Anger pierced him, sharp and sudden.

He’d almost been taken in by her little-girl-lost routine. Him and the rest of the male population, apparently, Olivier thought acidly.

He’d started the evening with one aim in mind, he reminded himself bitterly. To seduce Bella. That was what he’d set out to do, and he’d almost allowed some ridiculous, uncharacteristic and completely misplaced sense of chivalry and sentimentality to stand in his way.

He should be grateful that he’d realised how foolish he was being before it was too late. Bella Lawrence wasn’t the innocent she pretended to be.

She was as clever as she was beautiful, and she had played him like a fool.

As he approached she looked up at him, and he saw nameless emotion blazing in her midnight eyes.

‘Are you ready to go?’ he asked with savage courtesy.

‘Yes, please.’ She came towards him without hesitation. Her lips were still swollen from his own kisses. He summoned a glacial smile. At least he could now enjoy what was on offer without guilt.

A self-confessed romance junkie, India Grey was just thirteen years old when she first sent off for the Mills & Boon® writers’ guidelines. She can still recall the thrill of getting the large brown envelope with its distinctive logo through the letterbox, and subsequently whiled away many a dull school day staring out of the window and dreaming of the perfect hero. She kept those guidelines with her for the next ten years, tucking them carefully inside the cover of each new diary in January, and beginning every list of New Year’s Resolutions with the words Start Novel. In the meantime she also gained a degree in English Literature from Manchester University and, in a stroke of genius on the part of the gods of romance, met her gorgeous future husband on the very last night of their three years there. The last fifteen years have been spent blissfully buried in domesticity, and heaps of pink washing generated by three small daughters, but she has never really stopped daydreaming about romance. She’s just profoundly grateful to have finally got an excuse to do it legitimately!

Recent titles by the same author:

MISTRESS: HIRED FOR THE BILLIONAIRE’S PLEASURE

THE ITALIAN’S CAPTIVE VIRGIN

THE ITALIAN’S DEFIANT MISTRESS

TAKEN FOR REVENGE, BEDDED FOR PLEASURE

BY

INDIA GREY

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This one’s for Daisy, who makes the hard times easier and the good times better. With love and thanks.

TAKEN FOR REVENGE, BEDDED FOR PLEASURE

CHAPTER ONE

WAVES lapping on a silver-sanded beach… A warm breeze sighing through palm trees… Or how about, a wide blue sky filled with marshmallow puffs of pure white cloud…?

Nope. No good.

Bella Lawrence’s eyes snapped open and she bit her lip, focusing hard on the dainty French wirework chandelier currently under the auctioneer’s hammer. There was absolutely no point in trying to think calm thoughts at the moment; not while her heart was beating at roughly twice its normal speed and her hands were slick with sweat.

Not while she could still feel his eyes on her.

She wasn’t sure when he’d come in, only that he hadn’t been there when she’d taken her place at the start of the auction. She’d felt a growing awareness of heat on her skin and a tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach, and when she’d turned her head he’d been there. Looking.

At her.

Maybe she had lipstick on her teeth…

Sweeping her tongue nervously across them, she allowed herself another very swift glance from under her eyelashes, and felt her stampeding pulse rocket again. He was standing by the wall, making no attempt whatsoever to look interested in the rapid-fire voice of the auctioneer or the bids criss-crossing the crowded room. There was a compelling stillness about him that made her long to lift her head and gaze at him openly, letting her eyes linger on the breadth of his shoulders and the hard planes of his lean, tanned face. She needed to look at his mouth too, she thought desperately, staring hard at the chandelier. At first glance it had looked almost indecently perfect—the deeply indented upper lip sloping steeply upward from a full, sensual lower one—but she knew that if she looked again she might not be able to drag her eyes off him.

Maybe she knew him from somewhere?

Ha. Like she wouldn’t remember a face like that.

Taking a deep, steadying breath Bella twisted her rolled-up auction programme between her hands and tried to redirect her thoughts, as the expensive therapist her brother Miles had insisted on finding for her had urged her to do. When she felt her emotions running high, threatening to overwhelm her, she was supposed to think of something calming. Obediently she tried the beach thing again.

He was still looking at her.

Surreptitiously she untucked her short bobbed hair from behind her ear and let it swing forward over her face in a dark curtain, shielding her from the impassive scrutiny of his stare. The problem was silver-sanded beaches were such a cliché, and if she ever found herself on one she’d no doubt be bored to tears. There had to be some difference between feeling calm and feeling half dead with boredom, didn’t there?

It was a question she had asked herself repeatedly in the last five months.

Bella shifted restlessly on the hard auction room chair and unfurled her programme. Two lots to go. The wire work chandelier was dismissed in a crack of the gavel and an earthenware confit jar took its place. If she leaned forward she could just catch a glimpse of the porter waiting at the edge of the room, carrying a large, heavily framed painting. The painting that in a few minutes would hopefully be hers, and then she could leave the stuffy, overcrowded room and the unsettling…arousing stare of the stranger.

Which, she had to remind herself sternly, would be a good thing.

She fixed her eyes on the painting, trying to focus on the greyish rectangle of the house against its backdrop of green—anything to stop herself turning to look again at the man. This picture was completely and without a doubt the perfect present for Grandmère, and by bringing Bella to the auction rooms the very week that it had come up for sale it seemed that fate, for once, was on her side.

Although, actually, believing in fate was another habit she was supposed to be giving up. The expensive therapist said that it was important that she started to take responsibility for her own actions and reactions instead of blaming vague outside forces like fate or destiny. Or horoscopes. She sighed. It wasn’t easy. In fact in her darker moments she worried that all those things she was trying to give up weren’t so much habits as personality traits. Parts of herself.

What would be left afterwards?

The gavel dropped on the jar and Bella sat up. This was it. With a renewed sense of purpose and determination she kept her gaze averted from the dark stare of the stranger and focused all her attention on the auctioneer.

‘Lot four-six-five,’ he announced in a bored voice, as if he wasn’t about to sell a momentous piece of Bella’s family history. ‘Charming amateur oil on canvas of a beautiful French manor house. Who’ll start the bidding at twenty pounds?’

There was a shuffling of feet on the front row. A woman with dyed red hair raised her hand wearily.

‘Twenty pounds at the front here. Thirty with you, sir…’

A rapid flurry of bids followed, raising the price to ninety pounds. Since leaving art college and going to work for Celia in her Notting Hill antique shop Bella had become something of an expert at auction tactics, and knew to wait for the right moment before joining the bidding. It came a second later when the auctioneer asked for a hundred pounds and the woman in the front row shook her head.

‘A hundred pounds anywhere?’

Decisively, Bella raised her hand.

She was immediately outbid by a dealer she recognised two rows in front of her.

‘One hundred and twenty?’ asked the auctioneer. Bella nodded, and could have shouted with elation when she saw the dealer give a cursory shake of his head as the auctioneer upped the bid.

