in all, the combination of that face and that body was lethal, she thought, suppressing a shiver. If you were interested in that sort of thing. Which, dammit, she wasn’t. She really wasn’t.
‘My fault,’ he said with a smile that had her stomach somersaulting before she could stop it.
He unwound his arms from around her and she took a hasty step backwards.
‘And not a drop spilt,’ she said, glancing at the glasses of champagne that had only moments ago been flung around her. ‘Impressive.’
‘I’ve had plenty of practice.’
Of having random women barrel into him? She could just imagine. ‘How fortunate.’
The smile deepened and Imogen felt something inside her melt. Her pathetically weak resistance probably. ‘For you it is.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘For me?’
He held out a glass to her. ‘One of these. You looked like you could do with it.’
Had he been watching her? Checking her out?
At the thought of those eyes roaming over her, Imogen’s heart began to race and she swallowed hard to combat the sudden dryness of her mouth. ‘I was just leaving,’ she said a lot more breathily than she’d have liked.
His mesmerising gaze slid to the painting behind her and then back to hers. The glint twinkled. ‘Not because of the scorpion, I hope?’ he said.
‘Is that what it is?’
He nodded. ‘It is.’
‘I’d never have guessed.’
‘It’s obscure.’
‘Very.’
‘It represents man’s fight against the injustice of capitalism.’
Imogen tilted her head and frowned as she finally managed to locate her brain. ‘It seems a bit hypocritical to charge a quarter of a million pounds for a piece of canvas and a few brush strokes that apparently represent the injustice of capitalism, don’t you think?’
‘To be honest I hadn’t given it much thought,’ he said dryly.
Vaguely wondering what was happening to her intention to leave, Imogen took the glass he was holding out and lifted it to her lips.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured and took a sip.
‘You’re welcome,’ he said, watching her as she parted her lips and let a mouthful of champagne slide down her throat. ‘So what do you think of it?’
She thought she heard a trace of hoarseness in his voice and it sent a shiver down her spine. ‘The painting?’
He nodded. Then cleared his throat a little.
‘Honestly?’
‘Oh, I’m all for honesty,’ he said.
Hmm. If he was, and frankly she doubted it because he was, after all, a man, then it was more than Max had been, the lying, cheating scumbag. ‘Then honestly,’ she said a touch more tartly than she’d intended, ‘it makes my eyes bleed.’
Without warning he threw his head back and let out a roar of laughter and her stomach tightened at the sound. ‘And there was me thinking it had great light, searing depth and imaginative perspective,’ he said, shoving a hand through his hair and grinning.
Imogen went still for a second, her eyes colliding with his, and her heart stuttered. The warm amusement in his voice that suggested he thought the exact opposite reminded her of the gaping hole in her life left by the treacherous Connie, and her eyes stung again.
And then an appalled thought crossed her mind and she snapped herself away from the memories. ‘Oh, no, you’re not the artist, are you?’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘Do I look like the artist?’
Imogen let her gaze run over him from head to toe, felt her blood begin to simmer and managed to convince herself it was a perfectly normal reaction to an extremely handsome man and there was no need to get her knickers in a twist over it.
He certainly didn’t look like any artist she’d ever met, she reflected, vaguely distracted by the thought of her knickers getting, not just in a twist, but totally removed, slowly and seductively, by the man smouldering down at her. He looked dark and dangerous and wicked. The sort of man that could make a woman lose her head if she wasn’t careful. ‘Come to think of it,’ she said as coolly as she could manage, which wasn’t coolly at all, ‘no.’
‘Thank heavens for that.’
Ignoring the odd fizzing of her veins, Imogen pulled herself together. If he’d gone to the trouble to bring her a glass of champagne, the least she could do was engage in a minute or two of conversation before leaving. After all, his smile might be lethal and the glint was downright criminal, but conversation had never killed anyone, had it? ‘So how do you know so much about this particular—ah—piece?’
‘I own it.’
‘God, why?’ she asked aghast, rapidly revising her opinion of him. He might be gorgeous but his taste in art left a lot to be desired.
His eyes gleamed. ‘I won it at a charity auction.’
Her eyebrows shot up. ‘Someone else was bidding for it?’ That at least two people had wanted the thing was astounding.
He nodded and grinned. ‘A friend of mine.’
‘Some friend.’
‘One of the best. It was quite a tussle.’
‘But he eventually bowed out?’
‘He did.’
‘Sensible man.’
He shrugged. ‘He didn’t have much of a choice. I like to win.’
Hmm. She cast him a sceptical glance and noticed the determined set to his jaw as well as the now decidedly ruthless glint in his eye. Oh, yes, he liked to win. And, she deduced, at any cost.
‘Well, it seems to me that on this occasion you lost,’ she said, stifling a shudder at the dangerously enticing thought of being pursued and conquered by someone like him.
He gazed at her for so long and so intently that her mouth went dry and her body began to buzz. ‘You know, you could be right,’ he murmured.
She tried to blot out the buzzing by telling herself that the man was an idiot who had more money than sense, but it didn’t appear to be working. ‘So really you acquired it by accident?’
He tilted his head and grinned. ‘It would seem so. Although not an unhappy one, given the increase in its value over the years.’
She lifted her eyebrows. ‘And that’s important?’
‘Profit
