Now You See Her Linda Howard(12)

"Good God, no!"

He laughed. "Please, don't spare my feelings."

Sweeney blushed like a teenager. One day, maybe when she was ninety years old, she might learn the art of the polite lie. She had done well enough with the McMillans, but obviously that was her quota for about a year.

"I didn't mean… It's just that you'd be a big complication, demanding time and sex and things like that, and I have all I can handle right now." Great. He was laughing again, and when she realized what she had just said, she wanted to bury her face in her hands. Instead she doggedly plowed on. 'And then there's Candra. She's been good to me, promoting me when a lot of other gallery owners wouldn't.

Even though you've been separated for almost a year… Anyway, I don't think it would be a good idea."

He didn't say anything for a long time, just watched her with a completely unreadable expression on his face. "I'll ask again," he finally said.

She wasn't sure how those three words could sound almost like a threat, but they did. Richard Worth wasn't a man who was used to being turned down "You do that," she said, as the Mercedes slid to a stop in front of her apartment building. "And I'll turn you down again." She removed his coat and gave it back to him, and reached for the door handle.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said, staying her hand. "There's no point in getting wet. I have an umbrella, and I'll walk you to the door."

"I can manage, thanks." "What about your portfolio?"

There was that, damn it. The rain was really coming down. She scowled at him. "You don't have to look so satisfied," she growled, knowing he had her.

His mouth quirked as he reached for the umbrella. "Honey, you don't have any idea how I look when I'm satisfied."

No, but she could imagine, and her mental image knotted her stomach. He bent his head and kissed her sulky mouth, the contact light and warm and devastating. "Think about it," he whispered, then opened the door and extended the umbrella out, opening it so it provided a circle of protection. He climbed out and held it for her as she slid from the car.

"Think about it," she mimicked savagely, making him laugh. "Damn you. " She was so annoyed she didn't care that sliding across the seat made her skirt ride high on her thighs. Let him look; that was all he was going to do.



Together they dashed across the sidewalk to the sheltered doorway. He took care that her portfolio didn't get splashed, and she appreciated his concern, even though she wanted to give him a good swift kick. He left her there and strode quickly back to the waiting car. She didn't wait until he left, but went inside immediately. He didn't need any ego stroking, and she definitely needed to get back to her safe, isolated world, away from temptation.

She needed order, not disorder; peace, not excitement. Most of all, she needed to paint. With a brush in her hand, she could shut out the world.




Chapter 3


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Think about it. Well, she had. Despite her best efforts, and to the point where she was about to have a screaming fit, she had. With hours stretching before her in which she could paint, instead she continually found herself standing in front of the canvas with an idle brush in her hand while she stared off into space like some giddy adolescent. The problem, of course, wasn't so much Richard's attraction to her as her attraction to him. What disturbed her most was her inability to stop thinking about him.

Other men had been distinguished by their total lack of distinction; she could put them out of her mind, if indeed they had ever entered it, and go on with her life as usual. None of them had ever tempted her.

She couldn't say that about Richard.

She felt silly, obsessing about a man. Nothing was ever going to come of her attraction, she would see to that, so it was stupid to waste time mooning over him. Not that any other man would have had a better chance, but the fact that this was Richard kept stunning her over and over again, hitting her right between the eyes. Of all the men in the world she might have expected to appeal to her hitherto nonexistent libido, Richard wasn't even on the list. Richard was married, he was married to a business associate of hers, and now the two were involved in an acrimonious divorce, which was an even better reason to stay the hell away from him.

Okay. Her mind got the message. Now, if the word would just seep farther down, she might be able to get some work done.

The rain had stopped but the day remained cloudy, and though she had installed bright lights in her studio, it wasn't the same as sunlight. Normally that wouldn't have bothered her, but today it did. She wanted bright sunlight. She had been working from a photo she'd taken of the St. Lawrence, which remained one of her favorite subjects, but without sunlight she couldn't get the colors right. Disgusted, she thrust the brush into the can of turpentine and swished it around. Who was she kidding? She couldn't get the colors right anyway. She hadn't been able to get the colors right for a year.

She wished she could put her finger on any one event that had obviously triggered the change, but she couldn't. Nothing stood out in her mind. Why would she have noticed Clayton's lone traffic light turning green? It did on a regular basis. She had noticed that her plants looked unusually happy, but at first had simply written that off as acclimation or her having stumbled across some hardy plants that could withstand her haphazard care. Maybe that was still all it was. Before, though, she had had to replace them on a fairly regular basis, but now, no matter what she did, they were thriving. Not even the move to the city had disturbed them. The Christmas cactus was blooming merrily as it already had several times this year, her bromeliads were fat and succulent, her ferns lush, and the finicky ficus kept its leaves no matter how often she moved it around the apartment.