‘One hundred and twenty pounds then, with the dark-haired young lady. Going once at one hundred and twenty…’

Bella thrust her hands into the pockets of her black linen jacket and crossed her fingers so tightly that it hurt. She couldn’t afford to go much higher.

‘Going twice…’

Just get on with it… she begged silently.

‘For the third and final—’ The auctioneer broke off in surprise. ‘Sir? Just in time, thank you. That’s one hundred and thirty pounds from you, sir?’

Bella didn’t have to look to know who had made the bid.

Somehow she just managed to bite back the extremely un-calm shriek of frustration that sprang to her lips. Glaring down at the floor, she uncrossed her fingers and balled them into tight fists. There was no point in resorting to superstitious good luck charms in a situation like this.

No.

This called for a skilful combination of bluff and bravery.

Tipping her head back she resisted the temptation to turn and fix the man with a death stare, instead focusing all her attention on assuming an attitude of supreme confidence, tinged with a hint of bored irritation. She’d seen this happen before. Utter insouciance was key. She had to look as if she was buying at any price; as if she was the kind of woman who was used to getting what she wanted.

Fortunately, there was no time to dwell on the bitter irony of that.

‘One forty.’

Was that really her voice? Excellent. She actually sounded as if she knew what she was doing, and the realization brought a small smile to her face.

The moment of euphoria was very short-lived; his response was instant.

‘Two hundred.’

Feeling her mouth fall open in helpless and no doubt deeply unattractive outrage, Bella couldn’t stop her head from being pulled round in the direction of his voice. It was low and husky and completely indifferent—in fact, everything she had intended to convey herself, only genuine. He was looking straight at her.

She felt herself stiffen as her eyes locked with his.

‘Miss? Do I have two ten?’

For a second Bella had forgotten about the auctioneer. And the picture. In fact, in that moment she would have been hard pushed to remember her own name. The man’s eyes were dark—incredibly dark—and even at this distance she could detect a dangerous glitter in their depths. As she stared at him she saw one of his eyebrows move upwards a fraction. Questioningly. Challengingly.

‘Yes.’

‘Two ten with the—’

‘Three hundred.’

Bella closed her eyes for a second as the man’s voice cut through the auctioneer’s patter. He said the words quietly, almost apologetically, as if her defeat was a foregone conclusion. But there was boredom and an edge of impatience there too, and she sensed that he wanted this whole business over and done with as quickly as possible.

‘Three ten.’

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. It was futile—that much was obvious from the impeccable cut of his dark suit and the indefinable aura of wealth that enveloped him like expensive cologne. But his palpable indifference caused a sensation like a thousand red-hot needles piercing her skin.

He’d barely even glanced at the painting. He couldn’t want it as she wanted it. Which left the possibility that he was doing this just to annoy her, and two could definitely play at that game.

‘Five.’

‘Sir?’ The auctioneer was flustered by this unexpected turn of events and his sudden loss of control. ‘Is that three hundred and fifty-five?’

‘Five hundred.’

His mouth was quite incredible, she thought distractedly. It was a good thing his chin was exceptionally firm and square as his lips were so full and finely shaped they were almost feminine. As she watched they twitched into a smile which he quickly suppressed. It was as if he was enjoying some kind of private joke.

With her.

She felt as if she’d been hypnotized. Part of her mind remained aware, rational, firmly sceptical, while the rest of her threw off all inhibition and common sense and plunged into the thrill of the unknown without hesitation.

A ripple of interest ran through the room, like a sudden sharp breeze in a still summer field. Bella could feel eyes on her as people in the rows in front of her turned round to look. Only the man leaning against the wall remained supremely unruffled, his gaze fixed on hers, his face an impassive mask that was almost insolent.

Adrenalin burned and fizzed in Bella’s veins. Tearing her gaze away from the stranger, she found the painting again. She had learned enough in the two years before she dropped out of her course at art school to be well aware that this was not an exceptional piece—there was a heavy-handed, painstaking quality about it that strictly limited its value. But it was the subject that mattered. This anonymous, half-forgotten painting depicted her grandmother’s ancestral home. It was part of her heritage, and the thought filled her with renewed purpose.

‘Five hundred and fifty.’

As if in slow motion she turned back to look at him, and saw his shoulders rise and fall slightly as he sighed. ‘Six hundred.’

‘Six fifty.’

‘Seven hundred.’

There was something mesmerising about his voice and the dark, dark eyes that never wavered from her face. Bella shivered. This wasn’t about oil on canvas. Or cash. This was personal.

‘Seven hundred and fifty.’

The numbers had no meaning. The rest of the room could have dissolved in a heap of ashes for all she cared. Darkness gathered and swirled in her head, and through it all she could see, all she was aware of, was the man standing a few feet away from her, his eyes searing into hers. She felt the colour rising into her cheeks and ran her tongue over lips that felt dry and oddly swollen. Suddenly she was unbearably hot, as if the blood in her veins had been heated slowly over a low flame.

Hastily she shrugged off her jacket, letting it fall onto the chair behind her and revealing the sober little black dress she wore beneath. She had lost all sense of time. Only the thud of her heart marked each passing second as she stared at him. His hair was dark too, an untamed halo of curls, like a knight crusader. Or a gypsy…or… Or a pirate. His mouth, she saw now, had a brutal sensuality about it that made her think of plunder, and was entirely at odds with the crisp perfection of his bespoke suit. The expression a wolf in sheep’s clothing drifted though her dazed, distracted mind.

He lifted his head, tilting it back against the wall, but still his eyes pinned her to the spot like a butterfly in a case. Slowly, deliberately, hardly moving those beautiful lips, he spoke with a light foreign inflection that was straight from every clichéd feminine fantasy, and he seemed to address her and her alone.

‘One thousand pounds.’

Bella couldn’t breathe.

‘Miss?’ The auctioneer’s voice was stiff with surprise, and it seemed to be coming from a long way away. ‘Any advance on one thousand? One thousand and ten?’

A 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 stinging retort, but for a split second found herself speechless with resentment that he had managed so effortlessly to disturb her careful equilibrium. And then, of course, sense reasserted itself and she knew that any kind of emotional response would be a mistake.

Waves… White sandy beach…

With a huge effort she swallowed back the tide of wonderful, terrible words that threatened to flood from her and hid them behind a small, cold smile.

‘Of course not. Thank you for picking it up. Now, if you don’t mind I’m late and I have to hurry…’

Without looking up at him again she made to turn and walk away, wanting only to distance herself physically from the disturbing, charismatic pull of his presence and reassemble her defences, regain her comfortable numbness. But as she did so he reached out and took her arm, and the sensation of his fingers against her bare skin was like an electric shock. It ricocheted through her, making her flinch.

‘Wait,’ he said quietly. ‘You said “my painting”. In what way is that painting yours?’

Rigid with discomfort, his fingers still clasped around her arm, Bella looked down. ‘It isn’t,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’m sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. The painting’s yours now. I know that.’

