Forbidden or For Bedding? Read Online Free PDF Page B

long-lashed emerald-green depths.
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    Imogen was, predictably, cock-a-hoop at Alexa’s triumph. Not that Alexa saw it in that light at all—not even when Imogen disclosed the fee she had negotiated, which was considerably higher than Alexa had yet commanded.
    â€˜Didn’t I tell you you’ll be made after this?’ Imogen demanded. ‘You’ll be able to name your own price, however stratospheric. It’s all fashion—you know that!’
    â€˜Thank you,’ Alexa said dryly. ‘And there was I thinking it was my talent.’
    â€˜Yes, yes, yes,’ said Imogen. ‘But brilliant artists are ten a penny and starving in their garrets surrounded by their masterpieces. Look, Alexa, art is a market , remember? And you have to work the market, that’s all. Stick with me and one day you’ll be worth squillions—and so will I!’
    But Alexa only shook her head lightly, and forebore to discuss a subject they would never see eye to eye on. Nor did she discuss her latest client, even though Imogen was ruthless in trying to squeeze every last detail out of her.
    â€˜Look, he’s just what you said he was, all right? A jaw-droppingly fantastic-looking male, rich as Croesus. So what? What’s that got to do with me? I’m painting him, that’s all. He’ll turn up late to sittings, cancel more than he makes, and somehow or other I’ll get the portrait delivered, get my fee paid, and that will be an end of it. He’s having the portrait done for his mother, and presumably it will hang in her boudoir, or the ancestral hall, or one of them. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’ll never see it again and that will be that.’
    â€˜Mmm,’ said Imogen, ignoring the latter half of Alexa’s pronouncement and rolling her eyeballs dreamily. ‘All those one-on-ones with him. All that up-close-and-personal as he poses for you. All that—’
    â€˜All that cool, composed professional distance,’ completed Alexa brusquely.
    â€˜Oh, come on, Alexa,’ her friend cried exasperatedly. ‘Don’t tell me you wouldn’t swoon if he made a pass at you. Of course you would—even you! Mind you…’ Her eyestargeted Alexa critically. ‘Dressed like that you won’t get the chance!’
    Precisely, thought Alexa silently. And anyway, not only was a man who had Carla Crespi panting for him never going to look twice at any other female, but—and this was the biggest but in the box—the only thing she was remotely interested in Guy de Rochemont for was whether she could successfully paint him.
    The prospect was starting to trouble her. Up till now her main challenge had been not to make her sitters too aware of their physical limitations. With Guy de Rochement it was a different ballgame. She found she was going over the problem in her head, calling his face into her mind’s eye and wondering how she should tackle it. Wondering whether she could catch the full jaw-dropping quality of the man.
    Will I be able to do him justice?
    Doubts assailed her right from the start. As she had predicted, he missed the first sitting and was ninety minutes late for the next one. Yet when he did arrive his manner was brisk and businesslike, and apart from taking three mobile calls in succession, in as many languages, he let Alexa make her first preliminary sketches without interruption.
    â€˜May I see?’ he said at the end, and his tone of voice told Alexa that this was not a request, despite the phrasing. Silently she handed across her sketchbook, watching his face as he flicked through her afternoon’s work.
    Pencil and charcoal were good media for him, she’d realised. They somehow managed to distil him down to his essence. Beginning full-on with oils would make his looks unreal, she feared. No one would believe a man could look that breathtaking. People would think she’d flattered him