A Silken Seduction

“Not my strength, I’m afraid,” he answered with complete honesty. “But I’ve always had an appreciation for well-executed work.”

She stopped at the double set of French doors that led into the house. “I have a Baxter Cullen here, would you be interested in seeing it?”

For a second his heart skipped a beat. Was she referring to Lovely Woman—the very painting he sought to restore to his grandfather? He fought to inject the right note of interest, as opposed to overwhelming desire, into his voice.

“That would be great, if you’re sure it’s no bother.”

“It’s no bother. Come up to my studio,” Avery said.

He followed her through a well-used parlor and then up the wide wooden staircase that led to the next floor. His feet were silent on the carpet runner even while his heart beat a tattoo in his chest he was almost certain had to be audible. The second set of stairs was narrower, the handrail less ornate, but he could see the patina of time on the highly polished wood and wondered, with a tinge of bitterness, how many generations of hands had taken their right to live here for granted. He’d lay odds no one in the Cullen family, or even on Avery’s mother’s side, had ever had to sell anything just to put food on the table.

You can take the boy out of the neighborhood, he could hear his grandfather’s voice echoing in his mind, but you can’t take the neighborhood out of the boy. Well, he’d spent most of his adult life working hard to try to prove Grampa wrong on that score. One day he’d be able to give them both what they deserved, and hopefully that one day, courtesy of Avery Cullen, would be soon.

“This was the nursery, back in the day when children were seen and not heard,” Avery commented as she directed Marcus where to put the easel and painting and moved across the room to a set of sliding doors that, when opened, revealed a built-in bench and basin.

He looked around as she cleaned her brushes. The high unadorned ceilings reflected the cool light that streamed in from the tall windows. He could see why Avery used this room as a studio. But then his attention was caught by the very thing he sought.

Blood pounded in his ears as he approached the small but perfectly executed nude of a young woman bathing, and he fought to keep his breathing under control. He stopped in front of the picture and counted slowly backward from one hundred. His eyes drank in the vision in front of him. Technique aside, the rendering was near perfect. He almost felt like a voyeur, as if he’d caught a glimpse into the private life and time of the woman, as she dragged a dripping rag gracefully over one softly rounded shoulder.

A dreadful urge to simply rip the painting from its hook and race down the stairs and out of here bloomed inside. An urge he instinctively suppressed. He hadn’t waited this long just to ruin everything now but it was harder than he’d expected to finally see the painting his grandfather had been forced to sell twenty-five years ago.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Avery said from behind him. “Apparently she was one of the maids in Baxter’s household. There was a bit of a scandal over this back then. She was dismissed by Baxter’s wife, Isobel, when she saw the painting. Isobel accused the maid of having an affair with Baxter and insisted her husband destroy the picture. Obviously he didn’t. There was a rumor that he sent the painting to the maid, but we have no actual proof of who owned it after it left his house.”

“Interesting that there was no blame laid at her husband’s feet for exploiting a maid in his employment.” As hard as he tried he couldn’t keep a hint of bitterness from his voice. The underclass always bore more than its share of blame in situations like this.

Avery shrugged. “I don’t know whether there was or not. His wife was apparently quite a forceful character. Probably necessary when Baxter was oblivious to everything but his work.”

“And, no doubt, his subject.”

A small smile tugged at her lips. “Yes,” she conceded. “And his subject, although I wonder if he ever saw her as anything other than tones and light and shadows.”

Marcus clenched his jaw to hold back the words that hovered on the tip of his tongue. It wouldn’t do to let Avery know that he had no doubt that Baxter Cullen had most definitely seen his model as far, far more than that.

After all, the subject in question had been Marcus’s own great-grandmother.

Marcus forced himself to shift the conversation away from the woman in the painting. Knowing it was because of him that the nude no longer hung on Grampa’s sitting-room wall made seeing the work more emotional than he’d anticipated—and Marcus didn’t do emotion.

“How did your father come into possession of Lovely Woman?”

