Satisfaction ran through Guy as he surveyed the woman in front of him. Alexa Harcourt in evening attire was all that he wanted her to be.

Superbe.

As she stood before him in the rich, lustrous beauty she was finally revealing to him, anticipation speared within him for what he knew would be the delights of the evening ahead.

Not that she gave any sign yet of realising that was to happen. She was, he knew, quite unconscious of what with absolute inevitability lay ahead. It would, of course, make her seduction even more piquant—even more enticing!

And now the evening was about to begin.

‘Shall we?’ he invited.

She walked with superb grace, his appreciative eye noted, although there was the very slightest tension in her shoulders. As if she were not entirely at her ease.

Yes, she was indeed well worth his time and attention. Pleased with his choice, Guy relaxed fully into the leather seats and continued his appreciative surveillance. The evening stretched pleasurably ahead of him.

And the night—ah, the night would be exceptional…

Forbidden or For Bedding?

BY

Julia James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author

JULIA JAMES lives in England with her family. Mills & Boon® were the first ‘grown-up’ books she read as a teenager, alongside Georgette Heyer and Daphne du Maurier, and she’s been reading them ever since. Julia adores the English and Celtic countryside, in all its seasons, and is fascinated by all things historical, from castles to cottages. She also has a special love for the Mediterranean—‘The most perfect landscape after England!’—and considers both ideal settings for romance stories. In between writing she enjoys walking, gardening, needlework, baking extremely gooey cakes and trying to stay fit!

Prologue

MILD autumnal sunshine was filtering through the kitchen window of Alexa’s flat on the borders of Notting Hill, illuminating the pinewood table set for breakfast for two. The simple but elegant pottery creamware and silver-plated cutlery had been acquired painstakingly and piecemeal from antiques shops. Bright flowers adorned the table in a glass vase, and the aroma of freshly made ground coffee hung in the air.

So did a tension that Alexa would have had to be a block of stone not to feel.

She had had no inkling of it until this moment. Until this moment her mood had been languid—sensual, even—for making love upon waking was something that never failed to leave her with a sense of rich well-being that lasted all the day long—even on days like this when, unlike the previous night, she would go to bed alone.

But she was used to that by now. Used to going from a night of sensual overload that left her dazed, swept to shores she had once known nothing of but to which now she was a familiar, oh, so familiar traveler, to abstinance. But as she stood by the table, coffee pot in hand, her slender body concealed by nothing but a pale green silk peignoir, her long, still slightly tousled hair rippling down her back, she felt her throat give a little catch, as though her body—more than her body—remembered with absolute clarity that sense of wonder, almost disbelief, that would sweep her away on a tsunami of emotion.

Not that she ever revealed that emotion. Only the passion with which it was expressed. The emotion itself could never be acknowledged.

For a moment—an endless, empty moment—bleakness showed in her eyes. Then it was gone. She had accepted, had had to accept, that all she could have was what she had now. These brief, precious times when she would burn with an intensity that transformed her life, which carried her through the intervening days and nights of celibacy until her phone would ring and everything else became secondary, inconsequential, irrelevant. Her friends, her work, her whole life—all put aside.

And then for one night, perhaps two, perhaps—so rarely—more, when the call summoned her to a private airfield and whisked her away within an hour of the summons to some continental city or—even more rarely, even more blissfully—to some Italian villa, some Alpine ski lodge, some Monagasque penthouse, she would give herself entirely to the moment. However brief, however fleeting.

Was she rash, foolish, intemperate to be so? Of course she was! She knew it—knew it with every last ounce of sense within her. Good sense. Sense that tempered, as it must—should—that volatility of emotion which was the other half of her, that intensity of emotion that fuelled not just her life but her art. Sense that kept her outward persona cool, composed—controlled.

That was what others saw. The persona she deliberately projected. Few of her friends, especially those in the heady and passionate world of art, realised that her outward appearance of dispassionate calm in fact concealed an inner intensity of emotion—emotion that she channelled only into the art that she painted for herself, not for her profession. Others saw a tranquil beauty—a pale, silken-haired English rose—but few recognised the flame that burnt deep, deep within her.

Raised by parents who had led ordered, intellectual lives, Alexa knew that they had been taken aback to discover their only child was as artistically talented as soon became evident during her schooldays. They had not opposed her choice of subject—far from it—but Alexa had always recognised that they found it faintly astonishing that their daughter should have taken so to art which, to their sedate minds, was associated with stormy passions, extreme emotions and, worst of all, a tendency to lead disordered and messy lives.

Was that why—almost as a favour to her parents, perhaps—she had schooled herself to be as unlike a temperamental artist as she could? Why she enjoyed a tranquil, ordered existence, keeping her outward life calm and temperate and restraining her emotionality to her work? Yet she knew that it also came naturally to her to be reserved, dispassionate, self-contained, and once she had graduated from art school she ran her professional life as smoothly as her personal life.

As for men…Drawn by her pale beauty, they had come and gone—but mostly gone, for they had not, Alexa had known, been special to her. So she reserved herself on that score as well, enjoying the company of a select few boyfriends, with whom she mostly enjoyed going to the theatre, to concerts, to art exhibitions. Emotionally, though, she was untouched, and physically none had ever set her afire to explore the sensual promise of the body. No one had succeeded in lighting that flame hidden so deep within her.

No one but the man who stood there now, paused in the doorway, a man who, every time her eyes rested on him, made the breath catch in her throat, her pulse quicken. Every time.

As it did now.

He stood there, dominating the physical space just as he dominated her mental space, six foot of lean masculinity sheathed in an immaculately hand-made pale grey suit, with an effortless elegance about him that only served to emphasise his maleness while indicating his continental heritage. Guy de Rochement would never be taken for an Englishman, yet his French surname was only a fraction of the complex pan-European inheritance that had made the banking house of Rochement-Lorenz a byword for wealth, prestige and power.

Now, those extraordinary long-lashed eyes that could melt Alexa into quivering jelly by a single glance were resting on her. She felt, as she always did, their power, but now, for the first time, she also felt, deep within her, something different—the tension that seemed to set the air between them vibrating with a fine disturbance of the equilibrium.

She paused, waited, the coffee pot that she had been holding as he’d walked into the sunlit kitchen still in her hand. Suddenly the kitchen seemed less bright, less warmed by the sunshine. Time stretched between them, tangible, tense—it seemed to last for ever, and yet it was only the beat of a single heart.

Then he spoke.

‘I have something to tell you.’ Guy’s accent in English was almost perfect, but not quite, still holding a faint sussuration of French, Italian, German—any of the half-dozen languages he’d grown up speaking amongst his polyglot relatives. His voice was clipped, and as she heard it Alexa felt the first tremor of emotion deep within her—an emotion she would have given the world not to feel. It was an emotion she would give no name to, would deny completely, because to admit it would be to open within her a door so dangerous it might destroy her. It was a door she must never open—no matter what Guy did, what he said.

Even when it was the words he was saying now. She heard the words, but they came from very far away, from a place she’d dreaded, feared. His clipped, reserved expression told her far more than the words themselves, though each syllable was like a scalpel slicing across her bare flesh.

‘I’m getting married,’ said Guy de Rochement.