‘But you’re not happy about it, are you?’

She didn’t reply. His voice was very low and, even standing in the middle of the street with traffic roaring past them along Piccadilly, disturbingly intimate. He shifted his position slightly, so that he was standing right in front of her, and she could see nothing but the solid wall of his chest. It was hard. Broad. Real. Very real. His fingers were still clasped around her arm; not too tightly, but she felt powerless to break away.

‘You wanted it very much,’ he said quietly. It was a statement, not a question.

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘Why?’

‘It’s…nice,’ Bella said tonelessly, thinking of calm, neutral things. Not thinking of his mouth, or how it would feel to kiss it.

‘Nice?’ Letting go of her arm, he took a step backwards and made a sharp expression of disgust. ‘The hell it is.’

‘I beg your pardon?

Olivier looked at her narrowly. Close up she had the kind of flawless, upmarket beauty that left him cold: short, glossy hair the colour of cherished old mahogany, skin like vanilla ice cream. Earlier on, in the auction room, he had thought he sensed a rawness and a passion in her which intrigued and excited him, but now he saw he’d been wrong. There was nothing but good breeding and good bones.

‘You don’t have to be an art expert to see that it’s rubbish,’ he said brutally. ‘It’s not worth a quarter of the hugely inflated price I just paid for it.’

That seemed to ignite some spark within her again. ‘Then why did you bother?’ she flared. ‘Whycouldn’tyoujust let me have it? I’m not remotely interested in what it’s worth or how collectable it is. I wanted it for reasons that have nothing to do with money.’

‘Meaning?’

Her chin rose an inch. ‘My grandmother grew up in the house in the picture. That’s why I wanted it.’

The sky had darkened, and a warm breeze shivered through the leaves of the trees in the park opposite as the first drops of rain splashed onto the hot pavement. Everything was suddenly very still, as if the regular spin of the world had faltered for a second or two. Olivier almost wanted to reach out to hold on to something to steady himself as for the briefest moment the iron self-control, the bedrock of his being, shivered and shifted.

He took a slow breath in and summoned a bland smile to his stiff face. It felt like ice cracking on a frozen lake.

‘Really? And your name is…?

‘Bella. Bella Lawrence.’

Lawrence. Hearing the name was like a shot of adrenalin: painful, sickening, but exhilarating. He gritted his teeth, scrutinizing her. ‘Well, Bella, what a…coincidence that you found a picture of it. You must have been thrilled.’

If she noticed the acid in his tone she didn’t react. Nothing disturbed the blankness of that porcelain-pretty face. ‘Yes,’ she said sweetly, ‘particularly since it’s her birthday tomorrow and it would have been a perfect present.’ She flashed him a saccharine smile. ‘Obviously I didn’t bargain on some millionaire city boy coming in at the last minute and paying silly money for it, so I’ll just have to think again.’

Millionaire city boy? She’d underestimated him considerably. And because she was a Lawrence that stung.

She turned to go, but he had no intention of letting her disappear yet.

‘What makes you think I’m a millionaire city boy?’

He didn’t move. He didn’t even raise his voice, but she turned back to him and Olivier felt a lick of triumph. As her eyes skimmed over him he took his phone from his inside pocket, barely glancing at it as he speed-dialled. Bella Lawrence shrugged.

‘The suit. The shoes. The arrogance. Am I right?’

‘Sort of.’ Without taking his eyes from hers, he gestured with a terse movement of his head to a gleaming dark green Bentley that was just pulling up at the kerbside. ‘Can I offer you a lift anywhere?’

Her eyebrows rose. ‘Very impressive,’ she said sarcastically. ‘So you’re half millionaire city boy, half magician. What else can you do?’

He gave her a lethal smile. ‘Unfortunately, Mademoiselle Lawrence, my talents are too numerous to list now, while we’re in grave danger of getting soaked to the skin and I’m late for a meeting. But if you’d like to get into the car I’d be only too happy to enlighten you.’

He opened the car door and stood back. The rain was falling harder now, releasing the scent of hot asphalt and damp earth and making the skin on her bare arms glisten, but she didn’t move.

‘No, thank you,’ she said politely. ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea.’

‘Ri-ight.’ His fingers drummed an impatient beat on the roof of the car. ‘And I suppose you’d argue that choosing to get completely and unnecessarily soaked is a stroke of genius, would you?’ He sighed and stood back. ‘Look, you said yourself that you’re in a hurry—if it makes you feel better you can have the car to yourself. My office is just around the corner in Curzon Street. I’ll walk. Just tell Louis where you want to go.’

He took a couple of steps backwards, still watching her, silently willing her to accept the offer. He would find out where she lived eventually, but it would be so much easier to do it this way. The pavement was virtually empty now, as everyone with any sense had rushed to shelter in doorways or disappeared into the dark mouth of the tube. Bella Lawrence stood beside the open door of the Bentley in her expensive black dress, her hair slick with water.

She frowned suspiciously. ‘Why?’

‘The painting—let’s just say it’s the least I can do. Please.’

She glanced up at the angry sky and hesitated. And then, bristling with resentment and indignation, slipped into the car and leaned forward to pull the door briskly shut. She didn’t look at him.

‘My pleasure,’ he murmured sarcastically to himself as the car drew smoothly away from the kerb and was swallowed up by the Friday afternoon traffic.

Though ‘pleasure’wasn’t quite the right word for it, he reflected as he thrust his hands into his pockets and strode through the rain.

Satisfaction.

That was it.

CHAPTER TWO

GENEVIEVE DELACROIX’S face was pale, delicately tinted with a faint rose-pink blush, as if in the aftermath of passion, and her rosy lips were curved in a lazy smile of repletion. Reclining on the velvet-draped couch, she was completely naked, apart from a large and heavily jewel-encrusted gold cross hanging on a length of red velvet ribbon around her neck.

Her eyes, dark blue and watchful, seemed to bore into Olivier’s back as he stood at the glass wall of his apartment, looking down over the most expensive view in London. Eight storeys below him cars sailed noiselessly along Park Lane, and above him planes bound for Heathrow studded the indigo sky with flashing points of light, outshining the stars. But Olivier noticed none of this. The image of the painting swam in front of him, superimposed on the glittering cityscape in the polished sheet of glass.

His instinct about the ‘charming amateur painting’ in the saleroom had been correct. Although it was unsigned, its subject matter—Le Manoir St Laurien—and the distinctively painstaking style of the brushwork had left him in no doubt that it had been painted by his father.

But Julien Moreau was no amateur. Had things been different he would have been one of the most important painters of his generation.

Olivier took a gulp of cognac from the glass in his hand, draining half the contents in a single mouthful, and then, steeling himself as if against a blow, he turned to face the picture behind him. The one that had lain hidden beneath the other work.

La Dame de la Croix.

