Читать книгу His Seductive Revenge - Susan Crosby, Susan Crosby - Страница 11

Three

Right on time. From his office window, Gabe watched Cristina exit the taxicab. Not surprised at her punctuality, he left the room, then waited on the landing as his part-time housekeeper directed her up the stairs.

He watched her trail her hand along the mahogany banister, her fingertips caressing the polished wood. He saw her focus on the individual paintings hung at precise intervals on the wall along the staircase, the same scene but depicted at different times of year and in different weather. Light and shadows changed with the seasons, creating individual moods.

“Good morning,” she said as she reached the landing and accepted his outstretched hand. “What a beautiful home, and what incredible work you do.”

“We have to go up one more flight to the studio.” He curved his fingers around hers. “And you don’t have to flatter me, but I thank you.”

“Now, you strike me as a man with a firm grip on his ego.” She smiled, casting him a sideways glance as they climbed the next staircase. “My opinion of your work probably doesn’t even matter to you.”

He noted the teasing light in her eyes. “Even a secure ego needs feeding.”

She made a sound of agreement. “Have you lived here long?”

“A few years.”

“So your risks pay off more often than not.”

He released her hand as they stepped into the garret room he’d turned into a studio. “I don’t seem to run out of beer and pretzels.”

“I’ll bet. Oh! Oh, Gabe, this is wonderful!”

His time in the studio was limited, but he enjoyed every second. Skylights allowed the sun to flood the space. Windows replaced the front and back walls. Although called a garret, it was really too large and airy for the title, thanks to the changes he’d made. He’d spent the morning straightening up the room. Usually he didn’t bother. It was the only area of his life he didn’t keep filed, sorted, computerized or pigeonholed.

He watched her move to the back window, which overlooked his garden, her teal-colored skirt undulating around her calves as she walked, a contrast to her demure sleeveless blouse printed with tiny flowers and buttoned to her throat. On her feet lilac-painted toenails drew attention to her strappy sandals. Gold bracelets danced along her left wrist, tinkling sweetly. She didn’t wear a watch, which pleased him. She wasn’t in a hurry.

“Beautiful,” she said, turning to him.

“I can’t take credit for it. I only enjoy someone else’s hard work.”

“But beauty and color are important to you. You surround yourself with it. That’s obvious in your work.”

“And my subject.” He waited to see if she blushed. She didn’t, but her posture changed, as if she didn’t believe him. “I’ll just be sketching you today, Cristina, and conversing. I need to know more about you before we talk about clothing and tone.”

“My father will want something appropriate to hang with the other generations in the family gallery.” She paused. “That sounds really pretentious, doesn’t it? Again.”

“Traditions die hard. Please, come sit here and let me study you.”

Cristina moved to the appointed chair he’d placed directly under a skylight. Her heart hadn’t stopped thumping since she’d stepped into his house. Her body was warm and her temperature still climbing. She’d intentionally worn something nondescript because...because—She didn’t know why, for sure. Only that she needed some kind of armor for now.

If De La Hoya had actually taken the commission, she would have allowed him—because he undoubtedly would have demanded—artistic control. Except that she certainly wouldn’t have posed nude.

Maybe he’d turned down the commission because he’d deduced that what her father wanted would be too traditional for his interest She’d never know, of course, since his reclusive life meant that they would never cross paths.

“What are you thinking about?” Gabe asked.

Startled out of her thoughts, she fidgeted. “Alejandro De La Hoya.”

“Well. I’m flattered.”

She smiled. “I was uncomfortable having you study me. I had to think about something else. Have you ever met him?”

He made a noncommittal sound as be pulled up a rolling stool beside her and hefted a sketch pad into his lap. “What kind of music do you like?”

“Classical. Opera, in particular. Most especially Verdi. I’m going to see Rigoletto tomorrow night with Jason Grimes. He’s the man you met the other night.”

“Yes, I remember him.”

She listened to the sound of his pencil as he sketched—short, quick strokes detailing her face in profile. She was glad she didn’t have to see him eye her inch by inch. “How about you? What’s your music of choice?”

“Wagner. Miles Davis. Segovia.”

“Eclectic taste,” she commented, tempted to look in his direction. There was tension in his voice that hadn’t been there before. “Why don’t you put on some music now?”

“Because I don’t like it to influence me in the early stages. I figure out what suits the subject, then I choose the music to accompany me while I work. Your hair needs to be pulled back from your face.”

