For Revenge or Redemption?

‘So what are you offering, Grace?’

‘You think I owe you something?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘It was eight years ago, for heaven’s sake!’

‘And you’re still the same person. Rich. Spoilt. And totally self-indulgent.’ This last remark accompanied a swift, assessing glance around the newly refurbished gallery with its pricey artwork, fine porcelain and tasteful furnishings—which owed more to her own flair for design than to cost. ‘And I’m still the poor boy from the wrong side of town.’

‘And whose fault’s that?’ His whole hostile attitude was causing little coils of fear to spiral through her. ‘It’s hardly mine! And if you persist in this—this—’

‘Dissecting of your character?’ He smiled, clearly savouring her lack of composure.

‘I’ll have you thrown off the premises,’ she ground out in a low voice, hoping that no one else could hear.

The lifting of a thick eyebrow reminded her of how ridiculous her threat was. His commanding height and solid frame gave him strength and fitness that put him light years ahead of anyone else milling around her little gallery. That oddly feral smile pulled at the corners of his devastating mouth again. ‘Going to do it yourself?’

Unwelcome sensations ripped through her as she thought about physically handling him, about the way his hard, warm body had felt beneath her hands: the strength of contoured muscle, the sinewy velvet of his wet skin.

‘I didn’t think so,’ he breathed.

He seemed so confident, so sure of himself, Grace marvelled, wondering what made him think he could just march in here and start flinging insults at her; wondering in turn why he hadn’t moved on. He had seemed so ambitious—full of high expectations, determined. And it was that determination to have what he wanted that had made him so exciting to her…

‘Why the Mona Lisa smile?’ he asked. ‘Does it give you some sort of warped satisfaction to know that life didn’t turn out the way we thought it would—for either of us?’

Grace lowered her gaze so as not to see the smugness in his eyes. If he thought—quite wrongly—that she’d been mocking him for not amounting to much then he was clearly enjoying reminding her of a future she had taken so much for granted when she had been young and so stupidly naïve.

Trying not to let him get to her, and still wearing a wistful little smile, she uttered, ‘Not as much satisfaction as it’s clearly given you.’

He dipped his head in an almost gallant gesture. ‘Then that makes us even.’

‘Really?’ She grasped a flute of champagne from the tray of drinks being offered to them, even though she had decided earlier to keep a clear head tonight. She noticed Seth shake his head quickly in silent refusal. ‘I hadn’t realised we were clocking up a score.’

‘Neither did I.’ His sensuous mouth curved from some inward amusement. ‘Are we?’

The pointed question caught her off-guard and before she could think of a suitable response to fling back he went on. ‘I stopped envying you, Grace. And people like you. I never did manage to master the art of using others in my bid to get the things I wanted, but I’m learning,’ he told her with scathing assurance. ‘Nor did I ever find it necessary to do what was expected of me just to impress my own elite little circle of friends.’

Her interviewer had finished his piece outside with the film crew and was talking to the producer on the pavement. Any minute now he would be in to talk to her.

How must she look? she thought, panicking, feeling totally harrowed after coming face to face with Seth Mason.

‘If all you want to do is take out your frustrations and your disappointments on me just because things didn’t turn out for you the way you thought they would…’ Flushed, uncomfortably sticky, she inhaled deeply, trying to stay calm, stay in control. ‘Then you could have chosen a more convenient time to do it! Or was your intention behind coming here tonight simply to unsettle me?’

He smiled, and his face was suddenly a picture of mock innocence. ‘Now, why would I want to do that?’

He knew why; they both knew why. She wanted to forget it, but it was obvious that he never had. Nor was he going to, she realised despairingly.

‘I was merely interested to see the newsworthy Grace Tyler’s new venture for myself, although I understand that it isn’t entirely new. I know that you inherited this shop some years ago and only recently had it transformed from a run-down, barely viable concern to this temple of fine art I see before me today.’

It was information he could have got from any sensation-seeking tabloid, Grace realised, but still she didn’t enjoy the feeling that he, or anyone, for that matter, knew so much about her.

‘Quite a diversion for you from the world of textiles,’ he commented. ‘But then you showed promise…in an artistic sense…’ His marked hesitation told her exactly what he thought about the other traits of her character. ‘Eight years ago. Let’s hope you have more success with this—’ his chin jerked upwards ‘—than you’ve had managing Culverwells—or any of your relationships, for that matter.’

Stung by his obvious reference to her recent broken engagement as well as the company’s problems, Grace looked up into that hard, cold but oh, so indecently handsome face with her mouth tightening.

Had he come to gloat?

