Table of Contents
Dear Reader,
This year is the twenty-fifth anniversary of Harlequin Presents®, and it coincides with my own silver wedding anniversary. Little did I know on my wedding day that twenty-five years later I would be a romance novelist for Harlequin!
In fact, I had never penned anything lengthier than a wedding invitation at the time!
Now, twenty-two books later, I guess I’m as passionate about writing romance as I still am about my husband, Ian.
So, happy anniversary, Harlequin Presents®—and Ian, let’s do it again, all twenty-five years of it!
With love,
Natalie Fox
Promise of Passion
Natalie Fox
‘THEY are all sold, I’m afraid,’ Caroline told the stranger as she stepped into the gallery.
The door banging shut after him had made her jump and rather impatiently she’d come out from her barn studio beyond the gallery, wiping her hands on her protective overall. Her mother had obviously forgotten to put the latch down on her way out for her afternoon walk with her granddaughter, Martha.
As the man turned towards Caroline her first thought was that she wished she’d leapt out of her filthy overall and into something more suitable for addressing a customer. He was a seriously attractive man, dark and tall with an air of sophistication about him that made her feel miserably shabby and wanting.
Not a local, she surmised as she stepped towards him, smiling now because anyone who crossed the threshold of the gallery door was a potential buyer. He was smoothing his hand down the back of her bronze Red Devon bull displayed on a pedestal. An art lover, Caroline mused, a sensuous man too by the look of the intensity of feeling in his touch. She never objected to people touching her work. Bronzes were for caressing and this man was milking the sensation for all it was worth.
‘The exhibition finished last weekend,’ she volunteered as she stopped in front of him. ‘But you are welcome to browse. It will give you an idea of the sort of work we do.’
He afforded her only half a smile but it was enough to have Caroline’s unaccustomed heart fluttering absurdly. His bone-structure was superb, very masculine with the firmness of arrogance. A nose any Greek god would be proud of. Wonderful mouth set off by a strong jawline beneath. Not conventionally good-looking but so darkly striking that Caroline was already casting the mould in her mind.
‘Do you have to scrutinise me quite so thoroughly?’ he said in a voice so smooth that Caroline was equally taken aback as she would have been if he had bawled at her.
Smiling to cover her embarrassment, she said, ‘I’m sorry. Sculpture’s what I do and studying bone-structure becomes a way of life. Most people don’t notice.’ She wondered if her scrutiny had been obsessively over the top and thought it probably had because he was an exceptional specimen. ‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you,’ she added as his eyes raked over her facial bone-structure framed by a crowd of tumbling tawny spirals that hung beyond her narrow shoulders. She wondered if he approved of the bane of her life, the hair that had a will of its own and rampaged wildly whatever she did to it. He was certainly taking full stock of it and now slowly letting his eyes descend down her long, slim body, shabbily clad as it was, not embarrassing her but certainly swamping her with awareness. It had certainly been a very long time since a man had looked at her that way.
‘I’m not embarrassed, not at all,’ he murmured at last as he moved on to the next sculpture.
Caroline watched him as he moved around the exhibits, only stopping to examine the bronzes. Her mother had exhibited with her, mingling her own pieces of delicate porcelain with Caroline’s more powerful, robust bronzes. The contrasting combination had worked and the exhibition had sold out on the bank holiday weekend just past.
‘If everything is sold, how come it’s all still here?’ he asked conversationally. He picked up one of her mother’s delicate pinch pots; eggshell-blue, it was as delicate as an eggshell. Caroline held her breath, her eyes transfixed on his fingers, gauging the possible clumsiness of them. Not a manual worker this man. His hands were strong but surprisingly sensitive. To Caroline’s relief he handled the delicate porcelain as if it was very precious, which it was, to her mother. She breathed again when he replaced it on its stand.
‘People don’t collect till an exhibition is over. I shall start packing up and dispatching in the morning,’ she told him.
‘Of course,’ he murmured absently, his eyes skimming over the rest of the exhibits. ‘Is it all your stuff?’
Caroline raised a brow, tensing slightly at his interpretation of her artistic products. ‘My “stuff” is the bronzes,’ she told him stiffly. ‘The other “stuff” is my mother’s.’
Another half-smile. He didn’t give much away, Caroline thought, the idea of a commission sliding away with his lack of enthusiasm for her and her mother’s work.
‘And it’s all sold?’ he echoed, as if not quite believing that possible.