For His Eyes Only. Liz Fielding

Lay out her offer like the professional she was.

      She was used to meeting powerful men and women but she was having a tough job remembering why she was in Darius Hadley’s studio. The concrete floor and walls made the space cold after the sun outside, but a trickle of sweat was running down between her breasts and an age-old instinct was telling her to shrug off her jacket, let her hair down, reach out and run her fingers up his denim-clad thigh, perched, tantalisingly, at eye level.

      ‘What do you want, Natasha Gordon?’

      She looked up and saw her feelings echoed in Darius Hadley’s shadowed features and for a moment it could have gone either way.

      She was saved by the crash of a pigeon landing on the skylight, startling them both out of the danger zone.

      ‘I don’t want anything from you, Mr Hadley,’ she said quickly. Could this be any more difficult? Bad enough that he thought she’d sabotaged the sale of his house without acting like a sex-starved nymphomaniac. ‘On the contrary. I’m going to do you a favour. I’m going to sell your house for you.’

      ‘Miss Gordon...’

      ‘I know.’ She held up her hand in a gesture of surrender. ‘Why would you trust me? After the debacle with your ad,’ she added, and then wished she hadn’t. Having found him, got through the door a darn sight more easily than she’d expected and survived that first intense encounter, reminding him why he should throw her out was not her brightest move.

      ‘Is there any hope that you’re not going to tell me?’ he asked.

      Phew... ‘Not a chance.’ She slipped the strap of her laptop bag from her shoulder and let it drop at her feet, anchoring herself in his space. Then she placed the glossy white cakebox on his workbench alongside his neatly laid-out tools—most of which appeared to be lethal weapons. Most, but not all. She picked up a long curved rib bone.

      ‘That belonged to the last person who annoyed me,’ he said, finally stepping off the ladder.

      ‘Really?’ Apparently there was a sense of humour lurking beneath that scowl. Promising...

      ‘What did he do?’ she asked, looking up at the sculpture rearing above her, heart swelling within its ribcage as the horse leapt some unseen obstacle. From what she’d seen of his work on the Net, it appeared that visceral was something of a theme. ‘Did he throw you? Is this you getting your own back?’

      ‘Anyone can make a pretty image.’ He took the bone from her, replaced it on the bench. ‘I want to show what’s behind the power, the movement. Bones, sinews, heart.’

      ‘The engine rather than the chassis.’ Eager to avoid close eye contact, she walked around the beast, examining it from every angle, before looking across at Darius Hadley from the safety of the far side. ‘That’s what you do, isn’t it? Show us the inside of things.’

      ‘That’s what’s real, what’s important.’

      ‘I saw your installation outside Tate Modern. The house.’ That had been stripped back to the bones, too.

      ‘You’ve done your homework,’ he said.

      ‘I was just walking past. I didn’t realise it was yours until I looked you up online. I thought it was...bleak.’

      ‘Everyone’s a critic.’

      ‘No... It was beautiful. It’s just...well, there were no people and without them a house is simply a frame.’

      ‘Perhaps that was the point,’ he suggested.

      ‘Was it?’ He didn’t answer and she looked back up at the horse. ‘This is...big.’

      ‘I’ll cast a smaller version for a limited edition.’

      ‘Just the thing for the mantelpiece,’ she said flippantly. Then wished she hadn’t. His work was more important than that. ‘I’m sorry; that was a stupid thing to say. I’m a bit nervous.’

      ‘I’m not surprised. Does Miles Morgan really think he can buy me off with a glimpse of your cleavage and a slice of cake?’

      ‘What?’ She checked her top button but it was still in place. Just. She’d worn her roomiest shirt but working ten, fourteen hours a day didn’t leave much time for exercise, or a carefully thought-out diet. And she’d moved less and eaten more in the last week than was good for anyone; it was definitely time to get out of the kitchen and back to work. ‘Miles didn’t send me. As for the cleavage...’ She lifted her shoulders in a little shrug that she hoped would give the impression that she was utterly relaxed. She was good at that. The most important thing she’d learned about selling houses was to create an image. Set the stage, create an initial impact that would grab the viewer’s attention then hold it. This time she was selling herself... ‘I’ve been on a baking binge and eating too much of my own cooking.’

      ‘And now you want to share.’

      ‘I thought something sweet might help to break the ice.’

      Ice?

      There was no ice as she bent forward to tug on the gauzy bow that exactly matched the shade of her lipstick, her nails; only heat zinging through his veins, making the blood pump thickly in his ears.

      He’d been drawing her obsessively for a week, trying to get her out of his head, but while the two-dimensional image had been recognisable it lacked the warmth, the sparkle of the original.