Waves… White sandy beach…
With a huge effort she swallowed back the tide of wonderful, terrible words that threatened to flood from her and hid them behind a small, cold smile.
‘Of course not. Thank you for picking it up. Now, if you don’t mind I’m late and I have to hurry…’
Without looking up at him again she made to turn and walk away, wanting only to distance herself physically from the disturbing, charismatic pull of his presence and reassemble her defences, regain her comfortable numbness. But as she did so he reached out and took her arm, and the sensation of his fingers against her bare skin was like an electric shock. It ricocheted through her, making her flinch.
‘Wait,’ he said quietly. ‘You said “my painting”. In what way is that painting yours?’
Rigid with discomfort, his fingers still clasped around her arm, Bella looked down. ‘It isn’t,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’m sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. The painting’s yours now. I know that.’
‘But you’re not happy about it, are you?’
She didn’t reply. His voice was very low and, even standing in the middle of the street with traffic roaring past them along Piccadilly, disturbingly intimate. He shifted his position slightly, so that he was standing right in front of her, and she could see nothing but the solid wall of his chest. It was hard. Broad. Real. Very real. His fingers were still clasped around her arm; not too tightly, but she felt powerless to break away.
‘You wanted it very much,’ he said quietly. It was a statement, not a question.
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘Why?’
‘It’s…nice,’ Bella said tonelessly, thinking of calm, neutral things. Not thinking of his mouth, or how it would feel to kiss it.
‘Nice?’ Letting go of her arm, he took a step backwards and made a sharp expression of disgust. ‘The hell it is.’
‘I beg your pardon?
Olivier looked at her narrowly. Close up she had the kind of flawless, upmarket beauty that left him cold: short, glossy hair the colour of cherished old mahogany, skin like vanilla ice cream. Earlier on, in the auction room, he had thought he sensed a rawness and a passion in her which intrigued and excited him, but now he saw he’d been wrong. There was nothing but good breeding and good bones.
‘You don’t have to be an art expert to see that it’s rubbish,’ he said brutally. ‘It’s not worth a quarter of the hugely inflated price I just paid for it.’
That seemed to ignite some spark within her again. ‘Then why did you bother?’ she flared. ‘Whycouldn’tyoujust let me have it? I’m not remotely interested in what it’s worth or how collectable it is. I wanted it for reasons that have nothing to do with money.’
‘Meaning?’
Her chin rose an inch. ‘My grandmother grew up in the house in the picture. That’s why I wanted it.’
The sky had darkened, and a warm breeze shivered through the leaves of the trees in the park opposite as the first drops of rain splashed onto the hot pavement. Everything was suddenly very still, as if the regular spin of the world had faltered for a second or two. Olivier almost wanted to reach out to hold on to something to steady himself as for the briefest moment the iron self-control, the bedrock of his being, shivered and shifted.
He took a slow breath in and summoned a bland smile to his stiff face. It felt like ice cracking on a frozen lake.
‘Really? And your name is…?
‘Bella. Bella Lawrence.’
Lawrence. Hearing the name was like a shot of adrenalin: painful, sickening, but exhilarating. He gritted his teeth, scrutinizing her. ‘Well, Bella, what a…coincidence that you found a picture of it. You must have been thrilled.’
If she noticed the acid in his tone she didn’t react. Nothing disturbed the blankness of that porcelain-pretty face. ‘Yes,’ she said sweetly, ‘particularly since it’s her birthday tomorrow and it would have been a perfect present.’ She flashed him a saccharine smile. ‘Obviously I didn’t bargain on some millionaire city boy coming in at the last minute and paying silly money for it, so I’ll just have to think again.’
Millionaire city boy? She’d underestimated him considerably. And because she was a Lawrence that stung.
She turned to go, but he had no intention of letting her disappear yet.
‘What makes you think I’m a millionaire city boy?’
He didn’t move. He didn’t even raise his voice, but she turned back to him and Olivier felt a lick of triumph. As her eyes skimmed over him he took his phone from his inside pocket, barely glancing at it as he speed-dialled. Bella Lawrence shrugged.
‘The suit. The shoes. The arrogance. Am I right?’
‘Sort of.’ Without taking his eyes from hers, he gestured with a terse movement of his head to a gleaming dark green Bentley that was just pulling up at the kerbside. ‘Can I offer you a lift anywhere?’
Her eyebrows rose. ‘Very impressive,’ she said sarcastically. ‘So you’re half millionaire city boy, half magician. What else can you do?’
He gave her a lethal smile. ‘Unfortunately, Mademoiselle Lawrence, my talents are too numerous to list now, while we’re in grave danger of getting soaked to the skin and I’m late for a meeting. But if you’d like to get into the car I’d be only too happy to enlighten you.’
He opened the car door and stood back. The rain was falling harder now, releasing the scent of hot asphalt and damp earth and making the skin on her bare arms glisten, but she didn’t move.
‘No, thank you,’ she said politely. ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea.’
‘Ri-ight.’ His fingers drummed an impatient beat on the roof of the car. ‘And I suppose you’d argue that choosing to get completely and unnecessarily soaked is a stroke of genius, would you?’ He sighed and stood back. ‘Look, you said yourself that you’re in a hurry—if it makes you feel better you can have the car to yourself. My office is just around the corner in Curzon Street. I’ll walk. Just tell Louis where you want to go.’
He took a couple of steps backwards, still watching her, silently willing her to accept the offer. He would find out where she lived eventually, but it would be so much easier to do it this way. The pavement was virtually empty now, as everyone with any sense had rushed to shelter in doorways or disappeared into the dark mouth of the tube. Bella Lawrence stood beside the open door of the Bentley in her expensive black dress, her hair slick with water.
She frowned suspiciously. ‘Why?’
‘The painting—let’s just say it’s the least I can do. Please.’
She glanced up at the angry sky and hesitated. And then, bristling with resentment and indignation, slipped into the car and leaned forward to pull the door briskly shut. She didn’t look at him.
‘My pleasure,’ he murmured sarcastically to himself as the car drew smoothly away from the kerb and was swallowed up by the Friday afternoon traffic.
Though ‘pleasure’wasn’t quite the right word for it, he reflected as he thrust his hands into his pockets and strode through the rain.
Satisfaction.
That was it.
CHAPTER TWO
GENEVIEVE DELACROIX’S face was pale, delicately tinted with a faint rose-pink blush, as if in the aftermath of passion, and her rosy lips were curved in a lazy smile of repletion. Reclining on the velvet-draped couch, she was completely naked, apart from a large and heavily jewel-encrusted gold cross hanging on a length of red velvet ribbon