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“Why me?” she asked finally. “There are a million other artists who’d be—”
He edged closer, more firmly into her space. There was something predatory about him now, threatening in a way that had nothing to do with her physical safety. It excited her almost as much as it—he—terrified her.
“Well, now you’re raising an interesting point, Talia. This is a good offer. Lots of other artists would snap it up in a heartbeat. So why are you acting like I’m serving you a plate of nuclear waste?”
“You’re not answering my question. Why me?”
“Why not you?”
“I don’t want to work with you.”
“Because…?”
Was he trying to force her to say it? Again? Well, fine. “Because we have different expectations about our—” her cheeks flushed “—relationship.”
He frowned, looking baffled. “No, we don’t.”
“You’re not serious.”
“I am serious. I told you I had feelings for you, you said you don’t have feelings for me, so that’s it. We’re friends only. End of story.”
Standing there with him, close enough to see the sparks of black-and-gold in his brown eyes and feel the heat from his body, it didn’t feel like the end of any story.
It felt as though their story was just beginning.
“So you’ve just…given up. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“No means no, Talia,” he said lightly. “You stood right there, looked me in the eye and told me you don’t have romantic feelings for me. Remember that?”
As if she could forget. Even now, the lie clogged her throat, threatening to choke her. “I remember.”
Though his expression was still unfathomably blank, his voice was the purest spun silk. “You’re not a liar, are you?”
The funny thing was, she wasn’t normally a liar, and the whopper she’d told yesterday felt as if it was scraping years off her life.
Could he see it on her face? The longing she felt for him, locked in a death match with her fear of being hurt, her fear of being left, and all the other terrors that stalked her in the night? Could he feel the way her frustrated desire for him radiated off her skin like steam? Did he know that the thought of him was a relentless ache inside her, never giving her a moment’s peace?
Did he know that she reread his letters all the time and kept them in a treasure box that held no other treasures?
“I never lie,” she lied.
He hit her again with that lopsided smile, but this time there was something hard about it, almost cynical. Her belly responded by tightening into sickening knots.
“That’s what I thought.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he shrugged. “So don’t worry. I’ll never mention it again.”
The promise did nothing to improve her mood. “You won’t?”
“Absolutely not. So are you interested?”
Having run through all her lies and accusations, she had precious few weapons left, so she tried bravado. “You couldn’t afford me.”
His eyes agleam with quiet satisfaction, he reached into an inner pocket and pulled out a folded check, which he held between his first two fingers the way he might hold a tip for a bellman.
Arrogant jackass.
Irritated beyond words, she snatched it away and—
Oh, my God.
She stared down at the check, stalling for time and making sure she hadn’t miscounted the number of zeroes.
She hadn’t.
How the hell was she supposed to walk away from this kind of a deal? she wondered with growing desperation.
She was a successful artist, true, but right here, in her hot little hands, she was holding more money—and opportunities—than she’d made on her last three commissions combined. Here she’d thought travel was her heart’s desire. Hah. It turned out that she was, at the core, a ruthlessly ambitious artist who couldn’t turn her back on the almighty dollar, the same as every other person in the universe. Besides, with this kind of money, she could buy her own small island in the Caribbean and spend winters there.
Even so, she didn’t have to make it easy for him.
“Tony, I—”
He checked his watch, as though he was tired of her wasting his time and wanted to wrap up this whole annoying negotiation so he could get to the important part of his day.