He set down his pad and pencil, then walked to a nearby chest of drawers. In a minute he returned, a length of black ribbon in his hand. He moved behind her.

“I’ll do it,” he said as she started to gather her hair into a ponytail

She closed her eyes. He combed her hair with his fingers as he pulled it back. The cool satin of the ribbon glided across her neck. His fingertips grazed her skin. She shivered. She wasn’t used to familiarity, especially from a stranger.

A man.

She’d grown up in a house where people seldom touched. Oh, she’d felt loved, but physical warmth was missing. Sometimes when she’d stayed overnight with friends, she’d seen how different families could be. On the other hand, no one argued at her house, which was also good. She froze during arguments. Logic slipped away, leaving only the emotion she was feeling, and she could never convey her emotions clearly while under duress.

“One of the first things I noticed about you,” Gabe said from behind her, “was your hair. More beautiful than fire.”

“I was born in the wrong century.” She tried to shrug off the mesmerizing lure of his voice. “I figured Titian would have hired me to model,” she said, referring to the Renaissance painter whose use of color brought him acclaim, particularly his redheaded subjects.

“Your hair is more gold than red.” Gabe moved then, coming to a stop in front of her, staring at her long enough to make her squirm. “Had Rubens gotten a look at you, however—Ah, I’ve made you uncomfortable. Forgive me. I tend to analyze too much.”

Cristina didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. One of Rubens’s claims to fame was his paintings of voluptuous women. How many times in her adult life had she wished she’d lived in Rubens’s time instead of now?

“I used to be a lot thinner,” she said, then clamped her mouth shut.

“Oh?” Gabe settled in the seat beside her again and started sketching, pleased to be pulling information from her so easily. “Was thinner better, Cristina? Did you like yourself more?”

“No.” She blew out a breath, relaxing. “No. If anything, I hated it.”

He wanted tension back in her face. It would make for a much more interesting portrait than soft and sweet. He could tell her that she was beautiful. That would surely bring back the tension. Some women thrived on flattery, whether true or false. But not this woman. Even her posture had indicated it earlier. “Why did you hate it?”

“It wasn’t me. It wasn’t real.”

“Had you been ill?”

“No.”

She looked at her lap, and he stopped sketching to wait.

“I was a surprise, mid-life baby,” she said finally. “I came along twenty-five years into my parents’ marriage, when my mother was forty-six and my father fifty-five, long after they’d given up hope of ever having a child. They didn’t quite know what to do with me.”

Again, he waited. After a minute he rolled his stool directly in front of her and set his sketch pad aside. He clasped her hands. She looked up. His gaze never strayed from hers. “Tell me.”

She swallowed. “They had certain expectations.”

“Unrealistic ones.”

Cristina nodded. “My father was a state senator, so we lived in a fishbowl. I was to be well mannered, and studious, and a dainty little lady. The well-mannered part I could manage. And when my mother became terminally ill, I tried to make myself into what she wanted—a dainty woman. It was the hardest thing I’d done, but before she died two years ago, I’d made her proud, and I’m glad I did. I learned a lot about myself because of it.” She squeezed his hands. “Why am I telling you this?”

“Because you want me to paint the real Cristina.”

God. He was right! He was absolutely right. “Weight and all,” she said.

“You. As you. You’re lovely.”

She shook her head.

“Yes.” He lifted a hand to her face, stroked the flesh along her cheekbone with his thumb. “You weren’t born in the wrong century, either. I will paint you not only as you want the future Chandler generations to see you, but as I see you. Then you’ll know how beautiful you are.”

Oh, he tempted her with his words. He wanted to paint some exotic, erotic woman that wasn’t the least like her, maybe even a second, more-personal portrait in the De La Hoya style. And the allure of giving in to the flattery was strong, even as she knew it wasn’t something she would ever feel comfortable doing. What if the painting ended up in some gallery where someone she knew saw it? What if someone told her father? She’d disappointed him enough lately.

And the biggest “what if” of all—what if when Gabe saw her unclothed, he was repulsed. His imagination had undoubtedly painted a better picture than reality.

“I think we should focus on the portrait that will please my father,” she said, aware of changes in her body. Her nipples had drawn taut the moment he’d touched her face and now pulsed with a gentle ache.