“Through a broker, I imagine. That’s how he bought most of his favorites, although he was pretty good at spotting bargains in estate lots and secondhand stores. Even so, he was a stickler for paying a fair price.”

“I’m surprised you have it here in your studio.”

“It’s my inspiration,” she answered simply.

“For your nudes?”

“Not just my work—for everything, really. It reminds me to look for beauty in all things, no matter what the circumstances.”

“I’m surprised you have to look. Aren’t you surrounded by beauty here in your home?” He tore his gaze from the painting and turned to face her.

Her full lips twisted in a wry smile. “You’d be surprised at what surrounds me and what’s expected of me.”

He could sense there was hurt lying behind her words, but surely living in her gilded world couldn’t be all that bad? In the distance Marcus heard the sonorous chimes of a grandfather clock, counting out the hour. It was getting late. While every urge pushed him to press the advantage of her current openness he knew that underneath she was probably still as skittish as a first-time buyer at auction.

“I’d better head off,” he said. “Thank you for showing me the painting.”

“You’re welcome. Here, let me show you back downstairs.”

Avery led the way down the two flights of stairs and through to the black-and-white-tiled foyer. At the door, Marcus turned and put out his hand, surprised when, without hesitation, Avery took it in her smaller one.

“I’m not going to give up, you know,” he warned her with a smile.

“Give up?”

“On getting you to agree to sell your father’s collection.”

Avery laughed, the intensity that had clouded her features while they were upstairs in the studio lifting with the sound. “It’s not going to happen.”

“I usually get what I want,” he drawled, this time letting his gaze caress her face before sliding lower to where her pulse beat visibly at her neck.

A warm flush of color stained her skin and her fingers tightened on his imperceptibly before she withdrew them from his clasp.

“Perhaps it’s time you learned to cope with disappointment,” she said, her voice a little husky.

“You think I don’t know disappointment?” he asked, injecting just the right amount of teasing into his tone.

She flushed again. “I’m sure it’s not up to me to know that.”

“I’ve had my share. It just served to make me more determined to get exactly what I want out of life.”

“And is brokering the Cullen Collection what you want out of life?” she asked, lifting her chin a little in a silent challenge.

“It’s at the top of my list at the moment,” he acceded with a calculated smile. “But there are other things I want.”

“I’m intrigued,” Avery said, stepping back a little, as if creating more distance between them could overcome her curiosity. “Perhaps you could explain to me exactly why my father’s paintings are so important to you over dinner here tonight? We dine at eight.”

Satisfaction swelled inside him. It was like taking candy from a baby. She’d gone from emphatically saying “no” to now being interested, albeit remotely. It was an important first step. Now he had to make sure he left her feeling secure enough that she’d grant his request.

“I’d love to discuss it further over dinner, but not here. Why don’t I take you out instead? I still need to check into my hotel but I can be back here in say—” he cast a glance at the wafer-slim Piaget timepiece on his wrist “—two hours. Does that suit you?”

For a moment he thought she might refuse, but then her face cleared and she gave him a small smile. “I haven’t been out in a while, so, yes, I’d like that. I’ll see you at seven?”

“I’ll be here.”

As Marcus made his way down the shallow concrete stairs that led from the front door toward where he’d parked his rental car, he fought to control the urge to fist pump the air in triumph. Every word, every second brought him closer to success. He could see the ink on his partnership offer already.

Three

Avery leaned back against the door after closing it behind Marcus. She couldn’t believe she’d invited him to come back for dinner, let alone agreed to go out with him! He made her uncomfortable with his direct, impossibly green-eyed stare, and with his very reason for being here in London—hassling her about selling her father’s collection. But for some bizarre reason he also lit an interest in her that she hadn’t felt in a long time and she was intrigued to know why he was so intent on procuring the collection.

Surely it couldn’t hurt to spend a few more hours in his company?

Two hours. She had two hours to get herself tidied up and in a presentable enough state to go out. She mentally ran through her wardrobe options. She’d left most of her party clothes back in Los Angeles but she had a few pieces that might work for tonight.

