flashed him a look. ‘The point is, are you?’ she coolly countered. ‘Since you seem to believe that anything to do with me and Stefan is deliberately engineered to reflect badly on you.’
She was right and he knew it. A muscle flexed in his jaw. Then he was forced to offer an amiable smile to some friends who immediately accosted them. After that it was other friends. Progress towards their main objective became a laboriously slow affair. With his hand never leaving contact with her, Marco conversed lightly with acquaintances while Antonia stood beside him, eyes constantly looking around the steadily thickening crowd in search of Stefan. But still he hadn’t put in an appearance.
What was he up to? Why was he piling on the tension like this?
People began filtering off into the adjoining rooms. With the smoothness of a man in no kind of hurry, Marco manoeuvred them into doing the same.
Antonia held her breath, Marco’s hand pressed her just the bit closer to his side as they stepped through to the main gallery. Together they paused, together they took stock of what was presented—and together they began to frown.
For there was nothing on these walls that could warrant the challenge with which Stefan had lured them here—if you didn’t count the evidence that Stefan had seemingly found himself a new subject to occupy his genius.
She was tall, she was dark, she was exquisitely different, and her rich African beauty could not have been further removed from what had gone before her. The long slender line of her body laid bare a sensuality that curled around the senses, the silken quality of her skin set fingers twitching with a need to reach out and touch. But, as usual, with Stefan, it was her eyes that drew you.
No hint of mirrors or ghosts anywhere, but a luxurious darkness that seemed to hold all the secrets of the universe.
Understanding came, trailing gentle fingertips over her emotions in the heart-rippling realisation that here, in these frames, was Stefan’s salvation.
He had set himself free. ‘Are you all right?’ Marco asked gruffly.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. But he knew that she wasn’t. He could feel her fighting a battle with tears as they walked from frame to frame. ‘She’s incredible, don’t you think?’
‘Bellisima,’ Marco quietly agreed. And he knew he should be pleased by what he was seeing, but in truth he wanted to wring Kranst’s selfish neck for choosing this way to tell her he had finally found someone else who drew this depth of emotion from him.
‘I presume by your response that you knew nothing about her?’
‘Not a thing,’ she replied, having to swallow the tears again.
‘Maybe you should ask him,’ he suggested, and drew her attention to where Stefan Kranst was standing, not far away, watching her responses with an intensity that made Marco’s blood boil.
Her head twisted round, her breath caught for a second, then her slender waist was sliding away from his hand. Without another word to him, she crossed the room towards a man who had always held too much power over her for Marco’s peace of mind. Grimly he watched her pause a step away, watched her head tilt to one side as it tended to do when she asked a question. He saw Stefan Kranst’s handsome face break into a rakish grin, and wanted to hit the self-obsessed bastard!
‘Who is she?’ was the question Antonia had put to Stefan.
‘My saviour,’ Stefan had grinned. ‘Her name?’ she demanded. ‘Tanya,’ he provided.
‘Tanya…’ Antonia repeated, and let her gaze drift to the nearest painting, where Tanya’s smile held the rich knowledge of all men’s needs. ‘It suits her,’ she murmured, then on a burst of soft laughter she went into his arms. ‘Oh, I’m so happy for you!’ she cried.
Across the room, Marco turned away from that embrace to continue to view the painting in front of him as if he had no problem at all with his woman falling into her ex-lover’s arms once again. Someone sidled up beside him.
Of course it had to be Louisa. ‘I do admire your confidence in those two, Marco,’ she drawled lightly. ‘Now, if, for argument’s sake, he belonged to me, I would be over there scratching her eyes out by now.’
‘But he doesn’t belong to you—he belongs to her,’ he said, indicating the beautiful black woman whose naked form exuded sexual contentment from every gifted brushstroke. ‘And Antonia,’ he then added very softly, ‘belongs to me.’
With that he walked away, in no mood to play tit-for-tat word games tonight. He wanted his woman back, and he wanted her now!
‘When do I meet her? Where is she?’ Antonia was demanding of Stefan.
‘Back in London, hiding away from you,’ he drawled lazily. ‘Just in case I was wrong about you, and you are secretly in love with me.’
Catching her soft burst of laughter as he approached, Marco also heard Antonia’s amused reply. ‘Of course you told her that I will always love you?’
‘Hello, Marco,’ Stefan greeted, a trifle drily. ‘Come to claim Antonia?’
The man could read minds.
‘We have to be leaving soon,’ Marco answered smoothly. ‘Another engagement, I’m afraid,’ he invented with bland ease.
The moment he began speaking Antonia moved to his side and slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. She was making a point here, Marco recognised. And it should feel good.
So why did he feel as if she was taking second best by coming to him like this?
Irritation flicked to life. What the hell was he talking about? He scorned his own crazy imagination. He had never played second best to anyone in his life!
‘Dare I ask the expert for an opinion?’ Kranst reclaimed his attention. His expression was slightly wry, slightly challenging Marco to do his worst.
But Marco found he no longer wanted to play tit-for-tat games with Kranst, either. He just wanted to get Antonia somewhere private so he could make her forget Stefan Kranst’s name!
So, ‘You must know you’ve done it again,’ he said easily. ‘Have you sold the reproduction rights yet?’
‘Still negotiating.’ Stefan smiled. Then, ‘Thank you, Marco,’ he added seriously. ‘Your opinion means a lot to me.’
And to your reputation, Marco added silently. Though anyone with eyes should be able to see that the man was about to make his second killing here.
Glancing down, he found Antonia was smiling up at him as if he had just bestowed the greatest accolade he possibly could. It made him want to shake her for still caring so much about Kranst’s precious ego when it was clear the man didn’t give a damn about hers!
‘It’s time we were leaving,’ he told her, wishing they hadn’t bothered to come here at all. The man was a menace—to him and to Antonia!
‘Before you do that,’ Stefan Kranst inserted, looking at Antonia, ‘I have something for you, my darling, if you remember…’
Beside him, Marco felt her stiffen. ‘You mean this isn’t surprise enough?’ she laughed, in a voice strapped by strain.
‘No.’ The artist’s smile was rueful. ‘Special gifts come in solid form.’
Marco frowned at the answer, because it wasn’t true. Not where Antonia was concerned. It was a lesson he had learned himself only last week via the red Lotus. Then he remembered Kranst’s remark about the Mirror Woman, felt his own tension rise up to meet Antonia’s, and realised that she had remembered a whole lot sooner than he had done.
‘I have it waiting in Rosetta’s office,’ Stefan Kranst said smoothly, and turned away to stride purposefully towards Rosetta Romano’s private office.
It really left them with no choice but to follow.