She wondered whether he kissed hard or soft, whether he enticed or attacked, whether he would know how inexperienced she was. Jason’s kiss had been one hard, closed mouth pressed to another. She’d bet her trust fund that Gabriel Marquez never kissed with a closed mouth, nor hurried out the door the next second.

Cold seeped into her when he moved back, then she warmed as his gaze dropped to her breasts and he took note of her reaction to him. Confused, she stood and walked to the front window. “I’m not too sure that this is a good idea.”

“On the contrary, Cristina. This is the best idea I’ve ever had. I hope I can convince you of the same thing.”

“Let’s change the subject.”

A few seconds of silence filled the room. From outside she heard a bird trill, a car drive past, a child shriek with laughter. Uncomfortable with the quiet inside, she started to turn.

“Don’t move.”

The sound of pencil on paper held her suspended. She could see him in her peripheral vision, could feel the intensity of his focus.

“Put your right hand on the window, level with your shoulder. Spread your fingers open,” he instructed her. “Tip your head back a little. Look as far into the horizon as you can. Shoulders back. Good.”

He worked in silence for several minutes. “Put your left hand to your chest, over your heart. A bit lower. No—”

Gabe moved closer, then placed her hand where he wanted, spreading her fingers apart like her other hand, not letting his fingers brush her breasts.

A wistful pose, Gabe thought. “Angle toward me a little.” He flipped a page. “Now, turn only your head and look directly at me.” The pencil glided. “Who are you right now?”

A long pause, then, “Someone from a previous life.”

“Tell me.”

“A...a New England sea captain’s wife, I think, watching for my husband’s ship to return after a long journey.”

“A woman who waits.”

“A woman who worries. And pines.”

“Do you love your husband?” he asked.

“Oh, yes”

“How long have you been married?”

A faraway look settled in her eyes.

“Ten years. He’s home only half the year. I worry about him.”

“Do you have children?”

“No. It’s my one sorrow.”

“How do you feel when you see his ship come into port?”

She smiled. “Thrilled. Grateful. Relieved.”

“Do you wait at home for him or go to the ship?”

“He’s too busy to see me for a while. I take a bath, dress in something feminine, make sure there’s something to eat. For afterward,” she added. “He’s hungry for me first.”

“When he comes through your front door, what happens?” He flipped another page. The clean sheet would capture a new impression.

“I fly into his arms. He whirls me around and around. I press my nose against his neck and he smells wonderful. Like him. Like no one else in the world. Then he kisses me, and the long, lonely months melt away. He carries me upstairs.”

Gabe watched the changes in her expressions. She had become the fictitious captain’s wife. Her imagination had taken her away and planted her firmly in the scene. Her muscles were tense, her body taut Her nipples pressed at the fabric covering them.

He tamped down his own reaction, one that shocked the hell out of him. He’d thought himself immune to innocence, to purity, to sweetness. He much preferred an equal partner, one who led, who took, who demanded. He didn’t think that defined Cristina.

Seeing her start to relax, he began sketching and questioning again. “Are you faithful while he’s gone?”

“Absolutely.”

“He’s a good lover.” A statement, not a question.

“Beyond good,” Cristina said, a smile forming.

“Why? What makes him special?”

“It’s not what he does. It’s why he does it.”

“Why?”

“He loves me.”

Dead silence. His pencil skidded, seemed to dig a hole in the paper. Cristina watched his focus shift as he absorbed her words. She was enjoying his game, which tempted her, dared her, excited her—more than any man had done with actions. Part of his allure was the danger, she knew.

“What he does is also important,” he said.

She moved a shoulder. “Maybe. More important is how I feel afterward.”

He continued to sketch, his thoughts well hidden.

“You want to comment,” she said. “What’s stopping you?”

He hesitated. “You might change your mind about posing.”

“You’ve demanded honesty from me. You’ve managed to pry some of my secrets loose from moorings I didn’t think anyone could. Don’t deny me the same insight into what drives you.”

“Men view sex differently. Women like to fantasize that it’s different when she’s the right woman for him. It’s not true. It still comes down to physical satisfaction for men, not emotional.”

“Always?”

“I suppose I can’t speak for all men. We don’t discuss the point as women do. But I believe it’s so.”

She rolled her head, easing kinks settling in her neck, feeling sorry for him because he was so disillusioned about love.

“Tired?” he asked.

“A little.”

“Let’s stop for now. I’ll order lunch.”

He watched her shift her shoulders as he asked his housekeeper to serve lunch on the screened porch facing the garden. He hung up the phone just as Cristina put her hand on a stack of paintings leaning against a wall.

