheek. As her eyes widened, every nerve in her body sprang to life. She swayed toward him, her heart pounding in her breast. He said softly, “Underneath all that war paint, you’re quite astonishingly beautiful.”
He meant it, she realized dazedly. And already this had gone far beyond flirting. He wanted her. He, Bryce Laribee, self-made millionaire, wanted her, Jenessa Strathern, seventeen-year-old virgin.
Run for your life, Jenessa.
He was pressing the elevator button for the car park. She gasped, “I left my sketch pad at the studio by mistake. I—”
He laughed. “It was a novel approach, I must admit.”
So all along he’d thought she was lying about her desire to sketch him…how dare he? Dragging her attention back to what he was saying, she tried to focus. “So tell me about yourself, Jan—what brought you to Columbia? It’s a fine school, so you must be talented. Should I be looking out for your name in a few years?”
He’d look a long time because her name was false. With a passion that surprised her, Jenessa said, “I don’t want to follow the latest trend—which is always in reaction to the trend before it. I’m not using the word fad, but it might well apply. I want to paint what’s true to me. Follow my instincts, my gut. No matter if it’s unfashionable and doesn’t fly.” Abruptly she fell silent, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut.
“Interesting,” he said. “Do you run your love life on the same principles?”
She had no love life. Had never really contemplated the possibility before this fraught meeting with her brother’s best friend.
Bryce was standing altogether too close to her in the elevator, and like a shock of cold water she wondered if all along she’d been deceiving herself about her motives for meeting Bryce, out of simple ignorance of the forces that could ignite between a man and a woman. Had it been an artistic need? Or a sexual one? Or a blend of both? Her mouth dry, she blurted the truth. “I think I wanted you the minute I saw your photo on the poster.”
“I’m a very rich man,” he remarked.
With a shocked gasp Jenessa moved away from him, her back pressing into the wall. “I’m not after your money! I couldn’t care less about it.”
Narrow-eyed, he stared at her in silence for a full five seconds. “You mean that, don’t you?”
The elevator doors slid open. She stayed where she was. “Yes, I do.”
Bryce took her by the elbow, jamming his foot against the door. “You’d be surprised how many women look right through me and see nothing but my net worth.”
She wasn’t quite ready to surrender. “I’m not one of them.”