She sighed. Who was she kidding? He hadn’t asked her out because he was attracted to her. He was probably more attracted to the commission he’d earn if she agreed to let him list the collection for sale. God, even thinking about it brought a sense of loss to throb painfully inside her chest.

She wasn’t going to part with the collection, but that wouldn’t stop her from making the most of Marcus Price’s company. He had come across to her as being pretty astute about art and his reaction to Lovely Woman had surprised and intrigued her. He’d been enthralled by her ancestor’s work. Baxter Cullen had been one of the most revered American painters of the early twentieth century; it stood to reason that Marcus would have studied him while in college. Yet she sensed there was something more about his interest in the painting up in her studio.

In fact, she thought as a shiver ran down her spine, he’d stared at the painting with almost the same avarice as when he’d stared at her in the gardens. As if he had a sole purpose to acquire a specific thing or, in her case, person.

The shiver rippled through her body again, but this time it had nothing to do with caution or anxiety and everything to do with instinctive female response to someone who was very definitely pure alpha all the way. She hadn’t been this attracted to anyone in a very long time. It was frightening and exhilarating. It had been too long since she’d allowed herself to feel. With her father’s sudden illness—well, sudden to her as he’d kept the truth of his cancer to himself for the better part of nine months—and subsequent death, she’d locked away her feelings. Focused her energy into doing everything she could to support her father during his last months here in London, putting everything in her life on hold.

She’d lost a great deal in that time. Her father, first and foremost, as the disease ravaged his body, then his mind, so that he barely recognized his surroundings anymore, let alone his daughter. And secondly, the group of people she’d called friends—friends who could probably better have been identified as sycophants, people only interested in what knowing her could gain for them. They’d all withdrawn from her. Never for a moment supporting her in her time of need. All except Macy, her one true friend, but there was only so much a person could do with an ocean between them.

It had been the withdrawal of her friends that had made her see how truly alone she was in this world. Sure, a few of them had contacted her after her father’s obituary had appeared in the papers. But not to offer sympathy. Instead they’d asked her when she’d be back in circulation, making it painfully obvious that her financial contribution to their frequent partying had been missed now that they had to “slum it” at bad tables at restaurants, drink cheaper bottles of champagne and take cabs rather than limousines. How no one else’s name had quite the pull that the Cullen name had. Avery had realized she’d let herself be used, all in the guise of being a part of something that was fun, carefree, connected.

When her eyes had opened it had been herself she looked at most critically. She’d let it happen, she’d allowed herself to be walked over and used for what she was, not who. In the weeks following her father’s funeral she’d promised herself one thing—she would never allow herself to be used again. She’d withdrawn, wrapping herself in her grief and throwing herself into the arts-related charities her family had always supported—even toying with creating a new one of her own, one that would support children’s aspirations in the artistic realms.

Avery pushed herself off the door and headed for the stairs. At least with Marcus Price she knew exactly what he wanted. The Cullen Collection and nothing else. Sure, he might pay her some compliments, make her feel like a woman with heated blood in her veins, but that was where it began and ended. He had an agenda. She was safe from hurt provided she went into this with her eyes wide open—and they were most definitely open.

* * *

Marcus pulled the classic Jaguar he’d rented to a halt at the top of the loop in the Cullen driveway. Anticipation thrummed through his body at the thought of the next few hours with Avery Cullen. She was wary, and justifiably so. He’d have to tread very carefully to get what he wanted but he had no doubt he’d succeed. Besides, spending the evening in her company would be nothing but pleasure. With her cool Nordic beauty, obviously a throwback to her English mother’s Norse ancestors, she looked like an ice princess. An ice princess right before the thaw, he smiled to himself as he bounded up the concrete stairs that led to the imposing front entrance to her home.

The woman who opened the door to him, though, was anything but cool and his own body heated in appreciation at the transformation. Wrapped—there really was no other way to describe the way her dress clung to her body—in vibrant red, with her silver-blond hair drawn up into a loose twist off her neck and with her lips painted a luscious tone to match her dress, she was a far cry from the fragile, wounded female in jeans and a T-shirt he’d met in the gardens today.