Alexa was standing very still. Almost as if she were a statue, he thought irrelevantly—for his mind was doing strange things to him, despite the self-control he was ruthlessly exerting on himself right now. A statue by one of those absurd and over-inflated contemporary artists with no more talent than an ability to mock greatness, a woman in a kitchen holding a coffee pot as if it were a Greek urn. He, too, seemed frozen. Or at least his mind did. He had walked into the kitchen knowing what he had to say, and knowing the implications of it.

Those implications were clear. Unambiguous. Unavoidable.

Completely obvious to him.

A minute frown shadowed his eyes momentarily.

Were they as obvious to her, though?

He went on studying her for the space of another heartbeat as she stood there, perfectly motionless, as if frozen in time. Nothing seemed to register in those luminous, clear-sighted eyes that had so entranced him from the very first moment he had seen her. Eyes arrestingly beautiful, set in a face that even his high standards for female allure could not fault. Her beauty was completed by possession of a figure of slender perfection that had immediately, irrevocably captured his interest—an interest that he had pursued with all his customary ruthlessness when it came to such matters.

Some women, when he had shown an initial speculative interest, had sought to intrigue him further by playing pointless games—which, he assumed, they believed would entice him the more, encourage his pursuit or, even more presumptuously, serve as a means to exert control over him. But Alexa had, to his satisfaction, shown no such predilection for futile attempts to manipulate him. From the first she had shown no disingenuous reluctance, coyness or coquetry, and even when seduction had been accomplished, and he had begun his affair with her, she had recognised implicitly the terms under which it was to be conducted, and complied with them without demur.

Complied without demur with everything he wanted. Right from their very first night together…that unforgettable night…

In his mind, memory flickered like a flame in dry undergrowth. He sluiced it instantly. That fire must be put out—permanently. With all the discipline he habitually exerted he doused the flickering memory. This was not a time for memory—it was a time for clarity.

Brutal clarity if need be.

He needed to say it. Not just for her, but for himself as well. To make it crystal-clear…

She was standing immobile still, and something in her very stillness made the tension pull at him. Tension he did not want to feel.

Time to make things clear.

Cool and terse, the words fell into the space between them.

‘I shan’t be seeing you again, Alexa.’

For the space of another heartbeat time held still. An eternity of time in the briefest span. Then, like a film starting to play again, her body unfroze. With her customary graceful movements she lowered the coffee pot to its slate mat on the table and started to depress the plunger, letting the dark pungent liquid settle, then pouring it carefully out into one of the creamware cups. Gracefully she lifted the cup and saucer, proffering it to the man standing such a short space away from her.

Such an infinite distance now.

‘Of course,’ she answered. Her voice was serene, untroubled. ‘C’est bien entendue—that’s the correct French, isn’t it?’ Her tone was conversational, unexceptional. ‘Are you having coffee before you go?’

There was no emotion in her face as she spoke.

She would permit none.

In her hand, the coffee cup she was rock-steady. Not a tremor. She caught the scent of coffee coiling into the air, the molecules wafting upwards. Her eyes were resting on his face, limpid, untroubled. As if he had merely uttered a pleasantry of no consequence or significance.

He did not take the cup. His face remained closed, unreadable. But then she did not seek to read it. Sought only to hold the cup as steady as a rock, to hold her gaze as steady. It was as though a section of her brain had dissociated itself from the rest of her and was operating in a space all of its own.

For one last heartbeat she held the cup, then slowly—infinitely slowly—lowered it to the table. Her regard went back to him, still showing nothing in her eyes except politeness.

‘I hope you will permit me to wish you every happiness in your forthcoming marriage,’ she said, her voice as untroubled as her regard.

Smoothly, she moved towards the door, indicating thereby that she recognised he would take his leave now—coffee untouched, affair disposed of. She did not pause to see if he was following her, merely headed unhurriedly, gracefully, the silken length of her peignoir brushing against her bare legs, across the narrow entrance hall of her flat to the front door.

She heard rather than saw him follow her. She slid back the security bolts that were inevitable in London, even on a quiet, tree-lined road such as the one she lived on. She stepped back, holding open the door for him. He came forward, halted one moment, looked at her one moment. His face was still closed, unreadable.

Then…‘Thank you,’ he said.

He might have been thanking her for her felicitations, but Alexa knew that he was not. Knew that he was thanking her for something he appreciated far more. Her acceptance.

His eyes still held hers. ‘It has been good, non?’

Laconic to the last. She, too.

‘Yes, it has.’

Briefly, like swansdown, she leant forward to brush with the lightest touch his cheek.

‘I wish you well.’

Then she stood back.

‘Goodbye, Guy,’ she said.

For one last time her eyes held him. Then, with the merest nod of acknowledgement of her farewell, he walked out.

Out of her life.

She did not watch him go. Instead she shut the door. Slowly—very slowly. As if it weighed more than she could bear. Then slowly—very slowly—she leant back against it, staring expressionlessly across the hallway. There was no sound. Not even his footsteps descending the flight of steps.

Guy was gone. The affair was over.

Slowly—very slowly—her fingers curved into the palms of her hand.

Gouging deep.

Guy’s car was waiting for him at the kerb. He’d phoned for it as he dressed, knowing that he would want it there for as soon as he’d told Alexa what he must. He had put it off for as long as it was possible. Until it was no longer possible to stay silent. As he walked down the stone steps from the front door of the terraced house of which Alexa’s apartment occupied the top floor, his driver got out and came round to open the rear passenger door for him. He got in, barely acknowledging the gesture.

As he sank back into the soft leather seat his face remained expressionless.

Well, it was done. Alexa was out of his life. And she wouldn’t be coming back.

Guy reached for the neatly folded copy of the Financial Times his driver had placed carefully beside him, and started to read.

There was no expression in his face. His eyes.

He would permit none.

Alexa was cleaning the bathroom. She should have been working, but she couldn’t. She’d tried. She’d mixed colours, got herself ready, put up a brand new canvas, dipped her brush in the colours, lifted it to the canvas.

But nothing had happened. She’d hung, frozen, like an aborted computer program, unable to continue.

Jerkily she’d lowered the brush, eased off the surplus paint, and stuck it into turps. Then she’d blinked a few times, stared blankly ahead for a moment, before turning on her heel and walking out of her studio.

She’d walked into the kitchen and put the kettle on. But for some reason she hadn’t been able to make a cup of tea. Or coffee. Or even run the tap for a glass of water. After a little while she’d gone into the bathroom.

She’d seen the bath could do with a clean, so she’d set to. That had seemed to work. Then she’d moved on to the basin, then the toilet pedestal, then the rest of the surfaces and walls. She rubbed hard, using elbow grease and a lot of household cleaner foaming on the sponge. It seemed to take a lot of cleaning, and she rubbed hard.

Harder and harder.

And as she rubbed and scrubbed her brain darted, like dragonflies scything across a pond with sharp, knifing movements. She wondered what the dragonflies in her brain were. Then she knew. Knew by their iridescent wings, their flash as they caught the light.

They were memories.

So many memories.

Stabbing and darting through her head. Memory after memory.

As sharp as knives.

Working backwards through time, taking her back, and back, and back.

Chapter One

Six months earlier.…

‘DARLING! You’ll never believe who I’ve bagged for you!’