“May I?” she asked.

He had a decision to make, quickly. After a minute, he nodded. Then he waited.

At first she simply seemed caught up in the images she was examining, then something changed. She slowed down. Concentrated. Focused. She turned toward him, accusation in her eyes.

“These paintings are signed Marquez. But the style... It’s so distinctive. I couldn’t see it in the photographs. You’re—You’re not—”

“I am Gabriel Alejandro De La Hoya y Marquez.” And I am descended from kings.

The tag came automatically to mind, an old game he and his mother had played. She’d always made him say the whole thing together. He’d stopped when he was fifteen and knew better.

“I don’t understand,” she said, looking around. “There’s no curtain. No two-way mirror. There’s just—”

“Me and you. The ridiculous rumor is just that, Cristina, started by someone who thought it would be diverting to say that is the way De La Hoya works. It’s part of the mystique.”

“Why?”

“Why the secrecy? Because it places a higher value on the work.”

“And you’re only interested in making money.”

He watched her expression close up. He’d disappointed her. “I make a very comfortable living. I don’t need what I get from my art, but I enjoy the game, one I have to play out now because I’m too far into it to stop. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love it. I do. I also love the challenge of taking a losing company and making it successful. Or helping a determined immigrant start a business. Or endowing an artist. Painting feeds my soul. It also puts food on the plate of some starving artist, giving him or her the freedom to pursue their dreams full-time.”

They faced each other like duelists in the streets of the Old West. Cristina intentionally moved toward him, needing some kind of action, some forward momentum. The shock had immobilized her. “And you’ve already decided that I’m worthy of your trust. You don’t think I’d tell anyone the truth,” she said, studying his expression.

“I know it for a fact. We have a connection. That connection is only going to get stronger by your knowing the truth. Alejandro De La Hoya is a known quantity. Gabriel Marquez is not. Not as an artist, anyway. I want you to have confidence in me to do what’s right for you in this portraits. I think you would trust De La Hoya more than Marquez.”

“Well, you’re wrong.” She stopped in front of him. “I don’t think it will make a difference, except that I like knowing the truth. Your secret is safe with me.”

“I know.”

She smiled. “You were the tiniest bit worried, though, weren’t you? I could see it in your eyes.”

“It’s always a leap of faith.”

“I knew there was something you were keeping hidden.”

“Did you?”

She liked the arrogant lift of his brow. He was a complicated man who had just made himself more so, therefore more intriguing, and more dangerous. She would have to open up to him now in ways she hadn’t anticipated.

“Tell me, Gabe—Is that what I call you?”

He nodded.

“Tell me. Do you have affairs with your subjects? Jen was sure by looking at the paintings that you do.”

“Is that what you’re looking for?”

“I asked you first.”

He hesitated. “I choose my subjects carefully. Sometimes I’ve chosen to paint someone I’m involved with. Usually, it isn’t the case. Certainly the older I’ve gotten, the less the two mesh.”

“Thank you for your honesty.”

Gabe reached behind her and loosened the ribbon, pulling it slowly across her neck. “Now you must answer my question.”

She pressed a shaky hand to his chest. “If my father had his way, I’d be engaged to Jason Grimes today and married to him next week.”

“Which tells me nothing. Certainly it doesn’t answer my question. Are you looking to have an affair?”

She shifted her weight. “No.”

Her hesitation gave him a different answer, but he wouldn’t call her on it. Not yet. “All right.”

He found it endearing, the way surprise and disappointment washed across her face before she stepped back. What an innocent she was. If her father played the right cards—the emotional ones—she’d marry Jason Grimes. For her father’s sake, of course, not hers. She believed in love—or the fantasy of love. But she also believed in family. Losing weight to please her dying mother said it all.

Gabe loved his mother. She’d been the only constant in his life. But he had never allowed her to tell him how to live his life—

Except once. He had promised her he wouldn’t exact revenge against his father, worthless bastard that he was, even though the opportunity and means had been within Gabe’s reach many times. What was the purpose of having money and the power that came with it if he couldn’t use it as he wished?

In that sense he supposed he was like Arthur Chandler or Richard Grimes. Grimes would use his wealth to buy back lost power. Gabe would do the same thing, if necessary. The difference was that he would never get in the same kind of trouble—and expect his son to bail him out.