For years he had searched for this painting. His contacts in the art world spread across the globe and encompassed all the major auction houses, galleries and collections, but since he knew that the portrait of Genevieve Delacroix was likely to have been concealed behind one of Julien’s flawed, later attempts, his contacts had been of little help. He had tried to keep an eye on the catalogues of smaller salerooms, but it had been like searching for a needle in a haystack. The odds had been impossibly stacked against him.

And yet he had done it. The painting was here, propped up on a tall steel bar chair in front of him, as fresh and vivid as if the paint was still wet.

Olivier Moreau prided himself on his ability to achieve. He was a man who got what he wanted through a combination of intelligence, focus and ruthlessness, but he knew that none of that was enough to have pulled off today’s coup.

That had been down to luck. Or maybe fate, or some long-overdue divine justice. Karma, some people might call it; after all, it was about time the mighty Lawrences were made to face up to what they’d done, and now the painting was back in his possession he could begin the process of exacting retribution.

He took another mouthful of cognac and let his gaze run speculatively over Genevieve Delacroix’s luscious flesh. Hypothetically, in the long years when he had dreamed of recovering this picture, he had always imagined he would simply reveal it, and the shocking scandal behind it, to the world in the most high-profile and damaging way possible.

But now that didn’t seem enough.

In his work Olivier operated on a principle of ‘absolute return’. His success lay in his ability to exact profit—maximum profit—from every available opportunity, and in this instance fate had very kindly presented him with not one opportunity, but two. La Dame de la Croix and Bella Lawrence had both fallen into his lap on the same day. He wouldn’t be the man he was if he let a chance like that pass without exploiting it to the full.

Fate…justice…karma—it hardly mattered what you called it. In truth they were all just euphemisms for revenge. The Lawrences didn’t know it yet, but it was payback time.

An eye for an eye.

A tooth for a tooth.

A heart for a heart.

Genevieve Lawrence was standing in the hallway rearranging the flowers that had just been delivered by one of London’s most exclusive florists when Bella came downstairs.

‘Morning,’ Bella said with an apologetic smile, kissing her grandmother’s perfumed cheek.

Genevieve cast an amused glance at her little gold watch. ‘Only just, cherie,’ she said in her voice of silk and silver. It might have been a lifetime since the young Genevieve Delacroix had left France to marry the dashing and distinguished Lord Edward Lawrence, but her accent was still as strong as ever. ‘I take it you slept well?’

‘Yes, thanks,’ Bella lied. There was no point in telling Genevieve that sleep had proved so elusive that she’d ended up sitting by the window and sketching in the moonlight. The man from the auction house, whose face was still so vivid in her mind, had proved frustratingly difficult to capture on paper. The sky had been streaked with pink when she’d finally given up trying and crawled back into bed. ‘Is there still lots to do for tonight?’

Pulling a dripping long-stemmed lily from the vase, Genevieve sighed. ‘There does seem to be a lot of last-minute things to attend to. For one thing, these flowers are all wrong. Now I remember why I haven’t entertained like this since your grandfather died.’

Bella made a soft, sympathetic sound. After almost fifty years of marriage, Genevieve had been widowed two years ago. ‘Will it be awful for you, to do it without him?’

‘Awful? Not at all,’ said Genevieve matter-of-factly, looking critically at the arrangement of lilies and white hydrangeas. She didn’t elaborate, and Bella realised with a flicker of surprise how little she knew her grandmother. Up until five months ago she had been nothing but a remote, elegant figure who had always stood silently by Edward Lawrence’s side: coolness and shade to the full-on dazzle of his forceful presence. It was only since Bella had come, at Miles’s insistence, to live in the house in Wilton Square, following the business with Dan Nightingale, that she had begun to see the person behind the impeccable façade. And to like her.

‘It is a shame that your mama and papa cannot be here, though,’ Genevieve continued, adjusting a glossy, tropical-looking leaf. ‘I had a call from your mother this morning to say there has been more trouble overnight and the diplomatic situation is too tense for your papa to leave just now.’

Bella was slightly ashamed at the relief that leapt within her. Used to being the invisible member of the dynamic and high-achieving Lawrence family, she had felt completely smothered by the attention which had been focused on her since the Dan Nightingale thing, and she had been dreading seeing her parents for the first time since it happened. Miles’s stifling concern was quite enough to deal with.

‘They must be very disappointed,’ she said guiltily.

Genevieve gave a little lift of her narrow shoulders. ‘You know the Lawrence men, cherie. Work comes first. But we will manage without them, I dare say. Now—have you decided what you will wear tonight?’

Bella’s eyes lit up. ‘Well…I got this gorgeous little silk smock dress in Portobello Market the other day. It’s bright red with fuchsia-pink flowers around the hem, with kind of pink sequins and gold embroidery on them…’ The words came out in a rush of enthusiasm and her hands fluttered in the air, sketching fluid lines. ‘And it’s short—but not, you know, indecently short, and it’s got this deep scooped neckline and sweet little sleeves…’ The words petered out.

‘It sounds fabulous, cherie.’

‘Yes…’ Subdued again, Bella paused. ‘You know, I think maybe it would be better if I borrowed your black Balenciaga, though.’

Genevieve’s fine eyebrows rose questioningly. ‘Would it be foolish to ask why?’

‘I think that Miles would rather I—I don’t know…I think I should just keep it low key. After all that’s happened…’

Picking at the spiky leaves of a discarded palm leaf, Bella didn’t notice the concerned glance Genevieve cast her; however, she did detect the faint note of reproach in her grandmother’s voice. ‘Bella, ma chère, you cannot spend your life trying to be what your brother wants you to be.’

Bella gave a crooked smile. ‘No, but perhaps I have less chance of messing up that way. After all, I made a huge fuss about being given the chance to be myself and live my own life, and look what happened.’

‘You made a mistake,’ said Genevieve mildly. ‘Is that so bad?’

Bella’s smile faded. The huge, marble-tiled hallway felt suddenly cold. ‘Given that it could have caused a scandal which may have cost Papa and Miles their jobs, I think that’s as bad as I’d like it to get,’ she said quietly. Without realizing it she had completely stripped the palm frond, and its shredded leaves were scattered over the polished surface of the table. ‘I don’t want to make things any more difficult for Miles than I have already. It’s a pretty important time for him just now, with the election coming up and everything, and the last thing he needs is his drop-out, headcase sister mucking things up for him again.’

‘But, cherie, this is a private party for my birthday, not a political rally for Miles. You can wear what you like.’

‘I know, but you have to admit, Grandmère, that you have some pretty influential friends. I think I should stay in the background as much as possible.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘In fact it would probably be better all round if I didn’t come…’

She had been sweeping the torn leaves into a little pile, but now Genevieve stopped her, laying her hand over Bella’s quite firmly. ‘Stop this, Bella.’

‘Sorry… It’s not that I don’t want to be there for your party, it’s just that you have to admit I’m a bit of a liability,’ Bella said lightly. She gave an awkward smile. ‘Even Ashley, PR Genius and Totally Nice Person, would have her work cut out making an art school dropout, shop girl and psychiatrist’s dream ticket seem like a political asset.’

