certainly couldn’t do any harm. She had heard it was good for shock too. And she was certainly in shock.
She glanced at the portrait again as she slowly ate two squares of the chocolate.
The woman in the portrait was beautiful, much more so than her. Couldn’t Nick see that? And that woman had a sultry air about her, a sensuality, those golden eyes half closed with a secret that only she possessed.
Hebe felt herself begin to shake again as she took an educated guess at what that secret was.
She ate another two squares of chocolate before speaking huskily. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘I told you—the north of England.’ Nick moved restlessly about the confines of the office.
Hebe gave him an impatient glance. ‘Can’t you be more specific? Who did you buy it from? Where did they get it?’ It was suddenly imperative she knew these things.
Nick raised dark brows at her intensity. ‘I bought it from a young couple who had just inherited an old house from the guy’s great-uncle, or something like that. They had never seen the painting before he died, because the old man had the portrait hung in his bedroom, of all things,’ he revealed, with a certain amount of distaste.
He couldn’t say he felt exactly comfortable with some old man drooling over a portrait of a woman—Hebe!—who was certainly young enough to be his daughter, if not his granddaughter.
But the couple hadn’t known anything about the woman in the portrait—who she was or how the great-uncle had come to have her portrait. Nick had known who she was—he just didn’t have any idea what her portrait was doing in some old guy’s bedroom and not in the possession of the man who had painted it with such love.
Hebe didn’t look as if she were about to answer that question for him now, either!
She moistened dry lips. ‘What was the man’s name?’
‘Hell, Hebe, what difference does it make what his name was?’ Nick snapped his impatience. ‘He had your portrait, isn’t that enough?’
‘No.’ She shook her head slowly, turning to look at him with dark gold eyes. ‘Because, no matter what you might think to the contrary, Nick, the woman in the portrait isn’t me.’ She gave a humourless smile at his obvious scepticism. ‘No, Nick, it isn’t,’ she insisted. ‘Andrew Southern couldn’t possibly have painted my portrait because I’ve never met him! But it looks as if my mother may have done,’ she added, so softly Nick had trouble hearing her.
Her mother?
Hebe was trying to say the woman in the portrait was her mother?
How stupid did she think he was? Of course the portrait was of Hebe. It couldn’t be anyone else.
Could it…?
Nick gave her a dark frown. ‘You’re telling me that you look exactly like your mother did at that age?’
‘Ah.’ She gave a grimace. ‘Now, that is a very difficult question for me to answer—’
‘Why is it, damn it?’ he interrupted irritably. ‘How difficult can it be to know whether you do or do not look like your mother?’
Hebe eyed him ruefully, understanding his incredulity at the situation, sympathising with it, even, but at the same time knowing she didn’t have the answers that he wanted.
Except for one…
She raised silver-blonde brows. ‘How about if you’re adopted?’
Nick stopped pacing the room, looking down at her with disbelieving eyes. Was she seriously trying to tell him, expecting him to believe—?
But why not?
Hundreds of kids were adopted every year.
He moved to stand in front of the portrait, studying it closely. He had quickly seen the mirror-like similarities, but now he looked for the differences.
There was that birthmark, of course. But that didn’t prove anything. It was a pretty birthmark, and perhaps Andrew Southern had used a little poetic licence—a lover’s rose-coloured glasses—when he’d painted it there above the woman’s breast?
There was that air of sensuality, too, he supposed. But, God knew, he knew just how sensual and sexual Hebe was. He’d seen her look just like that the night they’d spent making love together. No, that proved nothing.
Neither did the lean length of her body, those thrusting breasts and delicately arched throat.
The ring!
There was an emerald and diamond ring on the third finger of the woman’s left hand. Nick assumed that it wasn’t Andrew Southern Hebe had been engaged to, but the now deceased owner of the painting. Why else would someone have kept a piece of art worth so much? Especially if keeping it had been to spite his future wife and her lover. Hebe didn’t wear a ring like that anymore. But if Hebe’s fiancé had realised that she was having an affair with Andrew Southern—and how could he not, with the evidence of the portrait in front of him?—then he would have had every right to break off the engagement; apart from the fact that she was wearing such a revealing dress, Hebe looked as if she had just come from her lover’s arms. And Nick, better than most, knew exactly how she looked at that moment!
No, there was nothing about this portrait that said Hebe was telling him the truth.
But what reason would she have to lie?
Because she had been found out?
Because, having already let two wealthy men slip through her grasp, she still hoped the two of them might have some sort of relationship?
His mouth twisted derisively as he turned back to her. ‘It’s an interesting idea, Hebe, but not very plausible, is it?’ he dismissed.
She straightened defensively. ‘Why isn’t it?’
Damn it, why couldn’t she just let it go? Admit she was the woman in the portrait and tell him where the hell he could find and speak to Andrew Southern?
He shook his head. ‘Because it’s too damned convenient, that’s why,’ he snapped.
‘For whom?’ she challenged shakily. Because it certainly wasn’t convenient for her.
Her parents had told her long ago that she was adopted, of course. They were such wonderful parents, and because of this, and the fact that she never, ever wanted to hurt them, she had never even attempted to find out who her real parents were.
What would have been the point? Obviously they hadn’t wanted her when she was born, so why should they want to know about her as an adult…?
‘Look, Hebe, I don’t give a damn if you’ve posed nude for the guy. I just want a way in to Andrew Southern, past his guard-dog of an agent!’Nick told her with brutal honesty.
Hebe flinched slightly at his callousness. ‘Well, when you find it,’ she said evenly, ‘please let me know—because after this I would
