Her mouth dropped open at the astounding figure.
A mocking smile touched his lips. ‘I thought that might get your attention. Listen to your instinct. Take the deal.’
A sense of inevitability settled on her shoulders. Damion was going nowhere. She could fight, or she could take the money. That sort of money could make a huge difference—change the lives of so many. ‘I’ll do it. For the two million. But I want something else.’
Grey eyes darkened with thinly veiled contempt. ‘Of course you do. What?’
‘Invite me to your exhibition.’
‘Non,’ he negated immediately.
Her lips tightened. ‘My talents are good enough for tracking paintings but not good enough for your crowd?’
‘Precisely,’ he parried without blinking.
His insult bounced off her. He wasn’t the first to call her character into question and he wouldn’t be the last. Reiko liked it that way. With people busy examining the glossy, showy shell of her carefully honed character, they weren’t looking underneath to the scars, the pain of loss and the constant fear that lurked there; they couldn’t see the empty darkness in her soul that she battled every waking moment to hide.
She needed the camouflage just as she needed every wit to keep Damion Fortier from finding out just how damaged she’d become.
‘I’ve been out of circulation for a while. If you want me to find your paintings quickly, don’t deny me this lead.’
The lead would also give her the chance to find the final Japanese jade statue she’d been attempting to retrieve. Her client’s last desperate call rang in her ears—one she hadn’t been able to ignore. The digging Reiko had done this past week had pointed her in the direction of a prominent French politician who’d be attending Damion’s exclusive exhibition.
When Damion’s face remained impassive, she changed tactic. ‘Your guest list reads like something out of an art collector’s fantasy. I don’t think I’ll ever get another chance to mingle with people so influential in art or come within a whisper of the famous St Valoire Ingénue collection.’
‘Your presence anywhere near my exhibition is not something I’d term a fantasy. In fact I’d call it more of a nightmare.’
Despite knowing he wouldn’t believe her, she said, ‘I’m not a thief, Baron.’
‘All evidence points otherwise.’
‘I’m an art connoisseur, like you. Just because we took different paths in our pursuit of art doesn’t make us any different from each other.’
His haughty expression added insult to injury. ‘I highly doubt we’re anything alike. You deal underneath the black market—’
‘I retrieve art no one else can and return it to where it belongs. Isn’t that why you’re here?’
One silky eyebrow shot up. ‘So you’re the Robin Hood of the art world?’
She grimaced. ‘Green tights aren’t my style. Besides, I don’t really like labels. Invite me to your exhibition. Who knows? Your squeaky-clean patrons might rub off on me and I’ll transform into a model citizen and find your precious paintings.’
His eyes narrowed.
Reiko held her breath, fought the urge to speak. Sometimes silence was a better weapon.
‘You can work on your transformation in your own time. First you’ll agree to use your every resource to find the paintings.’
The gravity and raw need behind his words caught her attention. Glancing at him, she saw something in his face she couldn’t give a name to—although she felt his near-hypnotic eyes pin her to the spot. In that moment she was almost ready to forget everything she knew about this man and believe the paintings meant something significant to him.
Almost … if she didn’t know for a fact that Damion Fortier was a heartless bastard. He’d said it himself—anything that didn’t earn him cold hard cash was sentimental and messy.
His bloodline might be pure but the man was anything but. In the past five years, the broken hearts he’d left scattered around Europe alone—publicly denied in return for jaw-droppingly extravagant parting gifts but privately mourned—put his status as heartless in direct conflict with his family’s sanctimonious image.
As for his year-long affair with Isadora Baptiste …
‘Why do you want the paintings so badly?’ she asked.
For several minutes she thought he wouldn’t answer. A very real emotion that looked oddly like pain settled in his eyes. Her breath caught. Pain was a familiar emotion to her, along with guilt, and panic-inducing demons that haunted her nights. Suddenly the need to know clawed at her, and her heart was thundering wildly as she waited for his answer.
‘Why, Damion?’
‘I want … I need to have them back. My grandfather is dying. The doctors have given him less than two months to live. I have to find the paintings for him.’
CHAPTER TWO
DESPITE THE INDIRECT devastation Sylvain Fortier had caused her, the raw pain behind Damion’s words made her insides clench.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she fought the sudden automatic need to offer comfort, but the words spilled out anyway. ‘I’m sorry for …’ She stopped. What could she say in such a circumstance?
When she’d been contacted to broker the sale four years ago, she’d known immediately what the Femme paintings meant to Damion’s grandfather. Her grandfather had told her the history behind them. At the time her first instinct had been to refuse the commission. But she’d convinced herself she’d moved on from Damion’s betrayal—that it was merely another business deal. Now, looking into Damion’s darkened eyes, she wondered if she’d inadvertently set herself up for this meeting, and for his displeasure when he found out just what she’d done with his paintings.
‘Damion, I need to—’
Reiko heard footsteps at the door and her heart sank. A second later, Trevor walked in.
‘Sweetheart, what’s going on? I thought I heard the guests leave—’ Catching sight of Damion, he froze inside the doorway. ‘What are you doing here, Fortier?’ he demanded, his hands leaving his dressing-gown pockets to clench at his sides.
Damion’s set jaw tightened. ‘My business is with her, Ashton, not you. And I’d think carefully before lying to me again in future.’
‘You should’ve fetched me the moment he got here, Reiko. After what he did—’
‘I didn’t want to worry you,’ she rushed to interrupt before he could finish. He was acting out of concern for her. His guardian role was one he refused to relinquish despite her insistence that at twenty-seven she was old enough to take care of herself. What she’d been through made it difficult for him to let go.
She placed a hand on his sleeve. Damion Fortier’s exquisitely sculpted features tightened as he followed the action.
‘My business with Reiko is private. You’re interrupting.’
The two men squared off, hostility bristling between them.
With a sigh, she took her guardian’s arm. ‘It’s okay, Trevor. I’ll be up shortly.’
Desperate that he didn’t reveal anything to Damion, she walked him out of the room and into the hallway. As she mounted the first of the worn carpeted stairs, she saw Damion snatch his phone from his pocket.
She tried to keep her panic down. ‘Is it worth me asking who you’re calling? Your dungeon-keeper, perhaps? Are you sending for your personal