‘Oh, Bella,’ Genevieve sighed. Suddenly she seemed very sad. ‘You have such talent. If only you could see that.’

‘For art,’ said Bella soberly. ‘That’s all, and that avenue is fairly conclusively closed since—’

Genevieve cut her off. ‘Non. Not just for art. For empathy. For understanding people, and seeing through the façade to what lies beneath. For loving.’

Bella laughed, but there was a faint tinge of bitterness to it. ‘I think Miles would say that’s my problem, not my talent.’

‘Non! Don’t let him make you believe that!’

The sudden rawness in Genevieve’s voice made Bella’s heart miss a beat. Her words echoed for a moment round the grand room, seeming out of place amongst the gleaming marble and polished wood, the perfectly arranged Sèvres china and Georgian silver. The orchid she had been holding fell to the floor as Genevieve took Bella’s hands in hers.

‘I do not want to watch you throw away your happiness to appease your family. Please, cherie, tell me you won’t. Don’t make the same mistake that I made.’

As the car glided through the security cordon at the entrance to Wilton Square, the noise and activity of the city was left behind and Olivier felt as if he was entering a charmed world. Beyond the dark shapes of the trees in the central garden Genevieve Delacroix’s ivory mansion blazed with light, and music spilled from windows which had been thrown open against the sticky air. The party had been going for an hour or so, and Olivier had timed his arrival carefully to allow him to slip in relatively unnoticed.

The enormous black front door was opened by a stiff-backed butler in white tie and tails, and Olivier handed over the gold-edged invitation he had managed to procure from a contact in the Treasury who owed him a favour. The butler took it with an impassive nod, gesturing for him to leave the gift he carried on a mahogany sideboard groaning under the weight of exquisitely wrapped parcels. Placing the painting of Le Manoir St Laurien, carefully reinserted into its frame, amongst them, Olivier followed the direction of the noise.

The spacious first-floor sitting room was packed with cabinet ministers, high-powered media figures and ancient aristocrats, and their loud, almost unintelligibly well-bred voices drifted assuredly above the music of the band downstairs. So this was the world of Bella Lawrence, he thought as his eyes moved around the elegant panelled room. Luxurious, expensive, exclusive… things that she no doubt took for granted and barely noticed. It was what she’d been born to.

Without being particularly conscious of it, he found his gaze skimming over the distinguished, easily recognizable faces of politicians and TV celebrities, searching for one face in particular. But the vicious kick of desire in the pit of his stomach when he saw her caught him off guard.

She was wearing another slim-fitting, severe black dress, which disguised rather than emphasised her figure, and high heels that made her endless legs seem as gracefully unsteady as a colt’s. She carried a large plate of canapés, which she was offering to a noisy group of media types. Her face was hidden by the silken curtain of her hair, but there was a stiffness in the set of her shoulders and a downward tilt to her head that told him she wasn’t smiling.

This was her world. So why did she look so out of place?

‘Caviar blini?’ he heard her murmur to a prominent TV news journalist, who took one without glancing at her or breaking off his conversation.

Eyes narrowed, Olivier watched.

Warm waves…sandy beach…top TV newsreader lying on it while I smash a plate of caviar blinis over his head…

Bella’s smile was a painful rictus grin as she moved on, wondering how soon she could beat a hasty retreat to her room and curl up with a book. Any time now, she thought resignedly, for all the notice anyone’s taking of me.

As she moved further into the room she could hear Miles’s voice—confident, urbane, totally in command—and once again the randomness of the gene lottery was brought home to her. How could it be that he was so…assured, and she had never felt a moment’s assurance in her whole life? She kept her head bowed, her back towards him, hoping to pass by unnoticed and be spared the inevitable embarrassment of being introduced to whichever political worthy he was talking to.

‘Ah, Bella! There you are…I was just talking about you.’

If Bella had been wearing boots at that moment her heart would have sunk into the bottom of them. Fortunately, her shiny black high-heeled shoes were too tight to leave any room for anything else, so she summoned a smile and turned round.

‘This is my little sister, Bella,’ Miles said heartily to the vaguely familiar-looking man standing beside him. ‘Named after the suffragette Christabel Pankhurst.’

Taking a caviar blini, the man smiled politely. ‘Of course. And as one of the distinguished Lawrence family I imagine you’re just as much of a trailblazer as your namesake?’

Bella felt her smile falter. Oh, yes, absolutely, she wanted to say. I’m the first member of my family to fail at anything and become a dropout. Just as she was wondering how to frame this sentence slightly more positively, the slim brunette at Miles’s side stepped in.

‘Bella’s the artistic one in the family, Prime Minister. She’s incredibly talented, so although Miles needs help to match a pair of socks, I actually have hope that we might just end up having children with a glimmer of creativity…’

Prime Minister. Oh, knickers. That was why she recognised him…

Bella cast a grateful glance at the girl who had spoken. Ashley McGarry was Miles’s fiancée. She was also extremely gorgeous, owned her own incredibly successful PR firm and was just about the nicest person Bella knew. Which was good, because it would have been hard to forgive her for the gorgeousness and success otherwise.

‘So, what kind of art do you do?’ the Prime Minister asked her politely.

Bella squirmed. ‘I paint furniture.’

The PM looked surprised. He’d clearly expected something a little more cutting edge. Ashley came to the rescue again. ‘Bella has one of the most enviable jobs in London, working in a gorgeous shop in Notting Hill that sells French antiques and vintage stuff.’ She turned to Bella with an encouraging smile. ‘I went back the other day to see if that fabulous mirror was still there, but Celia had sold it. I was so disappointed.’

Don’t worry,’ said Bella. ‘Her daughter’s twins are due any minute, so she’s asked me to do the autumn buying trip to France. I’m going to take her car and tour the markets around Paris, so I can look out for another one for you then.’

Miles looked up. ‘You’re going to France, Bella? On your own?’

Suddenly the atmosphere was very tense. Ashley laid a hand on Bella’s arm but this time said nothing. Bella felt as if someone was slowly pouring cold porridge down her back. How could she be having this conversation now? In front of the Prime Minister?

‘Yes, Miles,’ she said miserably, looking at the floor. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘We’ll talk about it later.’

‘There’s no need—I’ve said I’m going, and that’s that.’

Miles turned back to the Prime Minister and said with forced cheerfulness, ‘My sister hasn’t been…well. She’s still recovering and she needs keeping an eye on.’

It was too humiliating. Bella seemed to spend her whole life these days trying to forget what had happened, but it was impossible when to everyone else it was the single most significant thing about her. Speechless with suppressed rage, she whirled round, the plate clasped in front of her like a weapon, and walked straight into someone stepping towards her.