‘My relationships don’t concern you.’ The only way to deal with this man, she decided, was to give back as much as he was giving her. Because it was obvious that a man with such a chip on his shoulder would never forgive her for the way she had treated him, even if she got down on her knees and begged him to, which she had no intention of doing! ‘As for my corporate interests, I don’t think that’s any of your business, either.’

A broad shoulder lifted in a careless shrug. ‘It’s everyone’s business,’ he stated, unconcerned by her outburst. ‘Your life, both personal and commercial, is public knowledge. And one only has to pick up a newspaper to know that your company’s in trouble.’

The media had made a meal of the fact, accusing her and the management team at Culverwells of bringing the problems about, when everyone who wasn’t so jaundiced towards her knew that the company was only another unfortunate victim of the economic downturn.

‘I hardly think a boat hand from…from the sticks is in a position to advise me on how I should be running my affairs!’ She didn’t want to say these things to him, to sound so scathing about how he earned his living, but she couldn’t help herself; she was goaded into it by his smug and overbearing attitude.

‘You’re right. It is none of my business.’ His smile was one of captivating charm for the redhead with the clipboard who was standing with the gallery manager a few feet away, gingerly indicating to Grace that they were ready to interview her. ‘Well, as I said, I wish you success.’

‘Thanks,’ Grace responded waspishly, aware of that undertone of something in his voice that assured her his wishes were hardly sincere. Even so, she plastered on a smile and crossed over to join her interviewer, wishing she was doing anything but having to face the camera after the unexpectedly tough ordeal of meeting Seth Mason again.

Outside in the cold November air, Seth stopped and watched with narrowed eyes over the display of paintings in the window as Grace faced a journalist who was renowned for making his interviewees sweat.

Smiling that soft, deceptive smile, she appeared cool, controlled and relaxed, answering some question the man asked her, those baby-blue eyes seeming to flummox her interviewer rather than the other way around.

She was as sylph-like as ever, and as beautiful, Seth appreciated, finding it all too easy to allow his gaze to slide over her lovely face, emphasised by her pale, loosely twisted hair, and her gentle curves beneath that flatteringly tailored suit. But she hadn’t changed, he thought, as he felt the inevitable hardening of his body, and he warned himself to remember exactly what type of woman she was. She would play with a man’s feelings until she was tired of her little game. The way she had dumped him and the last poor fool, her fiancé, was evidence of that. She was also still an unbelievable snob.

What she needed was someone to let her know that she couldn’t always have her own way; someone who would demand respect from her, and get it. In short, what she needed was someone who would bring her down a peg or two—and he was going to take immense satisfaction in being the one to do it.

Chapter Two

THE interview was over, and so was the party.

Grace breathed a sigh of relief.

The evening had gone well. In fact, Beth had taken several orders for quite a few of the paintings and sold one or two of the ceramics. The interview, too, had turned out satisfactorily, without her having to face any of the awkward questions she had been dreading. She should have been happy—and she was, she assured herself staunchly, except for that meeting earlier with Seth Mason.

She didn’t want to think about it. But as she went upstairs to the flat above the gallery, having locked up for the night, long-buried memories started crowding in around her and she couldn’t stop them coming no matter how hard she tried.

It had been shortly after her nineteenth birthday, during the last few weeks of her gap year between leaving college and starting university, when she had first met Seth in that small West Country coastal town.

She’d gone down from London to stay with her grandparents who had brought her up and who had had a summer home there, a modern mansion high in the wooded hills above the little resort.

On that fateful day that would stay for ever in her memory, she’d been out with her grandfather when he had decided to call into the little boatyard on the far side of town. She couldn’t even remember why, now. But, while Lance Culverwell had been in the scruffy little office, she had noticed Seth working on the hull of an old boat. She’d noted the way his broad back moved beneath his coarse denim shirt, the sleeves of which had been rolled up, exposing tanned, powerful arms as he’d driven rivets hard into the yielding metal, unconsciously raking back his untameably black hair, strands of which had fallen forward tantalisingly as he worked.

When he turned around, she looked quickly away, though not in time for him to fail to register where her gaze was resting on the hard, lean angles of his denim-clad hips.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even acknowledge her presence with a smile. But there was something so brooding in those steely-grey eyes as she chanced another glance in his direction that she felt herself grow hot with sensations she’d never experienced before just from a man looking at her. It was as though he could see through her red crop-top and virginal-white trousers to the wisp of fine lace that pushed up her suddenly sensitised breasts, and to her skimpy string, the satin triangle of which began to feel damp from more than just the heat of the day.

The faintest smile tugged at one corner of his mouth—a sexy mouth, she instantly decided, like his eyes, and the prominent jut of his rather arrogant-looking jaw. She didn’t acknowledge him, though, and wondered whether to or not. But then Lance Culverwell came out of the office with the owner of the boatyard, and she gave her smile to the two older men instead.