Imogen’s voice came gushing down the line. Alexa, the receiver crooked under her ear, concentrated on catching the sheen on a petal that was proving tricky.

‘Alexa? Are you there? Did you hear what I said? You’ll never believe who—’

Alexa, who knew that Imogen could no more be halted in full flight than she herself could be dragged to the phone when she was painting by anyone other than her friend and business manager, interrupted.

‘Who?’ She knew Imogen was dying to be asked, so she could give the dramatic answer she was clearly bursting to give.

‘He’s absolutely devastating!’ gushed Imogen. ‘A million, zillion miles from any of the usual boring old suits.’

An extravagant sigh wafted down the line. Alexa wondered what Imogen was on about, then went back to working on the petal. She was dimly aware that Imogen was still in full flow, but didn’t pay attention. Imogen loved to gush, and Alexa let her get on with it while she focussed on what was important at the moment.

Finally there was silence on the line.

‘So?’ came Imogen’s prompt a moment later. ‘Are you over the moon or what?’

Alexa frowned absently. ‘What?’

An exasperated sign came into her ear. ‘Darling, do pay attention! Put the paintbrush down and listen for two minutes. Even you are going to be impressed, I promise. Guy de Rochement phoned. Well,’ Imogen temporised, ‘not him personally, of course, but his London PA.’ She paused. ‘So, tell me you’re impressed. Tell me—’ her voice changed and adopted a husky timbre ‘—you’re quivering all down your insides.’

Alexa, her paintbrush reduced to hovering over the canvas, intensified her slight frown.

‘Quivering?’ she echoed. ‘What for?’

The exasperated sigh came again. ‘Oh, really, Alexa, don’t do that Little Miss Supercool with me! I’m not a bloke. And don’t even think you’ll be able to get away with it with Guy de Rochement. Not even you could do that. He’ll have you swooning just like the rest of the female population.’

Alexa’s brow furrowed. ‘Am I supposed to know who this guy is?’

Imogen gave a trill of laughter. ‘Darling—a pun! His name is Guy in English, but of course he’s French—well, mostly—so it’s pronounced with a long “ee”. Guy.’ She gave it a Gallic slant. ‘Sounds so much sexier…’ She gave another gusty sigh.

Alexa cut to the chase. She hadn’t a clue what was going on, and didn’t want any more of her time wasted.

‘Imogen—who is he, why are you being so loopy about it, and what are you trying to tell me anyway?’

Imogen sounded more disbelieving than indignant. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Guy de Rochement? He’s just all over the celeb mags! Only the posh ones, mind you! He’s a triple-A-lister. Total class!’

‘I don’t read magazines like that,’ replied Alexa. ‘They’re all rubbish.’

‘Ooh, look at you. Hoity-toity!’ shot back Imogen in mock admonition. ‘Well, if you did sully your pure artistic soul with such guff you’d know who I was talking about—and why. Listen, even at your elevated heights I take it you’ve heard of Rochement-Lorenz?’

Recognition—not strong, but there all the same—was dredged into Alexa’s forebrain. ‘Mega-rich bankers all over the place and going way back into history?’

‘That’s them!’ Imogen trilled. ‘One of the über-dynasties across the Channel. Utterly rolling in it. Made pots of money in every country in Europe for the last two hundred years,’ she reeled off. ‘Just about financed the Industrial Revolution and bankrolled merchant fleets to every farflung colony. They’re so seriously into money and survival they even made it pretty much intact through the last century—both the World Wars, not to mention the Cold War—probably because they had family on every side going. And now they are riding higher than ever, despite the recession. And a lot of that is due to Guy de Rochement. He’s the whiz-kid that’s propelled the bank into the twenty-first century, and the whole vast clan just slobbers all over him because he’s raking in the loot for them.

Her voice changed, adopting that husky tone again. ‘Mind you, I’d take a punt it’s the females in the family that do the most slobbering. Just like the females outside the family! I was practically salivating down the phone, and I was only speaking to his PA.’

Alexa cut to the chase again. Imogen was clearly bowled over by this Guy guy, whoever he was, and Alexa had certainly never heard of him.

‘So what’s the deal, Immie?’ she asked.

‘The deal, darling, is that he’s interested in being painted by you!’ cooed Imogen dramatically. ‘And if he goes for it you’ll be made, my sweet. No more dull old suits and cigars. You’ll be able to take your pick of the A-listers—the really fab ones, up in the stratosphere. They’re all as vain as peacocks, and they’ll just snap you up. You’ll be rolling in it!’

Alexa made a wry little face to herself. The whole portraiture kick had been Imogen’s idea. When they’d both emerged from art college several years ago, her fellow student and friend had announced straight away that she was never going to be good enough to make anything out of art, and she was going to go into commercial management.

‘And you’ll be first on my books!’ she’d informed Alexa gaily. ‘I’ll make you pots of money, see if I don’t. No starving in garrets eating the acrylics for you, I promise!’

‘I’m not really very interested in making money out of art,’ Alexa had temporised.

‘Yes, well,’ Imogen had retorted, and Alexa knew there had been a touch of condemnation in her voice, ‘not all of us can afford to be so high-minded.’

Then, immediately seeing the flash of pain in Alexa’s eyes, she’d backtracked, hugging her friend.

‘I’m sorry. My mouth sometimes…Forgive me?’

She’d been contrite, honestly so, and Alexa had nodded, hugging her back.

Imogen’s family—large and rambling and open-hearted—had taken Alexa in, literally, during that first terrible term at art school, when Alexa’s parents had been killed in a plane crash while coming back from holiday. Imogen and her family had got her through that nightmare time, giving her a refuge in her stricken grief, as well as helping her with all the practical fall-out from their deaths, which had included sorting out the best thing to do with what she had inherited. It was not vast riches by any means, but prudently invested it had provided Alexa with enough to buy a flat, pay her student fees and living expenses, and yield a small but sufficient income that meant she would have the luxury of not having to rely exclusively on her artistic career to live.

Even so, Imogen was dead set on turning her friend into a high-flyer in the art world.

‘With your fantastic looks it’s a dead cert!’ she’d enthused.

‘I thought it was whether I was any good or not,’ Alexa had replied dryly.

‘Yeah, right. That as well, OK. But come on—we know what makes the world go round, and good-looks definitely make it spin in your direction. You’re a PR dream!’

But Alexa had been adamant. Something flash and showy and insubstantial in artistic terms was not what she was after. What it was exactly that she wanted, though, she was less sure. She enjoyed most media, most styles, was eclectic in her approach, and got completely absorbed in whatever she was doing. But then she got equally absorbed even if her next project was quite different. There was no clear artistic way forward for her.

Which was why, she knew, she had let Imogen have her head when she’d told her that she had a clear flair for portraiture—Alexa had painted Imogen’s family to say thank-you for their kindness to her—and it would be a criminal shame to waste it. So when, out of her myriad contacts, Imogen had wangled a couple of commissions, Alexa had gone along with her friend’s ambitions for her. And now, four years later, it had paid off handsomely—at least in financial terms.