As if in slow motion she watched caviar blinis sail gracefully through the air and rain down all around her. The plate jolted against her hipbones, coming between her and the body of the man with whom she had collided. In a daze of embarrassment and misery she sank instantly to the floor and started to pick up scattered canapés, desperate to clear up the damage and get out.

The man she had bumped into dropped to his knees beside her.

‘It’s fine,’ she muttered miserably, without looking up. ‘Please don’t bother. I can manage.’

‘Leave it.’

His voice was very low, and very French. And very filled with barely suppressed anger.

She froze. Then, full of foreboding, she dragged her gaze upwards. Her indrawn breath made a little gasping sound. She was looking straight into the dark, gleaming eyes of the man from the auction house.

‘Wh—what? I don’t understand…’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Taking you away.’ Removing the plate from her hands, he put it on a side table and gently pulled her up. She was suddenly aware of Miles behind her, looking at her with obvious dismay that she’d managed to make a fool of herself again. She could hardly blame him. She was standing liberally smeared in first-class beluga caviar just a few feet away from the Prime Minister and some of the most important, most famous and influential people in the country.

And in front of possibly the best-looking man on the planet.

Without warning, hot tears stung her eyes, but before they spilled over she felt the man from the auction take her chin in his fingers and gently tilt her head up.

‘Oh, no you don’t, beauty. You’re not going to cry,’ he murmured as he bent towards her, and in a heartbeat his mouth closed over hers, warm and firm. For a second she felt herself stiffen, but her gasp of shock was lost in his kiss.

The bright, tasteful room full of people dissolved, the loud music of the band faded away, and along with it her shame and humiliation. She was in a dark, secret world of lips and hands, and the only sound was the frantic drumbeat of her heart. Or his heart. Or both together…

After a second, a minute, a lifetime, he lifted his head and with one hand in the small of her back moved his mouth to her ear.

‘OK, cherie, smile nicely and head for the door.’

Bella opened her mouth to protest, but he swept his thumb swiftly across it.

‘Don’t speak,’ he murmured huskily. ‘Don’t say a word. You can thank me later.’

CHAPTER THREE

OLIVIER followed her through the crowded room.

Already, he noticed, she was walking taller, holding her head higher. There was a provocative sway to her hips. In short, a glimmer of the brilliant spark he had noticed yesterday in the auction room had returned.

With just one kiss.

Dieu, what he would do to her with a whole night.

The thought brought the ghost of a smile to his set face. He had decided already that seducing Genevieve Lawrence’s granddaughter, sleeping with her, would be a matter of cold-blooded score-settling, but if the change he’d just witnessed was anything to go by it would almost be too pleasurable to count as vengeance.

How would it feel to touch the flesh that had been so forbidden to his father? How would it feel to possess such a priceless pearl…the daughter of the Delacroix dynasty…and then cast it away as if it were worthless? Would it make up for what they had done?

On the landing outside the sitting room she stopped and turned to him. There was a pink stain in her cheeks and an intense, almost feverish glitter in her eyes.

‘Thank you? I’m supposed to thank you for this?’ She looked down at herself. Beads of caviar gleamed darkly on the pale skin of her arms and the ivory swell of her breast. ‘Of course. Caviar body paint is such a good look…’

Olivier smiled lazily. She might be being sarcastic, but she was actually completely right. She looked good enough to eat. ‘Believe me,’ he drawled, ‘it’s a lot better than being completely humiliated in public by some overbearing bastard treating you like a child.’

‘Do you mind?’ she gasped. ‘That was my brother!’

‘And that makes it all right for him to treat you like that?’ Olivier asked coolly.

‘He’s protective. He just—’ Bella broke off, shaking her head in confusion. ‘Look, I don’t know what this has to do with you…’

‘I don’t like bullying. Now, which is your room?’

‘Why?’ she demanded.

He paused, looking at her thoughtfully. Standing there with her eyes sparking with fury she looked oddly sweet, and he couldn’t help but admire her defiance. The prospect of seducing her was like a sudden and unexpected blow to the stomach. ‘Let’s just say I don’t like people who use their natural advantages to repress people who don’t have the same power,’ he said quietly.

She laughed suddenly: a short, joyful peal that broke the tension. ‘I didn’t mean that.’ She looked up at him and their gazes locked. ‘I meant, why do you want to know which is my room?’

‘Because I think you need to get out of that dress.’

The sparkling laughter faded from her eyes, and was replaced by something much more intense.

Gently, not wanting to frighten her, he reached out and cupped her breast in the flat of his hand, feeling the ripeness and heat of her skin through the severe black crêpe. A small shiver ran through her. Slowly, lazily, he ran his thumb over the bare skin above the low-cut neckline of the dress where her cleavage spilled out, scooping up black beads of caviar that glistened against the creamy flesh. Her eyes stayed fixed to his the entire time, and he saw the momentary flicker of her eyelids at his touch.

Removing his hand, he put his thumb to his lips and sucked off the caviar.

She drew in a soft, shuddering breath. ‘Up there,’ she said in a low voice. ‘My room is up there.’

‘Then allow me…’ Olivier almost expected her to protest as he took her hand and led her to the stairs, but passively she allowed him to lead her. Even so, he had the impression that a fierce battle was going on beneath that graceful exterior. This little rich girl had been brought up to be polite and well behaved, but all the etiquette and good breeding couldn’t quite conceal the wildness that heated her blue-tinged blood.

Just like her Grandmother. Just like the original Dame de la Croix.

He followed her across the thickly carpeted upper landing. She opened a door, revealing a pretty room with a window set into its sloping roof. Outside a blue August twilight was gathering over the treetops in the residents’ garden opposite, casting deep, inky shadows in the room. Just inside the door she stopped and turned to him.

‘Wait!’ She looked agitated. ‘I don’t know anything about you. I don’t even know your name…’

‘Olivier Moreau.’ Solemnly he held out his hand and said with a tiny hint of sarcasm, ‘Millionaire city boy.’

He was rewarded with a smile so brief it had disappeared before it was properly there. ‘You said I was only half right about that. Who are you really?’

‘I’m a hedge fund manager.’

‘What does that mean?’

He paused, weighing up how to answer. ‘I buy and sell… things.’

‘What things?’

He shrugged. ‘Anything. But I like dealing in the complex, indefinable things best. Rain, air quality, confidence…’

‘Or other people’s heritage?’ she added bitingly.

He acknowledged the dig with a small smile. ‘Exactly. As long as it gives me a good return on the investment. What else can I tell you? I’m French, but I’ve been based in London for the last four years. I collect art. I’m not married and I have no children. Is there anything else you’d like to know?’

‘Why you came here tonight.’

She walked away from him into the room, but he stayed where he was, lounging easily against the doorframe. He didn’t want to rush her, or pressure her. There was no need.

‘I wanted to see you again,’ he said simply. ‘After yesterday.’

She was standing by the wardrobe with her back to him, her head bent as she fumbled with the buttons on the back of the dress. In the melting blue light her neck was as pale and delicate as the petals of a lily.

