Forbidden or For Bedding?

Six months earlier.…

‘DARLING! You’ll never believe who I’ve bagged for you!’

Imogen’s voice came gushing down the line. Alexa, the receiver crooked under her ear, concentrated on catching the sheen on a petal that was proving tricky.

‘Alexa? Are you there? Did you hear what I said? You’ll never believe who—’

Alexa, who knew that Imogen could no more be halted in full flight than she herself could be dragged to the phone when she was painting by anyone other than her friend and business manager, interrupted.

‘Who?’ She knew Imogen was dying to be asked, so she could give the dramatic answer she was clearly bursting to give.

‘He’s absolutely devastating!’ gushed Imogen. ‘A million, zillion miles from any of the usual boring old suits.’

An extravagant sigh wafted down the line. Alexa wondered what Imogen was on about, then went back to working on the petal. She was dimly aware that Imogen was still in full flow, but didn’t pay attention. Imogen loved to gush, and Alexa let her get on with it while she focussed on what was important at the moment.

Finally there was silence on the line.

‘So?’ came Imogen’s prompt a moment later. ‘Are you over the moon or what?’

Alexa frowned absently. ‘What?’

An exasperated sign came into her ear. ‘Darling, do pay attention! Put the paintbrush down and listen for two minutes. Even you are going to be impressed, I promise. Guy de Rochement phoned. Well,’ Imogen temporised, ‘not him personally, of course, but his London PA.’ She paused. ‘So, tell me you’re impressed. Tell me—’ her voice changed and adopted a husky timbre ‘—you’re quivering all down your insides.’

Alexa, her paintbrush reduced to hovering over the canvas, intensified her slight frown.

‘Quivering?’ she echoed. ‘What for?’

The exasperated sigh came again. ‘Oh, really, Alexa, don’t do that Little Miss Supercool with me! I’m not a bloke. And don’t even think you’ll be able to get away with it with Guy de Rochement. Not even you could do that. He’ll have you swooning just like the rest of the female population.’

Alexa’s brow furrowed. ‘Am I supposed to know who this guy is?’

Imogen gave a trill of laughter. ‘Darling—a pun! His name is Guy in English, but of course he’s French—well, mostly—so it’s pronounced with a long “ee”. Guy.’ She gave it a Gallic slant. ‘Sounds so much sexier…’ She gave another gusty sigh.

Alexa cut to the chase. She hadn’t a clue what was going on, and didn’t want any more of her time wasted.

‘Imogen—who is he, why are you being so loopy about it, and what are you trying to tell me anyway?’

Imogen sounded more disbelieving than indignant. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Guy de Rochement? He’s just all over the celeb mags! Only the posh ones, mind you! He’s a triple-A-lister. Total class!’

‘I don’t read magazines like that,’ replied Alexa. ‘They’re all rubbish.’

‘Ooh, look at you. Hoity-toity!’ shot back Imogen in mock admonition. ‘Well, if you did sully your pure artistic soul with such guff you’d know who I was talking about—and why. Listen, even at your elevated heights I take it you’ve heard of Rochement-Lorenz?’

Recognition—not strong, but there all the same—was dredged into Alexa’s forebrain. ‘Mega-rich bankers all over the place and going way back into history?’

‘That’s them!’ Imogen trilled. ‘One of the über-dynasties across the Channel. Utterly rolling in it. Made pots of money in every country in Europe for the last two hundred years,’ she reeled off. ‘Just about financed the Industrial Revolution and bankrolled merchant fleets to every farflung colony. They’re so seriously into money and survival they even made it pretty much intact through the last century—both the World Wars, not to mention the Cold War—probably because they had family on every side going. And now they are riding higher than ever, despite the recession. And a lot of that is due to Guy de Rochement. He’s the whiz-kid that’s propelled the bank into the twenty-first century, and the whole vast clan just slobbers all over him because he’s raking in the loot for them.

Her voice changed, adopting that husky tone again. ‘Mind you, I’d take a punt it’s the females in the family that do the most slobbering. Just like the females outside the family! I was practically salivating down the phone, and I was only speaking to his PA.’

Alexa cut to the chase again. Imogen was clearly bowled over by this Guy guy, whoever he was, and Alexa had certainly never heard of him.

‘So what’s the deal, Immie?’ she asked.

‘The deal, darling, is that he’s interested in being painted by you!’ cooed Imogen dramatically. ‘And if he goes for it you’ll be made, my sweet. No more dull old suits and cigars. You’ll be able to take your pick of the A-listers—the really fab ones, up in the stratosphere. They’re all as vain as peacocks, and they’ll just snap you up. You’ll be rolling in it!’

