Imogen couldn’t remember the last time she’d found herself in such close proximity to a man like that—if ever—and to her horror her body automatically began to respond. Her stomach quivered. Her heart lurched and her temperature rocketed. For one crazy split second she wanted to press herself closer. Wanted to snuggle up to him and feel those arms wrap themselves tighter around her. Enveloping her. Protecting her.
Which was nuts. Completely nuts.
Imogen blinked as sanity put in an appearance and nudged aside the fancifulness. She could stop that right now. She’d been through the emotional wringer recently and the last thing she needed was to fall head first into the arms of another man. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
And what on earth made her think she needed protecting anyway? She was perfectly capable of doing that herself. Heaven knew she’d had enough practice.
Summoning up every ounce of self-control she possessed, Imogen gulped in a breath and forced herself not to react to the intoxicating waft of soap and sandalwood that shot up her nose.
‘Oh, sorry,’ she muttered, jerking back and looking up to see who it was that was having such an odd effect on her.
And nearly swooned all over again.
All thoughts of Connie and Max and self-protection vanished as she found herself staring up into the most gorgeous eyes she’d ever seen.
To begin with he had the kind of thick, dark eyelashes she’d give her designer wardrobe for. Then there were the fine lines that fanned out from their corners and suggested he laughed a lot.
Swallowing back the lump in her throat at the reminder of how little she laughed at the moment, Imogen focused on the colour of his irises instead. That kind of blue was unusual. It made her think of the sky in summer and the shallows of the Mediterranean Sea. Which would have had her envisaging long, languid summer afternoons and the long languid ways in which one might spend them with a man like this had she not ruthlessly shut down that strand of her imagination for ever.
And as if all that weren’t potentially sense-scrambling enough, there was the glint. The glint lurked in the depths of his eyes and suggested danger and excitement and naughtiness. The glint promised fun. A lot of fun. For a woman who was into that sort of thing, which, being too emotionally scarred, she wasn’t. But if she had been, the heat sweeping through her would have been down to instant chemistry, and not what must surely be a fault with the air-conditioning.
Whatever it was that was causing her to overheat, Imogen hauled herself back under control as she dragged her gaze over the rest of his face, which would have more than lived up to her expectations if she’d had any. His dark hair looked as if it were made for rumpling and his mouth looked as if it would deliver the most devastating of kisses.
All in all, the combination of that face and that body was lethal, she thought, suppressing a shiver. If you were interested in that sort of thing. Which, dammit, she wasn’t. She really wasn’t.
‘My fault,’ he said with a smile that had her stomach somersaulting before she could stop it.
He unwound his arms from around her and she took a hasty step backwards.
‘And not a drop spilt,’ she said, glancing at the glasses of champagne that had only moments ago been flung around her. ‘Impressive.’
‘I’ve had plenty of practice.’
Of having random women barrel into him? She could just imagine. ‘How fortunate.’
The smile deepened and Imogen felt something inside her melt. Her pathetically weak resistance probably. ‘For you it is.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘For me?’
He held out a glass to her. ‘One of these. You looked like you could do with it.’
Had he been watching her? Checking her out?
At the thought of those eyes roaming over her, Imogen’s heart began to race and she swallowed hard to combat the sudden dryness of her mouth. ‘I was just leaving,’ she said a lot more breathily than she’d have liked.
His mesmerising gaze slid to the painting behind her and then back to hers. The glint twinkled. ‘Not because of the scorpion, I hope?’ he said.
‘Is that what it is?’
He nodded. ‘It is.’
‘I’d never have guessed.’
‘It’s obscure.’
‘Very.’
‘It represents man’s fight against the injustice of capitalism.’
Imogen tilted her head and frowned as she finally managed to locate her brain. ‘It seems a bit hypocritical to charge a quarter of a million pounds for a piece of canvas and a few brush strokes that apparently represent the injustice of capitalism, don’t you think?’
‘To be honest I hadn’t given it much thought,’ he said dryly.
Vaguely wondering what was happening to her intention to leave, Imogen took the glass he was holding out and lifted it to her lips.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured and took a sip.
‘You’re welcome,’ he said, watching her as she parted her lips and let a mouthful of champagne slide down her throat. ‘So what do you think of it?’
She thought she heard a trace of hoarseness in his voice and it sent a shiver down her spine. ‘The painting?’
He nodded. Then cleared his throat a little.
‘Honestly?’
‘Oh, I’m all for honesty,’ he said.
Hmm. If he was, and frankly she doubted it because he was, after all, a man, then it was more than Max had been, the lying, cheating scumbag. ‘Then honestly,’ she said a touch more tartly than she’d intended, ‘it makes my eyes bleed.’
Without warning he threw his head back and let out a roar of laughter and her stomach tightened at the sound. ‘And there was me thinking it had great light, searing depth and imaginative perspective,’ he said, shoving a hand through his hair and grinning.
Imogen went still for a second, her eyes colliding with his, and her heart stuttered. The warm amusement in his voice that suggested he thought the exact opposite reminded her of the gaping hole in her life left by the treacherous Connie, and her eyes stung again.
And then an appalled thought crossed her mind and she snapped herself away from the memories. ‘Oh, no, you’re not the artist, are you?’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘Do I look like the artist?’
Imogen let her gaze run over him from head to toe, felt her blood begin to simmer and managed to convince herself it was a perfectly normal reaction to an extremely handsome man and there was no need to get her knickers in a twist over it.
He certainly didn’t look like any artist she’d ever met, she reflected, vaguely distracted by the thought of her knickers getting, not just in a twist, but totally removed, slowly and seductively, by the man smouldering down at her. He looked dark and dangerous and wicked. The sort of man that could make a woman lose her head if she wasn’t careful. ‘Come to think of it,’ she said as coolly as she could manage, which wasn’t coolly at all, ‘no.’
‘Thank heavens for that.’
Ignoring the odd fizzing of her veins, Imogen pulled herself together. If he’d gone to the trouble to bring her a glass of champagne, the least she could do was engage in a minute or two of conversation before leaving. After all, his smile might be lethal and the glint was downright criminal, but conversation had never killed anyone, had it? ‘So how do you know so much about this particular—ah—piece?’
‘I own it.’