Sarah eyed him warily. ‘Why?’
Out of options. ‘Because I want you to pose for me.’
And at last he had her full attention. Which had him questioning why he hadn’t led with that straight off the bat. But he knew why: the possibility of being turned down flat. Her initial animosity had been almost palpable, whereas now, he had something to work with. He’d work with anything she gave him to get her to agree.
‘Can you repeat that?’ she asked.
‘I want you to pose for me.’
‘What does that mean? “Pose”?’
‘Pose as in for a painting. As in I’m entering the Langman Portrait Prize and I want you to be my model.’
‘But you’re a banker.’
‘Who also paints.’
A moment of staring, and then she sucked in a breath and … and bristled? Yes, bristled. ‘Oh, I see!’
‘Oh, you see what?’
‘You want to paint me naked, don’t you?’
‘Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of—’
‘Lane mentioned your interest in paintings when she introduced us, remember?’
What the hell? ‘Lane doesn’t know I paint.’
‘Or should I say your “etchings”? I’ve heard nudes are your favourite kind.’
David could actually feel a blush start to heat his face. And he never blushed. Talk about old pick-up lines coming back to haunt a guy! ‘That’s different.’
‘Are you telling me you don’t want to get Lane naked?’
‘Yes, I’m telling you that.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Let me put it in context,’ he said. ‘I did want to get Lane naked, but now I don’t. It’s what you might call a past-tense situation.’
‘That sounds like an obfuscation to me. Only an hour ago, I saw you look at Lane in that … that way. And an hour isn’t exactly past tense!’
‘I may well have looked at her in that “way” an hour ago. But fifty-nine minutes ago, she introduced me to your brother Adam, and it became very clear to me that nobody except him was going to be seeing her naked from now on.’
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ she said darkly—and she was looking at him like he was the enemy again. Ah well, one step forward, two steps back.
‘If you want to talk about people looking at each other in a certain “way”, let’s talk about the way your brother looked at me,’ he said. ‘Like he was visualizing tearing me limb from limb with his teeth.’ He gave an extravagant shudder. ‘I have the strongest objection to being gnawed on by jealous men.’
She looked at him for the longest time, and then said, ‘What if I told you Lane likes you better?’
‘I’d say you’re wrong.’
‘What if I’m right?’
‘You’re not.’
‘They—Adam and Lane—have a very specific relationship.’
‘Which has nothing to do with me.’
‘It might have something to do with you.’
‘It doesn’t.’
She made a huffing sound. ‘Look, can you give me something to work with here?’
Something to work with? One step forward. ‘All right. I’ll say to you that whatever the case, however Lane feels about Adam, or about me, I’m no longer interested in her.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because that would complicate things between you and me.’
She pursed her lips, looking uncertain. ‘You mean …? What do you mean? That painting me is better than having sex with Lane?’
‘I haven’t done either yet, so that’s impossible to answer.’
‘Aha! You said “yet”! That’s a prevarication.’
‘Obfuscation. Prevarication. You’re a tough nut to crack, thesaurus girl. I’ll tell you what. If you’re going to be obsessed with my sex life, there’s an easy solution: have sex with me yourself.’
She gaped at him. ‘You— I— That—’
‘That way, I won’t have the energy to think about Lane, and Lane can concentrate on Adam, and all four of us will be happy.’
‘How do you know I’ll be happy?’
He gave her his best sultry smile. ‘Because I know.’ Pause, while he let that sink in. ‘So, how about it? Will sex with me get you over the line?’
She was laughing, but it was more like a splutter of disbelief. ‘Thanks, but I can have sex any day of the week.’
‘Enough people in like with you, enough people to have sex with. Geez. What’s the missing ingredient?’
‘Never you mind.’
‘Tell me the missing ingredient and I’ll get it for you. I’ll get you anything, if you’ll agree to let me paint you. Whatever you want.’
‘Whatever I want,’ she repeated slowly. Her tongue came out to touch the perfect cupid’s bow of her top lip. One, two, three seconds. And then she popped her tongue back in and took a breath. ‘Whatever I want?’ A question this time.
‘Whatever you want.’
‘It’s a very simple thing, really.’
‘Name it, and it’s yours.’
‘I want you to break my curse.’
‘I see,’ David said—so calmly, Sarah wondered what it would take to freak him out. A zombie apocalypse?
‘You said you’d do whatever I wanted, and that’s what I want.’
‘The thing is, my experience of curse breaking is a trifle limited. What are we talking about? Stealing nail clippings? Burning hair? Sticking pins in effigies? Dancing around cauldrons? Eye of newt and toe of frog? That kind of thing?’
She laughed—couldn’t help it. ‘Not quite that.’
‘You relieve my mind.’
‘More White Knight Syndrome, less black magic.’
‘So, I’m saving you.’
‘Yes.’
‘From what?’
‘Spinsterhood.’
‘You want to get married?’
‘Yes, of course I do.’
‘In that case, there’s a problem,’ he said, all apologetic. ‘I’m not the marrying kind. It’s a been-there-done-that kind of thing for me.’
Sarah stared at him for a moment, not comprehending. And then: ‘Oh, I don’t want to marry you. No, no, no, no!’
‘No?’
‘No! Aside from anything else, I couldn’t do that to Lane.’
‘I’m very slow this evening, it seems. So let’s leave Lane out of where she doesn’t belong, and perhaps