He took a moment to take in the full effect of her stunning beauty. From top to toe she was the whole package—a package that sent a jolt of pure lust burning through his body.

“You look amazing,” he blurted with all the finesse of a randy twelfth grader heading to senior prom.

“Thank you,” she replied, her full lips pulling into a tempting curve. “You clean up pretty well yourself.”

He offered her his arm. “Shall we go?”

Her fingertips seared through the fine cotton of his shirt as she rested her hand elegantly on his forearm. “Where are we going?”

He named a restaurant that clearly garnered her immediate approval.

“Very nice, I haven’t been there in a while,” she said with a nod of her head.

Intimate and with excellent food, Marcus knew the place was exalted by food lovers who moved in only the best social circles. There was usually a waiting list to get through its hallowed doors but he hadn’t scholarshipped his way through the best prep schools and colleges in Boston without learning a thing or two about contacts. A quick call to an influential old college roommate, who now worked in the financial sector here in London, and the reservation had been a fait accompli.

Marcus handed Avery into the passenger seat of the car and as he settled himself behind the wheel she turned to speak to him.

“You okay driving on the left-hand side of the road?”

“I got here safely enough, didn’t I?” he answered with a smile. “Seriously though, I come to the U.K. fairly often, you’re safe with me.”

Safe enough in the car perhaps, he amended silently. What happened during dinner and, hopefully after, was another thing entirely. And there it was, that intense burning need for her, rocketing through his veins—and other parts of him. Parts he fully intended to ignore, but they were not so easily disregarded. His body thrummed with awareness of her presence beside him, of the subtle floral fragrance she wore that tempted him to find out if she tasted as sweet as she smelled. Marcus’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel, as he forced himself back under control. There was plenty of time to indulge in how she made him feel. For now he simply had to ensure that she’d be open to further discussion. He wasn’t about to let physical desire stand in the way of garnering the most influential sale of his career.

Traffic was surprisingly light as they drove toward the restaurant. Gliding the car to a halt in front of the valet stand, Marcus quickly alighted and went around to Avery’s door to help her from the vehicle, relishing the opportunity to watch her long slender legs as she swung them out of the car. Avery gracefully rose on silver spike-heeled sandals that did all kinds of wicked things to his imagination, and Marcus was struck anew by her almost ethereal beauty.

Heads turned as they were ushered in through the front door. The maître d’ greeted them both by name. He shouldn’t have been surprised. While his research had told him that Avery grew up every inch a privileged, although shy, sun-kissed California girl, she’d spent considerable time the past few years on the charity circuit between L.A. and here. Until her father’s sudden illness, that was. After that, she’d dropped out of circulation, not reappearing in the public eye until now, months after Forrest Cullen’s death. An unexpected surge of protectiveness welled up inside him as those turning heads, one by one, swiveled back to their dinner companions, the buzz of conversation suddenly rising in the rarified atmosphere of the restaurant.

Always one to take the bull by the horns, Marcus inclined his head to Avery’s and whispered in her ear, “Looks like you’ve just become the main topic of conversation, hmm?”

She nodded, a brief jerk of her slender neck. The action seemed totally at odds with her innate poise and beauty. “Some people never did have anything better to do.”

Even though she’d brushed off the reaction of the restaurant patrons, the hint of bitterness in her tone spoke volumes and he realized what an ordeal it had been for her to walk past the other tables. Her hand had tightened on his arm the moment she’d been recognized and he’d felt her relief when they were shown to their table for two, set off in an intimate alcove near the rear of the restaurant.

“From their reactions I’d say it looks like it’s been a while since you’ve been in circulation,” he said carefully after they’d been seated and provided with menus. He didn’t want her to know that he’d investigated her so thoroughly.

“I haven’t been out much,” she said carefully. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be—to drop out of circulation, I mean.”

He reached a hand across the table, lightly brushing her forearm. “Thank you for coming out with me tonight.”

