AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I need fewer people in the room. I can’t concentrate like this.’
There were too many eyes on her. She took a slow breath to try and ease the weight of expectation in their stares.
‘Stefano stays.’
So imperious. Hannah blew out a huff of breath, grabbed a fresh sketch pad and some sharp-as-a-needle pencils, then sat opposite him. His rich brown eyes fixed on her. There was something addictive about all that focus, as if she were the only person on earth.
Yet even though he sat in a comfortable armchair, he didn’t look comfortable. There was nothing relaxed about him, as if he were on edge.Waitingfor something to happen. Which seemed strange because the man ruled a country. She assumed anything that happened to him was entirely his choice and at his whim. Yet, for all the breathtaking perfection of him, he was still a human and she reminded herself that not all the people she painted were relaxed in the beginning.
‘Today, I’ll be doing a few sketches. All for reference.’ He nodded as she opened her sketchbook. Alessio sat upright, not even his legs crossed. Impossibly formal. She didn’t want to focus on his face, nor on those eyes which seemed to barely blink. The rest of him was stitched tight into his suit. But his hands... Veins and tendons corded under his golden skin.
She began to lightly sketch the shape. The elegant, blunt-cut nails. Ignored the slight dusting of dark hair over his metacarpals, hinting around the wrist from under the pure and flawless white cuffs of his shirt. She’d leave those details till later, but for now she marvelled in his long, strong fingers, curled tight over the arms of the chair.
‘What have you been doing today?’ she asked. The sun streamed through the mullioned windows, brightening the room. A light breeze drifted through one she’d opened earlier.
His jaw tightened. ‘Ruling my country.’
‘And that involves?’
‘Making many important decisions.’
Which was no kind of answer at all. She snorted, looked up at him. His fingers flexed a little. Relaxed, but still not enough. ‘Okay, you’ve been very...princely. Let’s take a step back. What time did you get out of bed?’
‘Four.’
‘A morning person, then.’
His eyes narrowed the merest fraction. ‘I’m a busy person.’
‘No rest for the wicked?’
A muscle in his strong, square jaw ticked. ‘You’ll have to ask my father about that maxim.’
She hesitated for a second, the pencil no longer slipping so easily over the paper. When researching Alessio, as she did with every client, she’d read about his father. The man who’d abdicated under the cloud of some scandal. It was all a bit murky. As for the man in front of her, apart from his official website and carefully curated online presence, there was really nothing. Alessio Arcuri presented to the world like the perfect prince.
The press wondered whether Alessio was like his father, and only hid it better.
‘Can you take a deep breath in and let it out slowly?’
The tips of Alessio’s fingers seemed a little whiter on the arms of the chair, his fingertips denting the fine fabric.
‘I don’t know what you’re asking of me.’
‘You seem a bit...’ she waved her left hand with the pencil in it, as if drawing in thin air ‘...rigid.’
‘Signorina Barrington, I learned protocol and deportment in classes from the time I could speak.’
He leaned forward, his voice low and cool. Eyes flashing tiger-gold in something like a warning. His forearms now resting on his knees, hands in front. Such a compelling picture. She held her breath and waited for more.
‘From the age of five, I could sit perfectly still and silent for well over an hour. Never once moving. If I did move, my tutor’s dog had a habit of nipping my ankles. I didn’t like getting bitten. So this is how I sit.’
She started another sketch of his hands now, with fingers clasped before him as if in some kind of fervent prayer.
‘You can’t position yourself like that all the time. What about when you’re relaxing? Men, they slouch in a...manly kind of way. Lounging with intent.’
Not that she really had much experience in the way men sat, other than those whose portraits she’d painted, but at least they’d looked at home in the chair she’d placed them in. Alessio’s secretary seemed to have relaxation down to an art, having perfected a kind of indolence in the back corner of the room. Or her father, who had always looked comfortable in front of the television with her mother, holding hands. She blinked away the tears her memory wrought. All she knew was that the Prince before her looked as if he were about to order someone’s execution.
Perhaps her own. He raised a supercilious brow, his normally full and transfixing lips now a tight line. ‘Are you accusing me of not beingmasculineenough?’