It seemed she did indeed have a flair for portraiture, for she had a generosity of spirit that enabled her to depict her sitters in ways that, whilst truthful, tended to show them in their best light. Considering that as Imogen moved her remorselessly up the fee scale her sitters became increasingly corpulent and middle-aged, that was no mean achievement. Yet, whatever her clients’ unprepossessing exterior, Alexa found she enjoyed depicting the incisive intelligence, shrewdness, or sheer force of character that had got them where they were: to the upper reaches of the corporate ladder.

Which was why she was less than impressed at the prospect of having Guy de Rochement as a sitter. From what Imogen said he sounded no better than some kind of flash celebrity playboy, inheriting bucketloads and now merely swanning around the world making yet more. He would, she darkly surmised, be spoilt, conceited and full of himself—just because he was the scion of such a famous banking house.

Her thoughts darkened even more, recalling Imogen’s drooling. And just because he happened to have a reputation for being sexy.

Alexa’s mouth tightened. Rich, conceited and sexy. Great. He sounded like a royal pain in the proverbial.

Her opinion to that effect was only strengthened some days later when, Imogen having beavered away like crazy to set it up, Alexa’s initial appointment with the fabled Guy de Rochemont was cancelled by phone at the last moment. The glacially indifferent PA’s dismissive tone clearly told Alexa she was considered something little better than a minion—doubtless one of hundreds who waited on Guy de Rochemont’s plutocratic convenience.

Automatically Alexa felt her hackles rise. So, when Imogen phoned her two hours later to ask breathlessly, ‘Well, how did it go? Is he even more gorgeous in the flesh than in photos?’ Alexa was icy.

‘I have no idea. I was cancelled,’ she said simply.

Imogen’s reaction was immediately to temporise. ‘Oh, darling, he’s terribly, terribly busy—always flying off at the drop of a hat. And his PA’s a cow anyway. So when have you rearranged for?’

‘I neither know nor care,’ was Alexa’s terse reply.

Imogen wailed. ‘Honestly, if you just knew how hard I’d worked to get you set up there! Hey-ho—I’ll just have to suck up to the bovine PA and get another meeting sorted.’

She was back ten minutes later, cock-a-hoop. ‘Jackpot! He’s dining at Le Mireille tomorrow evening, and has agreed to meet you in the bar at seven forty-five before-hand.’ She gave a trill of glee. ‘Ooh, it’s almost like a date!’ she gushed. ‘I wonder if he’ll fall for your gorgeous English rose looks and be smitten in a coup de foudre? You must make sure you’re looking absolutely stunning!’

Fortunately for her friend’s blood pressure, Alexa made sure Imogen did not see her before she set off, with deep reluctance, to the ultra-fashionable watering hole the next evening. The moment she walked in she was extremely glad she had chosen to wear what she had. Every female there was in a number that screamed Look at me! By contrast, Alexa knew that her grey blouse and grey pencil skirt, with grey low-heeled shoes and matching bag, together with no make-up and hair repressed into a tight, businesslike bun, was designed to minimise her looks.

She gave her name—and that of the man she was due to meet—to the snooty-looking greeter inside the entrance. The woman’s eyebrows lifted palpably as Alexa said Guy de Rochemont’s name, and cast a sceptical glance over her unassuming appearance. Nevertheless she despatched a minion into the hallowed interior of the premises, where only the select few were permitted. The look of scepticism increased when the minion returned with a nod to indicate that, unlikely as it was, someone as dull looking as Alexa was of the slightest interest to such a man as Guy de Rochemont.

‘It’s a business appointment,’ she said crisply, and then wished she hadn’t—because why on earth did she care what a snooty greeter in a place like this thought one way or the other?

As she was led into the bar area—already crowded and filled with people noisily sounding off about themselves—her mouth tightened. This was not a place she’d have spent a single penny, even if she’d had the hundreds it required to dine here. It was showy, flash and superficial.

Was that what her prospective sitter was going to be like? Briefly she flicked her eyes around, looking for someone who might look like the way Imogen had so gushingly described him. There were certainly plenty of candidates. If egos had mass, the collective weight of self-regard in the room could have sunk the Titanic, Alexa thought waspishly. And doubtless Guy de Rochemont’s ego would be a prime contributor. So which one was he? It could be any of them, Alexa acknowledged, for all the men looked sleek, rich, and unswervingly pleased with their own existence.

‘M’sieu de Rochemont?’

The minion had halted, and the rest of what he said disappeared into French too fast for Alexa to follow. It was addressed to someone sitting at a low table. She could only see his back, shadowed by the minion’s body. As the minion spoke to him he nodded briefly, and the minion beckoned her forward. She walked stiffly up to the unoccupied chair on the far side of the table, and sat down without waiting for either invitation or instruction.

‘Good evening,’ she said, her voice workmanlike, busying herself setting down her handbag. Then she lifted her eyes to the man seated opposite.

Could you hear the sound of a jaw dropping? she wondered, with some fragment of her brain that still functioned outside the complete fuzz that was suddenly her sole consciousness. Then another thought gelled. Oh, hell, Imogen was right…

Because, like it or not, whatever her scepticism had been, one thing was completely and irrefutably incontrovertible about Guy de Rochemont. He really was—well…She flailed about in her brain, trying to find words. Failing. Visual impressions raced through her mind—and more. Guy de Rochemont hit places that were far more than visual.

Visceral.

How—she scrambled for sense—how could a mere arrangement of features common to every human being vary so much in their impact? How was it that a combination of things that everyone else had—eyes, nose, mouth—could be so…so…

Her eyes skittered over him, taking in everything and anything—the sculpted face, the slant of his eyebrows, the thin blade of his nose, the finely shaped mouth, the edged line of his jaw, the sable hair that was perfectly framed around his head. She drank him in, unable to do anything else but succumb to the impact.

Dimly she was aware that he had half-risen at her appearance, but had sat back again as she had already sat down, and was now sitting with a kind of lean grace that—again—she could viscerally register without conscious assessment, one long leg crossed over the other and arms resting on the curving contour of the tub chair, relaxed and completely at ease with himself.

That’s the pose, she felt herself think, feeling the familiar leap of conviction when the physical world arranged itself to perfection, ready for her to capture it to canvas.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, her brain still processing what her eyes were conveying to her. There was a rushing feeling going through her, a breathlessness. She was used to getting the buzz of pre-creation, but this was different. Far more intense…

Different.

She knew it was different—so different. She also knew she had never reacted in this way before in her life, but she pushed the knowledge to one side. She would deal with it later. Wonder about it later. Analyse it later. Right now…Right now all she wanted to do, all she could do, was simply let her eyes work over that extraordinary face, the incredible arrangement of features that just made her want to gaze and gaze and gaze at them.

Then, as if from far away, consciousness forced its way through. Awareness of what she was doing. Staring wordlessly at the man sitting opposite her.

Who was letting her gaze at him.

And even as the consciousness came through she felt, as if in slow motion, a wave of reaction. More than consciousness—self-consciousness. Her jaw tightened, and she stiffened, deliberately blinking to cut off her riveted perusal of him, regain some normality again. But it was hard. All she wanted to do, she knew, was to go right back to gazing at him, working her way over and over his features.

What colour are his eyes?