He felt, rather than saw, her reaction to his touch. The way her skin tautened beneath his fingertips, tiny goose bumps rising as if a shiver had passed through her body. Her gaze locked with his and he saw the flare of sensual awareness that blazed deep within her eyes. Eyes that were suddenly molten, before she obviously shut down the feeling as effectively as if she’d been doused in a glacier-fed lake. Giving an internal shrug, Marcus decided not to pursue her reaction just yet. After all, it didn’t take him closer to his goal and it had clearly disturbed her. He wasn’t quite sure which of those reasons struck him most strongly—his need to secure the sale of the Cullen Collection, or the near overwhelming urge to further explore the burgeoning awareness that pulsed between them.

* * *

“It was nice to be asked,” she said, simply fighting to maintain her composure.

Inside, however, was a different story. She was shocked at how such a simple gesture could cause such a riotous reaction. His caress had been light, impersonal even, and yet it felt as if a thousand tiny energy bolts danced under her skin. Her eyes flew up to meet his. In the subdued lighting of the restaurant they were a darker green than she remembered, more like the mesmerizing glow of a flawless emerald. She felt her internal muscles clench on a rise of intense physical interest.

Marcus Price was dangerous. Not only was he a threat to her equilibrium, he was very definitely a man on a mission. She couldn’t afford to lower her guard or who knew what he might get her to agree to do.

It had been a long time since anyone had shown her attention that wasn’t aimed at garnering something back for the donor. She never used to care all that much. She had a few close friends and a far wider group of acquaintances who she could rely on for a fun time. But when her father became ill, and the seriousness of his illness became apparent, she’d realized how shallow she’d allowed her life to become. And it had opened her eyes to the truth that the only person she honestly could rely on was herself—provided she remained true to herself all the time.

She’d meant what she’d said. It was nice to be asked. Prior to her father’s illness, her group of friends had formed a habit of directing her to wherever they happened to be. Her sheltered upbringing had only served to feed her natural shyness and insecurities and she’d initially welcomed their direction. Perhaps her behavior had been born out of her own desire to be a part of something, anything—to simply belong. But they’d been using her in their own way, and she’d let them. Convincing herself she enjoyed their company, the endlessly dull nights of partying, picking up the tab at the end of the evening without so much as batting an eyelid. Oh, yes, she’d been popular all right.

A hint of bitterness lingered on her tongue at the memory. She’d been so hopelessly naive. Would Marcus be any different than the others? she wondered. Would he expect her to pick up the tab for tonight? Well, she could only wait and see. He’d stated his reasons for seeing her right from the start and despite her rather unnerving reaction to him, she knew exactly where she stood. Marcus Price was in for a surprise if he thought he could railroad her into doing anything she didn’t want to.

He was unexpectedly good company and Avery was impressed by Marcus’s astute observations on the art world. She could hear it in his voice, his enthusiasm for his profession and his determination to succeed. But there was more to his drive to move up the ranks within Waverly’s—he genuinely loved and appreciated the works he handled. His appreciation for them was obvious in his every word.

Growing up as she had, she’d been surrounded by genuine art lovers as well as those who only saw art as an investment opportunity. She knew well how to tell the difference. Her father had been an intriguing combination of the two, a fact that had made him sought out by individuals, museums and galleries alike for his opinion on specific works.

Marcus seemed to have many of her dad’s qualities when it came to discussing specific works. He was knowledgeable and perceptive in his remarks, but most of all—perhaps most disconcertingly—he was passionate, too. By the time they were sipping coffee and lingering over the simple dessert of mixed fresh berries and cream he’d ordered for them to share she found herself not wanting the evening to end.

Nothing like her usual escorts, he’d only had one glass of wine through dinner and, more importantly, hadn’t pressed her to continue drinking when he himself had stopped. His solicitousness had come as a surprise. From the brief phone call she’d had from him last month, and the subsequent calls and emails she’d avoided, he’d struck her as being both pushy and persistent. And yet tonight he’d been anything but.