terrible, languid recklessness stole through her. This must be what it felt like to jump from a plane, in the moment before the parachute unfurled: dizzying, terrifying, yet strangely peaceful. There was nothing to do but give in to the feeling, the irresistible pull of invisible forces beyond all control.
The painting was lost; that much was certain. There was no way she could compete. But there was more at stake now, and she wanted to push him just that little bit further, break through that infuriating, intriguing, madly provocative calm. She wanted to make him feel something. Even if it was only anger…
Defiantly she met his gaze in a look of silent, brazen challenge.
‘Yes. One thousand and five pounds.’
With an inner smile of triumph she waited for him to come back, upping the price. The room was very still.
‘Sir? One thousand and ten?’
The stranger’s eyes held her own, then with agonizing slowness travelled downwards. Her throat felt as if it was full of cement, and through the panicky darkness that gathered at the edges of her vision she thought she registered the slowly spreading smile on his lips. Then, as if from a great distance, through veils of horror and disbelief Bella saw him shake his head.
Her stomach tightened reflexively, as if she’d just been punched, and all the air was driven from her lungs in an instant. Her mouth opened in shock. Through the swirling haze of horror she was aware only of his eyes. Amusement and triumph shone in their dark depths.
‘One thousand and five pounds, then.’ The auctioneer’s gavel hovered. ‘All finished at one thousand and five…? Going once…’
With contemptuous grace the man levered himself up from the wall and stepped forward. His gaze was still locked on her, but suddenly all the amusement had gone from it.
‘Second time at one thousand and five…’
Bella’s heart raced and her lips felt numb and bloodless. She was suddenly horribly afraid that she might faint, and was just stumbling blindly to her feet when she saw the man give the auctioneer a curt nod.
‘Back with you, sir, at one thousand and ten?’ asked the auctioneer.
He nodded again, and turned away from her. Bella sucked in a wild gulp of air. The sharp rap of the auctioneer’s gavel shattered the bubble of unreality in her head, and broke the spell. Ducking her head, she pushed past the rows of curious onlookers and fled, too shattered by the emotions still rampaging through her to even feel relieved.
Eyes narrowed speculatively, Olivier Moreau watched her leave.
Interesting, he thought grimly. Very, very interesting. On several levels.
Notoriously cynical and quickly bored, he wasn’t a man whose interest was easily captured. But by offering approximately ten times too much for an anonymous painting that could be described, at best, as average, she’d got it.
And the hectic sparks in her wide, dark eyes interested him too. She’d wanted that painting very much—enough to almost lose all sense of rationality in the process. She’d been out of control there for a moment and it had scared her. He’d seen it, sensed it.
The thing that interested him most was why?
She’d been in such a hurry to leave that she’d left her jacket lying on the chair, and on his way out he leaned over and scooped it up. It was of soft black linen, and as he held it he caught a soft breath of jasmine in its folds which caught him unawares and rekindled the spark of desire that had been smouldering in the darkness inside him since the moment he’d first seen her.
At the porter’s desk he handed over his bidding number and a thick wedge of banknotes. Waiting for his receipt, he looked down at the linen jacket in his hand, noticing, with a faint, sardonic smile, the very exclusive designer label in the back. Very grown-up, he thought idly, picturing it lying against the creamy skin of her neck. Very expensive, but disappointingly conservative and predictable. He would have liked to see her in something more individual.
And what an enticing carnival of vivid images that thought introduced…
He crushed the fabric back into one hand, decisively squashing a wicked picture of dark, shining hair against crimson silk as he walked out into the humid London afternoon.
It had been a summer of seemingly endless rain, and once again the sky was low and sullen, but Olivier barely noticed as he stood at the top of the steps. He felt restless and unsettled, as if something momentous was about to happen; something he hadn’t quite planned for.
Maybe it was the painting, he mused grimly. Maybe this was it—the one he’d been looking for all these years.
Or maybe it was the girl.
* * *
Stopping dead in the middle of the pavement, Bella swore succinctly as she realised that she’d left her jacket behind in the auction room.
Knickers.
She was about to turn round when she hesitated. So what if the jacket was Valentino, and it belonged to her grandmother? So what if the heavens were about to open and she was only wearing a flimsy black dress? She should have been home ages ago—Miles always rang to check that she’d got back all right, and he’d worry if she wasn’t there when he called, so really she should hurry…
She didn’t move, paralysed by indecision and by the humiliating realization that her reluctance to go back to the auction house had nothing to do with lack of time and far more to do with lack of courage. Defiantly she turned round and began to retrace her steps as frustration swelled inside her, making the back of her throat prickle and her eyes sting. Now would be an excellent time to burst into tears, but unfortunately crying was another thing she’d given up, along with believing in fate and letting her emotions completely get the better of her.
Well, she’d certainly slipped up there. Big style. Her emotions had just had a field day, and all because of a dark-eyed glance from a good-looking man.
Except it hadn’t been just a glance, had it? It had been an open challenge, a direct invitation, an intimate caress. Remembering it now made the skin on the back of her neck tingle as every tiny hair rose and shivered. She thought of those eyes, the measuring way they had lingered on her face, assessing her, then their speculative swoop over her body. She had felt more alive in that moment than in all the dead days of the past five empty months put together.
Life had felt full of excitement and possibility again.
She squeezed her eyes tight shut, trying to summon up that damned white sandy beach as a vortex of unwelcome emotion opened up in front of her. Instead she saw dark eyes, a full, beautiful mouth. With a harsh sound of frustration she opened up her eyes again.
The image remained. Only now it was even more disturbing for being real.
‘Don’t tell me—you’re trying to remember where you left this?’
The man from the auction room was standing a few feet away from her, a smile of sardonic amusement on his face, her jacket held in his outstretched hand. Bella’s cheeks flamed. How long had he been watching her standing in the middle of the street with her eyes closed? He must think she was a complete headcase.
Which was something she usually preferred to conceal…
Hiding her embarrassment behind a screen of chilly hauteur, she snatched the jacket. ‘I see. Not content with taking my painting, you also want my clothes now?’
It was a ridiculous thing to say. Ridiculous. What Miles would call ‘a Bella classic’. The man laughed.
‘That depends. Were you thinking of taking anything else off?’
Hot, treacherous, forbidden desire instantly shot through the shame, dissolving the carefully assembled shreds of Bella’s self-control like Cinderella’s dress on the stroke of midnight. She opened her mouth to make a