‘What for?’

Her directness was unexpected, but Olivier admired her for it. Slowly he moved across the twilit room, desire licking through him in instant, automatic response as he reached out to help her. His libido obviously had little respect for history or family loyalty, he thought dryly, noticing that she stiffened slightly as he slid the button from its tiny satin loop.

His fingers moved down to the second button. ‘I wanted to give you what’s rightfully yours.’

‘The painting?’ There was a pause as the dress slid from her shoulders, revealing the flawless expanse of her bare back. It glimmered milk-white in the moonlight for a moment, and then she turned round so she was facing him.

‘Of course.’

In her ‘take-me’ heels, with the caviar-smeared black dress clutched against her breasts, she looked dishevelled and wanton, but when she spoke the icy hauteur in her voice shattered the enchantment.

‘No, thanks.’

He felt an uncomfortable jolt of surprise but instantly concealed it, looking at her steadily. ‘Why not? You said it was your grandmother’s house. If that’s the case then she should have it.’

‘It’s too expensive.’

He moved slowly towards her, genuine interest gleaming in his eyes. Having a woman turn down a gift on the grounds that it was ‘too expensive’ was a bit like having a goldfish decide against a bowl of water on the basis that it was too wet. He was intrigued.

‘I thought you said yesterday that you didn’t care how much it was worth?’

‘I did,’ she said with cold disdain. ‘But that’s irrelevant now. You’re a businessman, Mr Moreau, and I assume that part of your success rests on knowing your market. You no doubt think that all this—’ she made a sweeping gesture with one arm, causing a corner of the dress to fall down, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of voluptuous flesh ‘—means I’m some wealthy, profligate trus-tafarian, and you can sell the painting to me at a profit because you know how much I wanted it.’ She shook her head emphatically. ‘Well, I just hope that your projections in the boardroom are a lot more accurate than the ones you’ve made about me, because that’s a huge miscalculation. It makes no difference how much I want the painting because I can’t afford it.’

She stopped, her chin raised in awkward defiance, her dark hair framing a face that burned with fury and bitterness and passion. For a moment neither of them spoke, and above the distant thud of the band Olivier could hear Bella’s laboured breathing. In the half-light her shoulders looked fragile and translucent as they rose and fell rapidly.

‘Great speech,’ he said dryly after a long pause. ‘However, completely unnecessary. I said I came to give it to you.’

‘Why? Why would you do that?’

The space between them seemed to pulse with possibility. Watching her closely, Olivier could see that the hostility that crackled around her like static was due in part to a deep-seated uncertainty. Insecurity, perhaps. Having seen her arrogant, overbearing brother at work, it wasn’t hard to work out where that had come from.

He gently lifted the fallen edge of her dress, tucking it back in place and hiding the ivory swell of her breast, careful not to let his fingers brush her skin.

She shivered.

‘You want it,’ he said simply, looking at her thoughtfully. He saw the heat flare in her eyes and knew she had all but forgotten, as he had intended her to, that he was referring to the painting.

He turned, hiding his slight smile of triumph, and walked casually across the room. ‘I left it downstairs. I hope your grandmother likes it,’ he said, and closed the door quietly behind him.

Going down the wide stairs, he counted each step. Would she come after him before he reached the first floor, or would she manage to hold out for longer and leave it until he’d reached the hallway?

There was, of course, no question that she would come after him.

He reached the front door and, ignoring the imperious manservant who had welcomed him on the way in, stepped out into the warm evening. He had to hand it to her. She was pushing it to the limit. Unhurriedly he crossed the empty street to where his car was waiting, and was just reaching out a hand to the open the door when he heard the clatter of her heels on the marble floor behind him. At the sound of her voice he found he was smiling.

‘Wait—please wait!’

He arranged his face into an expression of bland enquiry before he turned round.

She had put on a short dress of vivid scarlet silk, loose and flowing like a smock, and as she ran down the steps towards him the silk rippled against the curves of her body like water cascading over a statue in a fountain. The transformation from the bland, dutiful girl he had watched up there in the drawing room to this vibrant beauty was breathtaking. It was as if she had been brought back to life.

She came to an abrupt halt by the pillared entrance portico.

‘I’m sorry for being so suspicious and cynical,’ she said, and her voice vibrated with suppressed emotion. She was trembling. ‘I’ve learned the hard way, I’m afraid. It made me forget that there are good people out there too. I’m sorry, please—forgive me.’

Olivier found himself taking a couple of steps towards her, so he was standing in the middle of the carless road.

‘Apology accepted.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Was there anything else?’

‘Yes.’ Keeping her chin held high, she came down the steps to where he stood. Her eyes flashed with feeling. ‘I never said thank you.’

The height of her heels meant that she didn’t have to stretch upwards very far to press a kiss on his cheek, but they also made her unsteady. As she leaned over she wobbled slightly, and Olivier found himself grasping her arms as the warmth and softness of her lips met his skin.

He didn’t let go of her straight away. ‘There’s no need to thank me,’ he said with a trace of mockery. ‘According to you the painting was morally yours all along.’

She gave a breathy laugh and looked down as he let her go. ‘All right, then…not just for the painting. For extracting me from an extremely embarrassing situation, and making my brother see I’m not a child any more.’

Olivier glanced up at the row of tall windows behind their elegant wrought-iron balconies on the first floor. Miles was still there, and as Olivier watched he glanced down. Olivier felt a small dart of triumph as he saw the expression of anger and disapproval on Miles Lawrence’s handsome face.

‘It was my pleasure,’ he said dryly.

‘He only does it because he cares, but unfortunately it’s a very thin line between being caring and being controlling—especially where my love-life is concerned. No one is ever going to be good enough for his little sister, of course…’

Loathing rose up in Olivier’s throat as she said that. Not good enough. Times had changed, the world had moved on, but it seemed that Miles Lawrence still held fast the same outdated, elitist principles of his forebears. The principles that had ruined Julien Moreau’s life.

‘Charming,’ he murmured sardonically. Bella jumped slightly as he trailed a caressing finger down her cheek, adding lightly, ‘Don’t look now, but he’s watching.’

Her eyes widened a little as understanding dawned. It was like dipping a brush of black ink into clear water, Olivier thought idly as the darkness of her pupils spread and deepened. Her head tilted back a little and her lips parted as slowly, deliberately, he bent his head and their lips met in the lightest butterfly touch.

He had her.

Lifting his hand to cup her face, he dipped his head again and closed his mouth over hers. His fingers slipped into the silk of her hair, and he felt her tongue dart between his open lips. He had her, and tasting Delacroix flesh was every bit as easy and as sweet as he’d anticipated.

Bella slid her hands inside his dinner jacket, placing her palms flat against his ribs where she could feel the steady rhythm of his heart. His body was warm, reassuringly solid, and the expensive, dry, masculine scent of him filled her head and blotted out the city smells of dust and diesel and night-scented stock from the square’s garden. She felt as if she was melting, and the violent trembling that had gripped her since she had run down the stairs after him eased, replaced by a delicious languor like honey in her veins.