The question seared across her brain, and she realised she couldn’t answer. It sent a thread of panic through her that she didn’t know his eye colour yet. Her gaze pulled to get back to his face, to resume its study. She yanked it back. No! This was ridiculous, absurd. Embarrassing. She wasn’t going to gaze at him gormlessly like a teenager! Or scrutinise him as if he were already sitting for her.

She straightened her spine, as if putting backbone into herself. Forced a polite smile to her mouth that was the right mix of social and business.

‘I understand you are considering having your portrait painted?’ she said. Her voice sounded, to her relief, crisp and businesslike.

For just a moment Guy de Rochemont did not answer her—almost as if he had not heard her speak. He continued to hold his pose, quite motionless, as if he were still under her scrutiny. He didn’t seem to think it odd, she registered dimly, and then wondered just how long—or how—briefly—she’d been gazing at him. Perhaps it hadn’t taken more than few seconds—she didn’t know, couldn’t tell.

Then, with the slightest indentation of his mouth, matching the socially polite smile Alexa had just given, he spoke.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve been persuaded to that ultimate vanity. The portrait will be a gift to my mother. She seems to consider it something she would like.’ His voice was dry, and had a trace not just of an accent somewhere in his near perfect pronounciation, but of wry humour too. It also possessed a quality that, to Alexa’s dismay, did very strange things to her. Things she busily pushed to one side. She gave a nod, and another polite smile.

‘One thing, Mr de Rochemont, that I always warn clients about—should you wish to commission me, of course—is the amount of time that must be set aside for portraiture,’ she began. ‘Whilst I appreciate that calls on your time will be extensive, nevertheless—’

He held up a hand. It was, she saw, long, narrow, and with manicured nails that gave the lie to a manicure being an effeminate practice.

‘What would you like to drink, Ms Harcourt?’

Alexa stopped in mid-sentence, as if the question had taken her aback. ‘Oh, nothing, thank you,’ she said. ‘I really don’t have time for a drink, I’m afraid.’

Guy de Rochemont raised an eyebrow. Alexa felt her eyes go straight there. Felt the same rush of intensity that she had felt when she had first seen him. The simple movement on his part had changed the angles on his face, changed his expression, given him a look that was both questioning and amused.

‘Dommage,’ she heard him murmur. His eyes rested on her a moment.

They’re green, she found herself thinking. Green like deep water in a forest. Deep pools to drown in…

She was doing it again. Letting herself be sucked into just gazing and gazing at him. She pulled back out again—out of the drowning emerald pool—with another straightening of her spine.

‘Completion of the portrait will depend entirely on the number of sittings and the intervals between them. I understand it may well be irksome for you, but—’

Yet again, Guy de Rochement effortlessly interrupted her determined reversion to the practicalities of immortalising him for his mother on canvas.

‘So, tell me, Ms Harcourt, why should I select you for this task, in your opinion?’

The quizzical, questioning look was in his eye again. And something more. Something that Alexa found she didn’t like. Up till now he had been the subject, she the observer—the riveted observer, unable to tear her eyes away from him. Now, suddenly, the tables were turned.

It was as if a veil had lifted from his eyes.

Emerald jewels…

Guy de Rochemont was looking at her. Straight at her. Unveiled and with full power.

It was heady, intoxicating—made her breathless! The words tumbled through the remains of her conscious mind, even as she felt the air catch in her throat.

Oh, good grief, he really is…

Attempts at analysis, classification, evaporated. They couldn’t do anything else, because all she was capable of doing was sitting there, letting Guy de Rochemont look at her.

Assess her.

Because that was what he was doing. It came to her fuzzily, through the daze in her brain from the impact of those incredible green eyes resting on her. He was assessing her.

Rejection tightened through her. It was one thing for her to study his appearance—she was supposed to capture it on canvas! But it was quite another thing for him to subject her to the same scrutiny. And she knew just why he was doing it. For the same reason any man would do so. And when the man in question was someone like Guy de Rochemont, with a banking empire in his wallet and the looks of a film star, well—yes, he would think, wouldn’t he, that he was entitled to evaluate her to that end?

Her mouth pressed together, and a spark showed in her eye. She suppressed it. She would not show she was reacting to him…to his uninvited scrutiny, she amended mentally. Because of course she was not reacting to him—not in any way other than to acknowledge, quite objectively, that his looks were exceptional, and that she needed to study them in order to paint them. That was all. All.

Yet again she recovered her composure, stifling her reaction to him, to those extraordinary eyes.

‘That isn’t a question for me to answer, Monsieur de Rochemont,’ she responded. ‘The selection of portraitist is entirely your own affair. If you wish to commission me, that is your privilege, and I will see whether my schedule is congruent with yours.’

She met his regard straight on. Her voice had been admirably crisp, which she was pleased about. All right, Guy de Rochemont was…Well, she wasn’t about to run through the adjectives again—the evidence was right in front of her eyes! But that didn’t mean she had to put up with being on the receiving end of his attention. Not that she had any reason to be concerned, anyway. There was only one outcome from his assessment. He would be seeing a plainly dressed, unadorned woman who was making not the slightest attempt to enhance her looks to please the male gender, and signalling thereby on all frequencies that she was not on any man’s menu. Even that of a man who could quite clearly take his pick of the world’s most beautiful women.

She wondered whether he would take offence at the way she’d responded to his question. Tough. She didn’t need the commission, and if—and it was, she knew, a very big if—she took it and if—and that was probably an even bigger if, because a man like him wouldn’t care to be answered off-handedly—he commissioned her anyway, she was most definitely not going to pander to the man. Yes, he would doubtless cancel sittings—because all her clients did to some extent or another—and that was understandable given the demands on his time because of his high-powered business life, and it was something she could cope with. But there was no way he was going to get the slightest pandering to, or her begging for the commission, or anything like that, thank you very much! She offered a service, a degree of skill and artistry. If a client wanted to buy it, that was that. If not—well, that was that too.

She met his gaze dispassionately as she finished speaking. For a moment he did not answer. She did not break her gaze, merely held his, looking untroubled and composed. The brilliance of his eyes seemed veiled somehow, as if he were masking something from her.

His reaction, she thought. I can’t tell whether he’s annoyed, or indifferent, or what. I can’t see into him.

Again, it wasn’t something that was unusual for her, given the calibre of her clients. Powerful men were not transparent to the world, and indeed that air of elusiveness, of restrained power, was something that usually went into her portraits—she knew, with a slight waspishness, that it was a form of flattery by her, to portray them as inscrutable.

But with Guy de Rochement the masking was, she felt, more pronounced. Perhaps it was because his was such a remarkably handsome face, so incredibly, overtly attractive to women. Women—any women—would expect to see some sort of reaction to them in his eyes, even if it were only polite indifference. But with Guy de Rochement nothing at all came through of what he was thinking.

She felt a tug of fascination go through her—the eternal fascination of an enigmatic man—and then, on its heels, a different emotion, a more chilling one.

He keeps apart. He holds back. He shows only what he wants to show, what is appropriate for the moment.

Then, abruptly, he was speaking again, and her attention went to what he was saying. What his face was suddenly showing.

She could see quite plainly what it was.

It was amusement.

Not open, not pronounced, but there all the same—in the narrowing of his eyes, in the indentation of his sculpted lips. And more than amusement there was something else, just discernible to her. Slight but distinct surprise.