But the ultimate sacrificial lamb was Cristina Chandler. And lamb she was, one in need of protection. Her powerful but desperate father had turned her into a commodity, her value set according to how well she could get him out of a jam.

Then again, Gabe seemed to be doing the same thing.

“You’ve drifted to another time zone,” she commented.

“I was thinking I should paint you beneath a bower of ivy.”

“With flowers?”

“You are colorful enough on your own. Your dress should be white, even. Something outwardly virtuous.”

She raised her brows. “Outwardly?”

“At first glance you would seem the very essence of innocence, then when the viewer focuses on your face, there’ll be something different. The hidden depths, not so hidden.”

“My father won’t see it.”

“It doesn’t matter. You and I will see. And understand” He watched her pluck a purple mum from an arrangement on the chest. She snapped the stem a little shorter and tucked the bloom into her hair, over her ear.

“Do you have a dress that would be right?” he asked.

“Nothing remotely close.”

He nodded. “We will go shopping.”

Cristina sent an army of control to quell her rioting nerves. She’d been edgy when she arrived, had gotten edgier since then. Now, pinpricks of panic stabbed at her. “I’m capable of choosing a dress myself.”

“If you’re worried about me seeing what size dress you wear...”

She stiffened. What was he, psychic? A mind reader? She couldn’t go through with this, after all. He was burrowing deep inside her, this man who saw beyond what anyone else had ever seen. It scared her, excited her, baffled her. And it made her acknowledge feelings she’d never had before. She hadn’t lied to him, not consciously. She didn’t want an affair. She just didn’t know what she was going to do with these physical cravings and sexual yearnings, however.

“You’re not going to have any secrets from me when we’re done,” he finished.

“None?”

He shook his head. “In designer clothes, you wear a fourteen. Off the rack, a sixteen. I don’t give a damn. Neither should you. You told me yourself that you hated being thinner.”

How did he do that? He knew way too much about women. Yellow warning flags went up all around her. She ignored them. “But I also hate having you know what size I wear. I may have come to some acceptance of myself along the way, but you’re a man, after all. An attractive man.”

“A man who’s telling you this truth, Cristina. I think you’re beautiful just as you are. And this is the last time we are discussing this.” He touched the flower in her hair. “Relax with me. Be yourself. Be playful when you feel like it. Sensual when you feel like it Angry, even. Be you. You know that’s what you want more than anything. Trust me.”

“My mother told me never to trust a man who said, ‘Trust me.’”

“She sounds like a wise woman.”

“I miss her.”

The simplicity of her words made his gut clench. There were many levels of loneliness. He’d known a lot of them himself. But he’d chosen his life, chosen to be alone most of the time, to stay out of the limelight. The only person he’d ever missed was Sebastian, who’d done nothing to harm anyone in his entire life. Sebastian, who’d insisted on forging a friendship between four completely opposite boys and one girl. A friendship that had endured for eighteen years but was floundering now without the bond that Sebastian provided.

Sebastian had watched Gabe track Richard Grimes’s every move through the years and understood Gabe’s deep hatred of the man. More important, Sebastian had taken it upon himself to try to expose Grimes’s unscrupulous business dealings, Gabe should have trusted his instincts and not allowed Sebastian to make himself the bait. Now he was struggling to walk again—and fighting for his reputation as well.

“Gabe?”

He breathed again. “Yes?”

“You keep disappearing on me.”

He lifted her hand to his lips, felt her retreat at first, then relax. “After lunch we’ll do a little shopping, shall we, Miss Chandler?”

Cristina held her breath. Inhibitions fled her body faster than she could count to ten. He was offering her a freedom she’d never known. Suddenly, she felt safe. Very, very safe. He was going to demand a lot of her, but he wouldn’t hurt her. If she got hurt, it would be her own fault. This wasn’t a man looking for commitment. She understood that.

She wished he would kiss her mouth. She waited a few seconds, hoping he’d take the hint, or read her mind, or whatever he did to figure her out so well. But he just waited, the patience she’d seen in him from the beginning settling around them.

Plus, she’d said no, after all. She supposed she should respect him for taking her seriously.

“You can’t act like my lord and master while we shop.”

He smiled. “I promise.”

“No leaning back in a chair and scrutinizing each dress. No twirling your finger indicating I should turn around like some model.”

“Agreed.”

“Do you have any idea how hard it’s going to be to find a white dress this time of year?”

“Not if you know the right places to shop.”