Taken for Revenge, Bedded for Pleasure

‘It’s…nice,’ Bella said tonelessly, thinking of calm, neutral things. Not thinking of his mouth, or how it would feel to kiss it.

‘Nice?’ Letting go of her arm, he took a step backwards and made a sharp expression of disgust. ‘The hell it is.’

‘I beg your pardon?

Olivier looked at her narrowly. Close up she had the kind of flawless, upmarket beauty that left him cold: short, glossy hair the colour of cherished old mahogany, skin like vanilla ice cream. Earlier on, in the auction room, he had thought he sensed a rawness and a passion in her which intrigued and excited him, but now he saw he’d been wrong. There was nothing but good breeding and good bones.

‘You don’t have to be an art expert to see that it’s rubbish,’ he said brutally. ‘It’s not worth a quarter of the hugely inflated price I just paid for it.’

That seemed to ignite some spark within her again. ‘Then why did you bother?’ she flared. ‘Whycouldn’tyoujust let me have it? I’m not remotely interested in what it’s worth or how collectable it is. I wanted it for reasons that have nothing to do with money.’

‘Meaning?’

Her chin rose an inch. ‘My grandmother grew up in the house in the picture. That’s why I wanted it.’

The sky had darkened, and a warm breeze shivered through the leaves of the trees in the park opposite as the first drops of rain splashed onto the hot pavement. Everything was suddenly very still, as if the regular spin of the world had faltered for a second or two. Olivier almost wanted to reach out to hold on to something to steady himself as for the briefest moment the iron self-control, the bedrock of his being, shivered and shifted.

He took a slow breath in and summoned a bland smile to his stiff face. It felt like ice cracking on a frozen lake.

‘Really? And your name is…?

‘Bella. Bella Lawrence.’

Lawrence. Hearing the name was like a shot of adrenalin: painful, sickening, but exhilarating. He gritted his teeth, scrutinizing her. ‘Well, Bella, what a…coincidence that you found a picture of it. You must have been thrilled.’

If she noticed the acid in his tone she didn’t react. Nothing disturbed the blankness of that porcelain-pretty face. ‘Yes,’ she said sweetly, ‘particularly since it’s her birthday tomorrow and it would have been a perfect present.’ She flashed him a saccharine smile. ‘Obviously I didn’t bargain on some millionaire city boy coming in at the last minute and paying silly money for it, so I’ll just have to think again.’

Millionaire city boy? She’d underestimated him considerably. And because she was a Lawrence that stung.

She turned to go, but he had no intention of letting her disappear yet.

‘What makes you think I’m a millionaire city boy?’

He didn’t move. He didn’t even raise his voice, but she turned back to him and Olivier felt a lick of triumph. As her eyes skimmed over him he took his phone from his inside pocket, barely glancing at it as he speed-dialled. Bella Lawrence shrugged.

‘The suit. The shoes. The arrogance. Am I right?’

‘Sort of.’ Without taking his eyes from hers, he gestured with a terse movement of his head to a gleaming dark green Bentley that was just pulling up at the kerbside. ‘Can I offer you a lift anywhere?’

Her eyebrows rose. ‘Very impressive,’ she said sarcastically. ‘So you’re half millionaire city boy, half magician. What else can you do?’

He gave her a lethal smile. ‘Unfortunately, Mademoiselle Lawrence, my talents are too numerous to list now, while we’re in grave danger of getting soaked to the skin and I’m late for a meeting. But if you’d like to get into the car I’d be only too happy to enlighten you.’

He opened the car door and stood back. The rain was falling harder now, releasing the scent of hot asphalt and damp earth and making the skin on her bare arms glisten, but she didn’t move.

‘No, thank you,’ she said politely. ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea.’

‘Ri-ight.’ His fingers drummed an impatient beat on the roof of the car. ‘And I suppose you’d argue that choosing to get completely and unnecessarily soaked is a stroke of genius, would you?’ He sighed and stood back. ‘Look, you said yourself that you’re in a hurry—if it makes you feel better you can have the car to yourself. My office is just around the corner in Curzon Street. I’ll walk. Just tell Louis where you want to go.’

