Forbidden or For Bedding?

by Julia James

  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.

  And desire was exactly what he felt for her. He had experienced it the moment he’d realised how much of a front her austere appearance and repressive manner was. He had allowed himself the luxury of a slow, enjoyable cultivation of his desire. Now, as she stood before him in the rich, lustrous beauty she was finally revealing to him, his desire rose pleasurably. Anticipation speared within him for what he knew would be the delights of the evening—the night—ahead.

  Not that she gave any sign yet of realising what was to happen. She was, he knew, quite unconscious of what lay ahead with absolute inevitability. How was it, he found himself wondering with amusement, that she could be so unaware of it? He knew of no other woman who would not have realised long before that he was interested in her. But then, he mused, that was part of her allure.

  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.

  He ushered her to the door, and across the now-deserted reception area of the executive floor. She walked with superb grace, his appreciative eye noted, although there was the very slightest tension in her shoulders. As if she were not enti
rely at her ease.

  But of course she would not be. She was still, évidemment, quite bouleversé, by the unexpectedness of the situation. Yet striving to carry it off all the same—as if she had quite expected to be gowned and coiffed and taken off to a gala soirée. It amused him to think it was her oh-so-English sang-froid that was allowing her to be so matter-of-fact about it.

  On their descent to the underground car park lot in his personal elevator, he chatted inconsequentially about the forthcoming event. She made the appropriate responses, civil and unexceptional, and in that manner they gained the waiting limo, its engine purring as they emerged. He guided her into its interior and followed likewise, giving the signal to his chauffeur to proceed.

  The journey was a bare fifteen minutes, if that, to the West End, and in the car he continued with his inconsequential chat. But it was sporadic only, and he was pleased. It was good to know that she was not one of those tiresome women who felt impelled to chatter the whole time. Alexa’s reserve won his approval, as did her obvious ability to travel without incessant talking. Instead, she seemed perfectly content merely to make whatever appropriate comment was required to answer his remarks, being neither taciturn nor garrulous.

  He liked that, he decided. And, moreover, he liked the opportunity it gave him, as she gazed composedly out of the tinted windows at the passing London scene, to let his regard appreciate her fully, her profile averted, and all her graceful figure displayed to him at his leisure.

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