The summer evening enfolded them as they stood alone in a halo of light from the windows, and the music of the band eddied around them. They were playing a mellow, dreamy song, and Bella felt her hips undulating lazily beneath Olivier’s warm hand.

Desire beat an indolent tattoo in her blood. She felt heavy with it, drenched and pulsing, as if there was an unhurried inevitability about it. The panic that she had felt before had completely disappeared. Suddenly she didn’t care what her family thought of her. What must Miles be saying now? That she was irresponsible…?

Olivier’s mouth moved to her cheek, the hollow beneath her ear, the curve of her neck.

Mmm…yes. Irresponsible, definitely…

She slid her hands over his shoulders, arching her back as his lips raised goosebumps up her arms.

Impulsive?

Oh, yes. There were impulses that she had barely dared to imagine raging through her like forked lightning, and she wanted nothing more than to give into each and every one of them.

Easily led…

‘Oh…’

She felt a sharp stab of dismay as Olivier lifted his head and pulled back from her a little. Her skin tingled and sang with the need to feel his lips against it again.

The expression on his face was impossible to read as he looked down at her, but his voice was wry and slightly mocking. ‘Do you think that showed him?’

For a moment Bella didn’t understand what he meant, and then disappointment and shame hit her as she remembered that this was just an act to annoy Miles. She gave a shaky laugh, desperate to make light of the terrifying and utterly genuine lust that rampaged through her.

‘Not sure…’ she said lightly. ‘Maybe sex on the back seat of your car…just to be completely certain he got the message that I’m a big girl now…?’

There was a part of her—a distant, dutiful part—that was completely horrified by what she’d just said but was helpless to intervene. The expensive therapist would have a fit, but Bella felt as if she had torn off a mask and was finally revealing herself. It felt good. She was tired of being invisible; she wanted to be noticed.

His mouth curved into a lazy, wicked smile that simultaneously dazzled her and made her squirm with painful, pulsing longing.

‘I’m sure my driver would enjoy that,’ he murmured.

She met his gaze and smiled challengingly. ‘I didn’t mean with him.’

For a moment neither of them moved. The laughter that had been bubbling inside her was obliterated by a tide of drenching urgency. From behind them, in the house, there was a ripple of applause as the band finished the song, and then silence.

His eyes were so dark it was impossible to see where the pupil ended and the iris began. The band started up again, in a persuasive flourish of strings. As if in a dream she stroked the flat of her hand down the silk lapel of his jacket, swaying slightly against him.

Unsmiling, Olivier held out his hand.

With slow deliberation Bella touched her palm to his. For a moment they stood there like that, while the music curled around them, and then Bella let her fingers close around his. His hand felt big in hers, strong and unbending, and as she moved towards him his other hand came up to her waist, bunching up the thin silk as it slid across her back. She held his shoulder, but despite the formality of their position she couldn’t help tilting her pelvis towards him, arching her back so her hipbones bumped against his.

And then they were dancing. His hooded eyes glittered down at her, but his face remained completely still.

He was guiding her steps gently, expertly, and the click of her heels echoed dully off the high buildings around them as they swayed against each other in the empty street. Above them the sky had darkened to a rich sapphire-blue, and the sounds of the city seemed very far away. There was just the music and the presence of this man, this stranger with his dark, hypnotic eyes and his aura of quiet, persuasive strength.

He had the stillest face she had ever seen, she thought hazily. His exceptional beauty concealed everything, like armour. She had a sudden fierce, searing need to get past it to the man beneath.

‘I have to go.’

His words cut crudely through her thoughts. He was pulling away from her, distancing himself, and she felt instantly desolate.

‘Why? Where are you going?’

‘I’m due at a reception at the Tate. I’ve donated a picture to their forthcoming exhibition, and it’s the private view tonight. I have to be there.’ He hesitated, looking at her measuringly. ‘But you could come with me, if you’d like to?’

‘I can’t. My grandmother—it’s her party and—’

She broke off. Miles had appeared in the doorway, his face a scowling mixture of irritation and concern. ‘Bella, come back inside at once,’ he said with barely concealed impatience, then gave a nervous half laugh. ‘That dress is completely inadequate for hanging about outside. You’ll catch your death of cold.’

Olivier’s eyes were on her. She could feel their dark, silent challenge. She looked from him to Miles, and was suddenly aware that her big brother, who had always seemed so omnipotent, so completely in control, was afraid. And then she looked back to where Olivier stood, strong and certain, and Genevieve’s words from that morning came back to her.

Don’t throw away your happiness to appease your family.

She would understand.

Hesitantly she walked forward towards Olivier, and took his hand, feeling his power give her strength. ‘I’d like to come with you—if I may?’ At his brief nod of assent she turned back to Miles, and so missed the dark gleam of triumph in Olivier Moreau’s eyes.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘I’M GLAD you changed your mind.’

Olivier kept his gaze fixed casually ahead. Bella seemed to have pressed herself into the furthest corner of the car seat and was sitting stiffly, her hands tucked between her thighs and the soft leather upholstery.

‘I don’t think Miles would say the same thing. I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do later.’

The easy sensuality of a few minutes ago had melted away, and replacing it was that dull listlessness which he’d noticed yesterday in the street and earlier at the party. It exasperated him beyond belief.

‘Why?’

‘He’ll be worried about me.’

Olivier’s jaw tensed. ‘Of course,’ he said sourly. ‘I’m not good enough to take his little sister out.’

She shook her head and gave a sort of rueful laugh. ‘Not really. Not just that. It’s because I…’ She stopped, and in the orange glow of the street light he saw her bite her lip.

‘Go on.’

‘Nothing.’ She turned to look out of the window, so all he could see was the sharp line of her cheekbone and the hollow beneath it. ‘I’ve given him cause to worry in the past, that’s all. Poor old Miles is the one who has to bail me out and pick up the pieces.’

‘What about your parents? Where are they?’

‘My father’s a diplomat. He’s posted in Cairo at the moment, but my parents have always lived abroad. Because Miles is nine years older than me he’s always taken on the role of looking after me.’

Olivier tapped a finger impatiently on the butter-soft leather upholstery. Looking after her? Was that what he called it? From what he’d seen, Miles was just one in a long line of arrogant bastards who treated his sister like a possession. Like an object, with no right to thoughts and feelings and opinions of her own.

Hatred rose in his throat, hot and acidic, and then the irony of his reaction reasserted itself.

Touché.

The car slowed and came to a halt in a line of traffic waiting to pull up in front of the gallery’s Millbank entrance. As it moved forwards again, to swing across the road, the sudden motion threw Bella against Olivier for a moment, and he automatically put a hand out to steady her. He could feel her heat through the slippery silk of her dress. Lust tore through him, jagged and painful, like shrapnel.

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