He took a couple of steps backwards, still watching her, silently willing her to accept the offer. He would find out where she lived eventually, but it would be so much easier to do it this way. The pavement was virtually empty now, as everyone with any sense had rushed to shelter in doorways or disappeared into the dark mouth of the tube. Bella Lawrence stood beside the open door of the Bentley in her expensive black dress, her hair slick with water.

She frowned suspiciously. ‘Why?’

‘The painting—let’s just say it’s the least I can do. Please.’

She glanced up at the angry sky and hesitated. And then, bristling with resentment and indignation, slipped into the car and leaned forward to pull the door briskly shut. She didn’t look at him.

‘My pleasure,’ he murmured sarcastically to himself as the car drew smoothly away from the kerb and was swallowed up by the Friday afternoon traffic.

Though ‘pleasure’wasn’t quite the right word for it, he reflected as he thrust his hands into his pockets and strode through the rain.

Satisfaction.

That was it.

CHAPTER TWO

GENEVIEVE DELACROIX’S face was pale, delicately tinted with a faint rose-pink blush, as if in the aftermath of passion, and her rosy lips were curved in a lazy smile of repletion. Reclining on the velvet-draped couch, she was completely naked, apart from a large and heavily jewel-encrusted gold cross hanging on a length of red velvet ribbon around her neck.

Her eyes, dark blue and watchful, seemed to bore into Olivier’s back as he stood at the glass wall of his apartment, looking down over the most expensive view in London. Eight storeys below him cars sailed noiselessly along Park Lane, and above him planes bound for Heathrow studded the indigo sky with flashing points of light, outshining the stars. But Olivier noticed none of this. The image of the painting swam in front of him, superimposed on the glittering cityscape in the polished sheet of glass.

His instinct about the ‘charming amateur painting’ in the saleroom had been correct. Although it was unsigned, its subject matter—Le Manoir St Laurien—and the distinctively painstaking style of the brushwork had left him in no doubt that it had been painted by his father.

But Julien Moreau was no amateur. Had things been different he would have been one of the most important painters of his generation.

Olivier took a gulp of cognac from the glass in his hand, draining half the contents in a single mouthful, and then, steeling himself as if against a blow, he turned to face the picture behind him. The one that had lain hidden beneath the other work.

La Dame de la Croix.

For years he had searched for this painting. His contacts in the art world spread across the globe and encompassed all the major auction houses, galleries and collections, but since he knew that the portrait of Genevieve Delacroix was likely to have been concealed behind one of Julien’s flawed, later attempts, his contacts had been of little help. He had tried to keep an eye on the catalogues of smaller salerooms, but it had been like searching for a needle in a haystack. The odds had been impossibly stacked against him.

And yet he had done it. The painting was here, propped up on a tall steel bar chair in front of him, as fresh and vivid as if the paint was still wet.

Olivier Moreau prided himself on his ability to achieve. He was a man who got what he wanted through a combination of intelligence, focus and ruthlessness, but he knew that none of that was enough to have pulled off today’s coup.

That had been down to luck. Or maybe fate, or some long-overdue divine justice. Karma, some people might call it; after all, it was about time the mighty Lawrences were made to face up to what they’d done, and now the painting was back in his possession he could begin the process of exacting retribution.

He took another mouthful of cognac and let his gaze run speculatively over Genevieve Delacroix’s luscious flesh. Hypothetically, in the long years when he had dreamed of recovering this picture, he had always imagined he would simply reveal it, and the shocking scandal behind it, to the world in the most high-profile and damaging way possible.

But now that didn’t seem enough.

In his work Olivier operated on a principle of ‘absolute return’. His success lay in his ability to exact profit—maximum profit—from every available opportunity, and in this instance fate had very kindly presented him with not one opportunity, but two. La Dame de la Croix and Bella Lawrence had both fallen into his lap on the same day. He wouldn’t be the man he was if he let a chance like that pass without exploiting it to the full.

Fate…justice…karma—it hardly mattered what you called it. In truth they were all just euphemisms for revenge. The Lawrences didn’t know it yet, but it was payback time.

An eye for an eye.

A tooth for a tooth.