A Past Revenge

She knew exactly how she looked—and felt. Her hair was tousled into disorder, her face slightly pale from the intensity of the work she had been doing the last hour, the peach lipgloss all but gone from her mouth where she had been chewing her lips in concentration. ‘And I had been led to believe you were a very charming man,’ she mocked.

His eyes narrowed. ‘By whom?’

‘Guess,’ her mouth twisted.

‘Audra,’ he derided. ‘Did she tell you that before or after she warned you off me?’

Her mouth tightened at his astuteness. ‘During, I think,’ she taunted.

‘I see,’ he drawled. ‘And did you tell her the warning was unnecessary?’

‘Of course,’ she replied with sarcasm. ‘I made very sure she knows I have no interest in you whatsoever,’ she added insultingly, hating his arrogance all over again, his self-satisfaction about how the other woman would react to seeing them together earlier.

‘Then you may have done me a favour, Miss Smith,’ he taunted.

‘Oh?’ she eyed him cautiously, knowing she wouldn’t offer him help if he were bleeding to death, that she hated him enough to stand and watch.

‘Audra is inclined to be a little bit more—attentive, when she believes, erroneously or not, that she has competition,’ he eyed her mockingly.

Danielle flushed as his meaning became clear. ‘Then I mustn’t keep either of you any longer than necessary,’ she dismissed coldly. ‘I’ll go and see if Miss McDonald is ready to leave yet.’

‘Danielle!’ His fingers bit into her arm as he dragged her round to face him.

‘Take your hands off me, Mr Andracas,’ she instructed in an icy voice, not at all surprised when he, with a chagrined frown, released her. She looked at him with cool disdain. ‘Your affair with Miss McDonald is your business,’ she told him emotionlessly. ‘As is the way you treat her,’ she added contemptuously. ‘But I will not be used by you as a means of making her jealous, and so more attentive. Do I make myself clear?’

‘As crystal,’ he drawled unconcernedly.

‘Good,’ she nodded. ‘Because I would also like to add that you have hired my services as a portrait painter, nothing else. And if you can’t, or won’t, accept that, then I suggest you get yourself someone else for the job.’

He gave an exaggerated sigh of relief that her tirade was over. ‘You can really let fly when you want to, can’t you,’ he mused, his arms folded in front of his powerful chest.

‘When I have to,’ she corrected pointedly, hating his condescending attitude to her anger.

He quirked dark brows over mocking eyes. ‘And with me you have to?’

‘With you I’m going to,’ she told him firmly. ‘I want to make it clear once and for all that I’m not interested in being one of your little diversions. I value myself a lot higher than some rich, bored man’s mistress for a few weeks.’

‘My wealth I can’t deny,’ he shrugged. ‘But what makes you think I’m bored?’

‘What makes you think you’re not?’ she instantly returned.

For the first time since she had ever met him he gave a genuinely amused smile. ‘You’re very astute, Danielle,’ he drawled dryly. ‘I am bored. I have competent men to run my businesses for me, that leaves me to the enjoyment of life.’

‘Then it’s a pity you don’t actually enjoy it,’ she told him waspishly. ‘And leave me alone.’

‘Danielle—–’

‘I’m ready to leave now, Nick,’ Audra spoke softly from behind them. ‘If you are,’ she added brittly, seeming aware of the tension between them.

‘Could you come back next Saturday at the same time?’ Danielle requested briskly.

The other woman gave her a look of glittering dislike. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

It was a warning, Danielle knew that, but she shrugged it off. ‘I believe all our business together is now concluded, Mr Andracas,’ she met his steely gaze steadily. ‘All that remains is for me to send you the bill when I’ve completed my work.’

The hardness in his eyes told her that he knew exactly what she was saying—and that he didn’t like it one little bit. ‘Very well, Miss Smith,’ he acquiesed to her unspoken desire not to see him again. ‘Goodbye!’ he rasped angrily.

She felt drained once she was alone, hadn’t missed the triumphant gleam in Audra McDonald’s eyes when Nick showed his fury with her. Danielle had a feeling the other woman hadn’t believed her non-interest in Nick earlier. Well there could be no doubt that she believed her now!

And so, hopefully, did Nick Andracas. She knew she would only be able to take so much from him, and then she would break under the strain. And if that happened she had no idea what she might do. So far she had managed to keep her hate to a cold dislike, if the coldness ever left her she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to control the hate.

‘Mmm, I needed that,’ Danielle drank some of her wine, at once feeling a soothing glow.

‘Rough day?’ Lewis sympathised, the two of them having a quiet dinner together at a popular club and restaurant.

‘Rough week,’ she grimaced, having accepted Lewis’s invitation eagerly this morning when he telephoned, glad to get out for a few hours.

‘It’s only Tuesday,’ he teased.

‘Is it?’ she sighed. ‘It seems like this week has lasted for ever.’ Not hearing from Nick Andracas was worse than his constant telephone calls. It was like waiting for the axe to fall.

‘Some weeks are like that,’ he shrugged. ‘How is the beautiful Audra’s portrait coming along?’

‘Slowly,’ she admitted heavily. ‘She isn’t as easy a subject as you would think.’

‘I warned you she can be difficult. Changed your mind about the fee?’ he mocked.

She shook her head, having had this conversation with him once before. ‘It isn’t hard that way,’ she assured him. ‘Admittedly she isn’t the easiest of people to get along with, but that isn’t what makes this difficult. If I paint her as I see her then she isn’t going to like it.’

‘Flatter her,’ Lewis advised with his usual eye for business first, art later.

‘Then she may be unrecognisable,’ Danielle pulled a face.

He laughed softly at her dilemma. ‘I’m sure you’ll find a compromise that will satisfy everyone.’

She liked his confidence in her capabilities, but she wasn’t altogether sure it was true this time; the portrait was proving to be as difficult to do as she had predicted to herself that it would.

She ran a hand across her nape as she felt a prickly sensation, unconsciously massaging the spot. But the sensation continued, so much so that she was beginning to feel very uncomfortable, wondering if she had been bitten by something.

‘Talk of the devil,’ Lewis muttered.

‘Hm?’

He nodded across the room from them. ‘Andracas and Miss McDonald,’ he murmured.

She turned sharply to find Nick and Audra seated a short distance away from them, the reason for the prickly sensation at her nape obvious now as she saw the narrowed grey eyes levelled on her. She looked away abruptly, realising she was still being stared at, still able to feel his gaze on her. The first time she had been out for weeks, the first time she had ever been out with Lewis on a social level, and this had to happen! She was beginning to get the feeling fate had suddenly turned against her.

‘What bad luck,’ Lewis obviously felt the same way. ‘I suppose we’ll have to ask them to join us.’