Alexa knew why. He’s not used to being answered like that—and not by a woman.

She felt a sliver of satisfaction go through her. Then was annoyed with herself for feeling it. Oh, for heaven’s sake, what did she care whether this man was or was not used to having someone answer him like that?

‘You do not believe in pitching, do you, Ms Harcourt?’ The subtly accented voice was dry.

Alexa gave the slightest shrug. ‘To what purpose? Either you like my work and wish to engage me, or you do not. It’s a very simple matter.’

‘Indeed.’ The voice was a dry murmur again. One narrow, long-fingered hand reached out to close around the stem of a martini glass and raise it contemplatively to his mouth, before lowering it to the table again. His regard was still impassively on her. Then, as if reaching a decision, he got to his feet.

Alexa did likewise. OK, she thought, that’s it. No deal. Well, so what? Imogen will be cross with me, but actually I’m glad he’s decided against me.

She wondered why she felt so certain of that, but knew she did. She’d work out later just what that reason was. Then it came to her.

Because it’s simpler. Easier. More straightforward.

Yet even so she felt her mind sheering away. And necessarily so. Now was not the time to analyse why a feeling of relief was going through her not to be painting Guy de Rochement’s portrait—or why the feeling running just beneath the surface of that relief was something quite, quite different.

Regret…

No! Don’t be absurd, she admonished herself sternly. It’s just a commission, that’s all. You’ve done dozens, and you’ll do dozens more. Just because unlike all the others this one is young and ludicrously handsome, it means nothing at all. Nothing.

He was speaking, and she cut short her futile cogitations.

‘Well, Ms Harcourt, I think we have reached the end of our necessary exchange, don’t you?’

Guy de Rochemont was holding his hand out to her. She made herself take it, ignoring the cool of his touch and dropping it again the moment social convention permitted.

‘Quite,’ she agreed crisply. She picked up her bag, ready to turn and leave.

‘So,’ Guy de Rochemont continued, ‘I will have my PA phone your representative and arrange my first sitting—should it prove possible within the restraints of our respective diaries.’ He paused a moment. Just the fraction of a moment. ‘I trust that meets with your approval, Ms Harcourt?’

Was that amusement in his voice again? A deliberate blandness in his gaze? Alexa found her lips pressing together as her thoughts underwent a sudden and complete rearrangement.

‘Yes—thank you,’ she answered, and her voice, she was glad to hear, was as crisp as ever.

‘Good,’ said her latest client, as if the word closed the transaction. And then, as if Alexa had just ceased to exist, he looked past her. His expression changed.

‘Guy! Darling!’

A woman sailed up to him, ignoring Alexa’s presence as if she were invisible. A cloud of heavy scent surrounded the woman even as her slender braceleted arms came around Guy de Rochemont to envelop him. Alexa caught an impression of tightly sheathed black silk, long lush black hair, and a tanned complexion. Moreover, the woman’s features were definitely familiar. Who was she? Oh, yes, Carla Crespi—that was it. An Italian femme fatale film actress who specialised in sultry roles. Alexa hadn’t seen any of her films, as they weren’t to her taste, but it would have been hard not to have heard of the woman at all.

She turned to go. It was par for the course that a male of Guy de Rochemont’s calibre would have a woman like that in tow. Someone high-profile, high-maintenance, who would, above all, adorn him. A trophy woman for an alphaplus male.

She heard the woman launch into a stream of rapid Italian, pitched too loud for private conversation and therefore, Alexa assumed, designed for public consumption—drawing attention to herself, to the man she was with. Tucking her handbag firmly under her arm, Alexa left her to it and departed.

She felt strangely disconcerted.

And it annoyed her.

She would have felt even more disconcerted, and certainly more annoyed, had she realised that behind her Guy de Rochemont had disengaged himself from Carla Crespi and was looking after Alexa’s departing figure as she threaded her way across the room.

His eyes were very slightly narrowed and their expression was speculative. With just a hint—the barest hint—of amusement in their long-lashed emerald-green depths.

Imogen was, predictably, cock-a-hoop at Alexa’s triumph. Not that Alexa saw it in that light at all—not even when Imogen disclosed the fee she had negotiated, which was considerably higher than Alexa had yet commanded.

‘Didn’t I tell you you’ll be made after this?’ Imogen demanded. ‘You’ll be able to name your own price, however stratospheric. It’s all fashion—you know that!’

‘Thank you,’ Alexa said dryly. ‘And there was I thinking it was my talent.’

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Imogen. ‘But brilliant artists are ten a penny and starving in their garrets surrounded by their masterpieces. Look, Alexa, art is a market, remember? And you have to work the market, that’s all. Stick with me and one day you’ll be worth squillions—and so will I!’

But Alexa only shook her head lightly, and forebore to discuss a subject they would never see eye to eye on. Nor did she discuss her latest client, even though Imogen was ruthless in trying to squeeze every last detail out of her.

‘Look, he’s just what you said he was, all right? A jaw-droppingly fantastic-looking male, rich as Croesus. So what? What’s that got to do with me? I’m painting him, that’s all. He’ll turn up late to sittings, cancel more than he makes, and somehow or other I’ll get the portrait delivered, get my fee paid, and that will be an end of it. He’s having the portrait done for his mother, and presumably it will hang in her boudoir, or the ancestral hall, or one of them. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’ll never see it again and that will be that.’

‘Mmm,’ said Imogen, ignoring the latter half of Alexa’s pronouncement and rolling her eyeballs dreamily. ‘All those one-on-ones with him. All that up-close-and-personal as he poses for you. All that—’

‘All that cool, composed professional distance,’ completed Alexa brusquely.

‘Oh, come on, Alexa,’ her friend cried exasperatedly. ‘Don’t tell me you wouldn’t swoon if he made a pass at you. Of course you would—even you! Mind you…’ Her eyes targeted Alexa critically. ‘Dressed like that you won’t get the chance!’

Precisely, thought Alexa silently. And anyway, not only was a man who had Carla Crespi panting for him never going to look twice at any other female, but—and this was the biggest but in the box—the only thing she was remotely interested in Guy de Rochemont for was whether she could successfully paint him.

The prospect was starting to trouble her. Up till now her main challenge had been not to make her sitters too aware of their physical limitations. With Guy de Rochement it was a different ballgame. She found she was going over the problem in her head, calling his face into her mind’s eye and wondering how she should tackle it. Wondering whether she could catch the full jaw-dropping quality of the man.

Will I be able to do him justice?

Doubts assailed her right from the start. As she had predicted, he missed the first sitting and was ninety minutes late for the next one. Yet when he did arrive his manner was brisk and businesslike, and apart from taking three mobile calls in succession, in as many languages, he let Alexa make her first preliminary sketches without interruption.

‘May I see?’ he said at the end, and his tone of voice told Alexa that this was not a request, despite the phrasing. Silently she handed across her sketchbook, watching his face as he flicked through her afternoon’s work.

Pencil and charcoal were good media for him, she’d realised. They somehow managed to distil him down to his essence. Beginning full-on with oils would make his looks unreal, she feared. No one would believe a man could look that breathtaking. People would think she’d flattered him shamelessly.