Alexa made a wry little face to herself. The whole portraiture kick had been Imogen’s idea. When they’d both emerged from art college several years ago, her fellow student and friend had announced straight away that she was never going to be good enough to make anything out of art, and she was going to go into commercial management.

‘And you’ll be first on my books!’ she’d informed Alexa gaily. ‘I’ll make you pots of money, see if I don’t. No starving in garrets eating the acrylics for you, I promise!’

‘I’m not really very interested in making money out of art,’ Alexa had temporised.

‘Yes, well,’ Imogen had retorted, and Alexa knew there had been a touch of condemnation in her voice, ‘not all of us can afford to be so high-minded.’

Then, immediately seeing the flash of pain in Alexa’s eyes, she’d backtracked, hugging her friend.

‘I’m sorry. My mouth sometimes…Forgive me?’

She’d been contrite, honestly so, and Alexa had nodded, hugging her back.

Imogen’s family—large and rambling and open-hearted—had taken Alexa in, literally, during that first terrible term at art school, when Alexa’s parents had been killed in a plane crash while coming back from holiday. Imogen and her family had got her through that nightmare time, giving her a refuge in her stricken grief, as well as helping her with all the practical fall-out from their deaths, which had included sorting out the best thing to do with what she had inherited. It was not vast riches by any means, but prudently invested it had provided Alexa with enough to buy a flat, pay her student fees and living expenses, and yield a small but sufficient income that meant she would have the luxury of not having to rely exclusively on her artistic career to live.

Even so, Imogen was dead set on turning her friend into a high-flyer in the art world.

‘With your fantastic looks it’s a dead cert!’ she’d enthused.

‘I thought it was whether I was any good or not,’ Alexa had replied dryly.

‘Yeah, right. That as well, OK. But come on—we know what makes the world go round, and good-looks definitely make it spin in your direction. You’re a PR dream!’

But Alexa had been adamant. Something flash and showy and insubstantial in artistic terms was not what she was after. What it was exactly that she wanted, though, she was less sure. She enjoyed most media, most styles, was eclectic in her approach, and got completely absorbed in whatever she was doing. But then she got equally absorbed even if her next project was quite different. There was no clear artistic way forward for her.

Which was why, she knew, she had let Imogen have her head when she’d told her that she had a clear flair for portraiture—Alexa had painted Imogen’s family to say thank-you for their kindness to her—and it would be a criminal shame to waste it. So when, out of her myriad contacts, Imogen had wangled a couple of commissions, Alexa had gone along with her friend’s ambitions for her. And now, four years later, it had paid off handsomely—at least in financial terms.

It seemed she did indeed have a flair for portraiture, for she had a generosity of spirit that enabled her to depict her sitters in ways that, whilst truthful, tended to show them in their best light. Considering that as Imogen moved her remorselessly up the fee scale her sitters became increasingly corpulent and middle-aged, that was no mean achievement. Yet, whatever her clients’ unprepossessing exterior, Alexa found she enjoyed depicting the incisive intelligence, shrewdness, or sheer force of character that had got them where they were: to the upper reaches of the corporate ladder.

Which was why she was less than impressed at the prospect of having Guy de Rochement as a sitter. From what Imogen said he sounded no better than some kind of flash celebrity playboy, inheriting bucketloads and now merely swanning around the world making yet more. He would, she darkly surmised, be spoilt, conceited and full of himself—just because he was the scion of such a famous banking house.

Her thoughts darkened even more, recalling Imogen’s drooling. And just because he happened to have a reputation for being sexy.

Alexa’s mouth tightened. Rich, conceited and sexy. Great. He sounded like a royal pain in the proverbial.

Her opinion to that effect was only strengthened some days later when, Imogen having beavered away like crazy to set it up, Alexa’s initial appointment with the fabled Guy de Rochemont was cancelled by phone at the last moment. The glacially indifferent PA’s dismissive tone clearly told Alexa she was considered something little better than a minion—doubtless one of hundreds who waited on Guy de Rochemont’s plutocratic convenience.

Automatically Alexa felt her hackles rise. So, when Imogen phoned her two hours later to ask breathlessly, ‘Well, how did it go? Is he even more gorgeous in the flesh than in photos?’ Alexa was icy.

‘I have no idea. I was cancelled,’ she said simply.

Imogen’s reaction was immediately to temporise. ‘Oh, darling, he’s terribly, terribly busy—always flying off at the drop of a hat. And his PA’s a cow anyway. So when have you rearranged for?’