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“A three-year countdown to your renewed destitution was generous. I give it two, tops. Were you planning to invest any of it? Even millions run dry if you just keep spending.”
“I wanted to travel and get settled first.”
He nodded as if any of this mattered now. It was all just trivia of a life that could have been. She wondered how manylives that could have beenwould be dangled in front of her and then ripped away before her true fate unfolded. The fantasy of the fairy tale with Eric, the illusion of this independent life in a villa in Venice... both lovely ideas, both impossible dreams.
“So, you owe me six million dollars.”
“I’ll sell the villa, and...”
He twisted his chair to face her. “No. That’s not the deal. You stole from me; I decide the terms. I want a wire transfer by the end of the day in the full amount.”
“But you know I can’t...” It was ridiculous for him to demand she return the money on such short notice. It took time to sell a villa. And the furniture. And the Ferrari—which had already depreciated. She didn’t want to think about the amount she wouldn’t be able to get back—the small things that added up. Clothes. Jewelry. And the intangibles: spa appointments, all the travel.
“So we’ll handle it the old-fashioned way. You will indenture yourself in servitude to me to pay off your debt—likely for the rest of your life given the amount of money anyone would reasonably pay you for anything you’re actually qualified to do.”
Just what he’d wanted all along: her at his mercy in a compromising position where she’d have to warm his bed to survive. It was no doubt like winning the lottery for him. He knew everything could be bought, even her—given the right circumstances. And here the circumstances were, wrapped up and gleaming.
Saskia wasn’t unattractive, but she knew there were other women more beautiful than her. The appeal to him was acquiring something that was difficult to acquire—just like all the art he collected. If she’d been eager to jump in bed with him, he wouldn’t want her. Was that worse or better?
“And if I don’t agree to your terms, you’ll what? Kidnap me? Exactly how would your felony cross out my felony?”
He laughed. It was decidedly less endearing this time around. “I’ll turn you over to the authorities. You can go to prison, or you can give yourself to me. The accommodations with me will be better.”
“But not the company.”
Lachlan’s eyes narrowed. “I’m going to do something about that smart mouth of yours the moment we get home.”
“I haven’t agreed. You said you wouldn’t kidnap me. So you don’t think you’d go to prison right along with me? Didn’t you conspire to steal a multi-million dollar painting?”
“I’ve got fantastic lawyers and connections in high places. Most likely I’ll know the judge that gets my case. I won’t go to prison, and if I play it right, I’ll be able to keep the whole nasty mess out of trial and out of the media. Butyou’llgo to prison. And I’ll make sure they throw the book at you to make an example. Our justice system is far too lenient on art crimes if you ask me.”
Maybe he was bluffing, but somehow Saskia was sure this man didn’t know the meaning of the word. And even if the judge was lenient, even if he had mercy on her, she was still looking at a few years behind bars. Best case scenario.
No amount of prison was a small matter that one easily moved on from. She’d known a guy who’d been to prison once. The system seemed to revel in making it absolutely impossible for a criminal to mend their ways. It seemed like they didn’twantpeople to change and be better. They wanted you to pay and pay and pay for your crime and never stop paying even if you were free.
On release, they’d maybe give you a twenty dollar gift card. And that was it. And no one would hire you. How would someone fresh out of prison get a job to pay for things if nobody would hire them? The only choice left was to steal more things until you got caught and thrown in prison again. The only hope of breaking the cycle was if you were fortunate enough to actually know somebody with some standing in life who could help you back on your feet. Otherwise, it was almost impossible.
Saskia might have been able to imagine and cope with some of this if the threat of prison came on the heels of living with less than a hundred dollars in her bank account most of the time. But instead, cruelly, the threat came after four months of the kind of luxury she’d never before known. And here, Lachlan Niche was giving her the choice between a worse fate than where she’d started—one she was unlikely to ever fully recover from—or continuing on in this luxury... as some sort of concubine.
The tears started to fall. Finally. Saskia flinched as his thumb reached out to wipe those tears away.
“I’m not so bad. You’ll see. Whatever ideas you have in your head about me are wrong. I’m prepared to provide for you. You have an immense talent which you’ve squandered. I can help that talent flourish. I’ll mold you into the kind of artist you’ve only dreamed of being.”
This time it was Saskia who laughed. “You can’t afford it. It’s not something you can buy. You know nothing that would benefit me as an artist.”
“Really? I knew the second you gave it to me that the painting you supposedly stole wasn’t authentic.”
“I thought you used the software. You knew that night? You just wanted to entrap me in deeper debt. You’d already given me thirty thousand. Wasn’t that enough?” Though maybe he wouldn’t count the five for the known forgery against her.
“No. It wasn’t. And I didn’t use the software. I didn’t need it. I just wanted to make you sweat a while before I gave you some money to squander because it makes the moment of acquiring you that much sweeter and your debt to me that much larger.”
She’d thought she’d been running a long con on him, but it was clearly just the opposite. If he’d known he didn’t have the real painting the night of the party, he’d simply been following and watching and waiting for the right moment to spring the trap on her.
“Saskia, I knew the game you were pulling the moment I didn’t see the mistake in the painting.”
“The mistake?” He was speaking in riddles she couldn’t unravel.
“It was one of my earlier works and had sentimental value. I only sold it because I was hungry, and my start-up was still stumbling and trying to get funding. There is a small defect, a few brushstrokes that aren’t quite right—not quite what I wanted them to be. Nobody else ever sees it, but I know it’s there. But it wasn’t there on the painting you gave me.”