But it was impossible to flatter Guy de Rochemont, she knew. The extraordinary visual impact he’d had on her at her first encounter with him had not lessened an iota. When he’d walked into her studio earlier that afternoon she’d found, to her annoyance—and to quite another emotion she refused to call anything but her artistic instinct—that her gaze was, yet again, completely riveted to him. She simply could not tear her eyes away. She just wanted to drink him in, absorb every feature, every line.

When his mobile had rung, and with only the most cursory ‘excuse me’ he’d launched into French so fast and idiomatic it was impossible for her to follow a single word, she had actually welcomed the opportunity to resume her scrutiny of him. Unconsciously she’d found herself reaching for her sketchbook and pencil.

Now, as he flicked through her labours’ fruits, she was watching him again. He definitely, she thought, had the gift of not showing his reaction. Whether he approved of what she’d done or not, she had no idea. Not that his disapproval would have bothered her in the least.

If he doesn’t like what I produce, he can sack me, she thought, with a defiance she had never applied to her other clients.

But then never had she had a client like Guy de Rochemont.

As the sittings proceeded, intermittently and interrupted, as she knew they would—because his diary could alter drastically from day to day as with all such high-flyers who relied on others to accommodate themselves around them—she realised with what at first was nothing more than mild irritation that he started to disturb her. And it disturbed her that he disturbed her.

Even more that it was starting to show.

Oh, not to him. To him she was still able to keep entirely distanced during the sittings, to maintain a brisk, almost taciturn demeanour which, thankfully, mirrored his. He would usually arrive with a PA or an aide, with whom he more often than not maintained a flow of rapid conversation in a language Alexa did not understand, while the PA or aide took dictation or notes. Sometimes he took phone calls, or made them, and once he nodded a cursory apology to her when a second aide arrived with a laptop which he handed to his boss to peruse. After he had done so, Guy snapped it shut and resumed his pose again. Alexa coped with it all, and said nothing. She preferred not to speak to him. Preferred to keep any exchange to the barest functional minimum.

Yet it didn’t help. Not in the slightest.

Guy de Rochemont still disturbed her in ways that she just did not want to think about.

Unfortunately, Imogen did. Worse—she revelled in it!

‘Of course he’s getting to you!’ she trilled triumphantly. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t snap when you say his name, or when I do. It’s a sure sign.’ She gave a gusty sigh. ‘It’s all totally theoretical, alas. He’s all over Carla Crespi. She’s preening herself rotten about it. Puts the pair of them in front of every camera she can find. Or buy. Even with your looks—if you bothered to do anything to show them off—you couldn’t compete with her.’

Alexa tightened her jaw and refused to rise to the bait.

Besides, she had bigger problems than Imogen winding her up.

The portrait wasn’t working.

It had taken her a while to realise it. At first she’d thought it was going well—the initial sketches had worked, the simple line drawing being ideal for catching the angled planes of that incredible face—but as she started to paint in oil, it didn’t happen. At first she thought it was the medium, that oil was not the best for such a face. Then, after a while, it started to dawn on her, with a deep chill inside her, that the problem was not the medium. It was her.

I can’t catch him. I can’t get him down. I can’t get the essence of him!

She took to staring, long after he had gone, at her efforts. She could feel frustration welling up in her. More than frustration.

Why can’t I make this work? Why? What’s going wrong?

But she got no answer. She tried at one point to make a fresh start, on fresh canvas, working from the initial sketches all alone at night in her studio. But her second attempt failed too. She stared, and glared, and then with dawning realisation knew that, however hard she tried, it was simply not going to work. She could not paint Guy de Rochemont.

Not from life, not from sketches, not from memory.

Nor from dreams.

Because that was the most disturbing thing of all. She’d started to dream about him. Dream of painting him. Disturbing, restless dreams that left her with a feeling of frustration and discomfort. At first she had told herself it was nothing more than her brain’s natural attempt to come up with a solution that her waking mind and conscious artistry could not achieve. That dreaming of painting Guy de Rochement was simply a means to work through the inexplicable block she was suffering from.

But then, after the third time she’d dreamt of him, and woken herself from sleep with a jolt at the realisation that yet again he’d intruded into the privacy of her mind, she knew she’d have to throw in the towel and admit defeat.

It galled her, though—badly. It went against the grain to give up on a commission. She’d never done it before, and it was totally unprofessional. But it was also unprofessional to turn in substandard work. That broke every rule in her book. So, like it or not—and she didn’t—she had no option. She was going to have to admit she couldn’t do the portrait, and that was that.

Even so, it took time—and a lot of agonising—to bring herself to the point where she knew she would have to inform Guy de Rochemont of her decision. When to do it? And how? Wait until he turned up—eventually—for his next sitting, and then apologise in front of whichever of his staff were there with him that day? Or, worse, ask him for a word in private and then tell him? One cowardly part of her thought to let Imogen do it—after all, Imogen was her agent. But if there was one thing Alexa knew for sure, it was that Imogen would refuse to let her throw in the towel. No, she would just have to bite the bullet and do it herself, face to face. And it wasn’t fair on the man to make him turn up for a sitting he scarcely had time for anyway and then tell him she was resigning the commission.

So she phoned his office instead.

The PA—whose manner had not improved—told her snootily that Mr de Rochemont was out of the country, and an appointment to see him was highly unlikely before the date of the next sitting. So Alexa was surprised when the PA rang back later, to tell her that it would be convenient for Guy to see Alexa in a week’s time, at six in the evening. Alexa wanted to say that the time would not be in the least convenient for her, but forebore. This had to be done, and she wanted it over with.

When she turned up at the London headquarters of Rochemont-Lorenz, she was kept waiting in Reception for a good half an hour—not a surprise—and then finally taken up in a bronze-lined lift to the executive floor, some twenty storeys above Reception. Her feet sank into carpet an inch thick, and thence she went through huge mahogany double doors into the chairman’s suite.

The setting sun was streaming in through plate glass windows.

Guy de Rochemont got to his feet from behind a desk that was the size of a car and about a tennis court’s length from the entrance doors, and came forward.

‘Ms Harcourt…’

His voice was smooth, his suit so immaculate that it clung to his lean, elegant body like a glove.

And yet again Alexa found herself gazing at him. Drinking him in. Feeling that incredible breathless rushing in her veins as she watched him cross the deep carpet, his gait lithe, purposeful, like a soft footed leopard.

Prince of the pride…

Thoughts, reactions, tumbled through her head as he came up to her.

This is his natural environment. Here in this penthouse, overlooking the City. With money and power and wealth and privilege. An ivory tower remote from the world. Where he reigns supreme, alone.

He had come right up to her, his long-fingered hand extended. Automatically she took it, wishing she did not have to, did not have to feel the cool strength in his brief social grip before he let her go.

He looked at her, studying her face a moment with a flicker of his eyes. The familiar thought stuttered through her brain.

Green eyes—as rich as emeralds…And lashes, those ridiculously long lashes, and that veiling I can’t see through…

‘Is there a problem?’

She stared. How had he known? She’d said nothing—nothing at all—of the problems she was having. She scarcely spoke to him during sittings, and thank heavens he had never asked to see her progress—not once she’d started on the oils. Nor had he made any comment at all on the initial pen-and-ink sketches. She’d been glad. She hadn’t wanted his comment—hadn’t wanted anything to do with him, if truth be told. She had been relieved that he wanted no conversation with her, that he was basically using her studio as an extension of his office. His preoccupation with his work meant she could study him, paint him in full concentration. Hiding completely the fact that she was utterly failing to capture his likeness—his essence—in a portrait.

For a moment she was stymied by his directness. Then, with a stiffening of her back, she answered, moving slightly away from him to increase the distance between them. It felt more comfortable that way.

‘I’m afraid so,’ she said. Her voice was stiff, but she couldn’t help it. She was just about to tell a rich and influential client whose portrait was, as Imogen never failed to remind her, the gateway to unprecedented commercial success, that she was incapable of fulfilling the commission.

He raised a slightly, enquiring eyebrow, but said nothing. His eyes still had that veiling over them.

How’s he going to take this? Finding out all that priceless time of his has been wasted, that there’s nothing to show for it, and never will be? He’s going to be livid!

For the first time she felt apprehensive—not because she was going to have to admit artistic failure, but because it was dawning on her that Guy de Rochemont could ruin her career. All he had to do was say that she was unreliable…

She took a deep breath. She owed him the truth, and could not put it off any longer. He was clearly waiting for her explanation. So she gave it.

‘I can’t paint you.’

His expression did not change. He merely paused, for a sliver of time so brief she hardly noticed, then said, his eyes resting on her, ‘Why is that?’

‘Because I can’t,’ said Alexa. She sounded an idiot, but couldn’t help it. Couldn’t explain. She took a breath, her voice sounding more clipped than politeness required. ‘I can’t paint you. I’ve tried and I’ve tried, and it’s just not working. I’m extremely sorry but I have to resign the commission. I mustn’t waste any more of your time.’

She waited for his reaction. It would not be pleasant—and who could blame him? His time was invaluable, and she’d wasted a great deal of it. She felt her shoulders squaring in preparation.

But his reaction was completely not what she had steeled herself for. He merely walked back to his desk, gestured to the huge leather executive chair slightly to one side of it, and then lowered himself down into his even huger chair behind the desk.

‘Artist’s block,’ he said dismissively. ‘N’inquietez vous.’

Alexa could only stare.

‘No,’ she repeated, ‘I really can’t paint you. I’m extremely sorry.’

He smiled—a brief, social smile that barely indented his mouth. ‘Pas de tout. Please—won’t you sit down? May I offer you some coffee? A drink, perhaps, as the sun has very nearly set?’

She didn’t move. ‘Mr de Rochemont, I really have to emphasise that I have no choice but to resign the commission. I can’t paint you. It’s impossible! Just impossible!’

She could hear her voice rising, and it dismayed her. She wanted to get out of here, but how could she? Guy de Rochemont was still indicating that she should come and sit down, and without knowing why she found that that was exactly what she was doing. She sat, almost with a bump, clutching her handbag.

‘I can’t paint you,’ she said again.

His eyes were resting on her with that familiar veiled regard that she could not read in the slightest. ‘Very well. If that is your decision I respect it entirely. Now, tell me, Ms Harcourt, do you have an engagement this evening?’

Alexa stared. What had that got to do with anything?

He took her silence for negation. ‘Then I wonder,’ he went on, his eyes never leaving her face, ‘if it would be agreeable to you to be my guest this evening. I feel sure the event would be of interest to you. It is the private opening of the forthcoming exhibition on Revolution and Romanticism: Art in the Napoleonic Period. Rochemont-Lorenz has the privilege of being one of the key sponsors.’

Alexa went on staring. Then she said the first coherent thing that came into her head. ‘I’m not dressed for the evening.’

Once more Guy de Rochemont gave a brief social smile.

‘Pas de probleme,’ he said.

And it wasn’t.

There was, Alexa discovered over the course of the next hour, absolutely no problem at all in transforming her from someone who was wearing the same dull grey blouse and skirt that she’d worn the first time she’d encountered her client to someone who—courtesy of the use of the facilities of a penthouse apartment that seemed to form a substantial portion of the executive floor, plus a stylist who appeared out of nowhere with two sidekicks, hairdresser and make-up artist, and a portable wardrobe of eveningwear—looked astoundingly, shockingly different.

When she emerged, one hectic, extraordinary hour later, and walked into the executive floor reception area, Guy de Rochemont looked up from where he’d been talking on the phone at the deserted secretarial desk and said only one thing to her.

His eyes—those green, inscrutable eyes—rested on her for only a brief moment. He took in the slender figure in raw silk—burnt sienna, with a high neckline but bare arms—her hair in a crown around her head and her face in full make-up, with eyes as deep as oceans.

Then he walked forward, stopped just in front of her.

‘At last.’

That was all he said.

And he didn’t mean how long she’d kept him waiting.

Satisfaction ran through Guy as he surveyed the woman in front of him. He had had more than ample time to peruse her attributes during his sittings, and Alexa Harcourt in evening attire was all that he wanted her to be.

Superbe.

The single adjective formed in his mind, and he plucked it from the list of many that he could apply to her and considered it. Yes, superbe…

Nothing less would do as a description. He had known from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her that once he’d disposed of the prim schoolteacher image she so amusingly put forward he would reveal for his delectation a beauty well worth his attention. And so it had proved.

His eyes rested on her appreciatively. Yes, superbe indeed. Tall, graceful, slender, with that classic English chic—so understated, yet so powerfully alluring for that very reason—she was exactly what he wanted her to be. A wisp of a smile played at his lips as he called to mind the muted, self-effacing persona she had presented up to this point. At first he had assumed it was a ploy, for women went to vast efforts to engage his interest, and she would not have been the first to attempt a pose of indifference to him. But as the sittings had continued he had come to the conclusion—surprising, but for that very reason enticing—that Alexa Harcourt was not courting his interest.

Not, of course, that she was not all too aware of him. That had been evident to him from the first, and it had come to be a source of amusement to him, adding a rare piquancy to his pursuit—a pursuit which he had taken considerable enjoyment in extending for far longer than he customarily did when it came to the women he selected for his relaxation. But he had found that it was fort amusant to sit, posed like a prince in his Renaissance palace, while his portrait was captured for posterity—or in his case for his fond maman—and let his eyes play over her sculpted features. He found pleasure in this casual scrutiny, while she assiduously endeavoured to ignore his regard.

But not without revealing by her very assiduity just how responsive she was increasingly becoming to his presence.

His eyes veiled momentarily. That increasing responsiveness was evidently, the reason why she had come here to make her dramatic announcement that she could not continue with making his portrait. Again, at first for a few moments he had assumed she had done so merely to put to the test whether he was or was not interested in her. But then he had realised, with a sense of relief as well as satisfaction, that his reading of her was unchanged—she was quite genuine in her determination to abandon his portrait.

It was an excellent sign! Excellent that she was not attempting to be intrigant, but even more excellent that she was having such problems with the task of capturing his likeness. Because the reason for that was obvious—he was no longer nothing more than a client to her. And most essential of all, her inability to capture his likeness betokened her increasing frustration at her own attraction to him. She could not paint him…because she could only desire him.

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