Luring a Lady Read Online Free PDF

to warm fractionally. Her lashes fluttered in reflex. “How kind.”
    â€œMother, I’m sorry, but Mr. Stanislaski and I have business to discuss.”
    â€œOf course, of course.” Margerite walked over to kiss the air an inch from her daughter’s cheek. “I’ll just be running along. Now, dear, you won’t forget we’re to have lunch next week? And I wanted to remind you that…Stanislaski,” she repeated, turning back to Mikhail. “I thought you looked familiar. Oh, my.” Suddenly breathless, she laid a hand on her heart. “You’re Mikhail Stanislaski?”
    â€œYes. Have we met?”
    â€œNo. Oh, no, we haven’t, but I saw your photo in Art/World. I consider myself a patron.” Face beaming, she skirted the desk and, under her daughter’s astonished gaze, took his hands in hers. To Margerite, the ponytail was now artistic, the tattered jeans eccentric. “Your work, Mr. Stanislaski—magnificent. Truly magnificent. I bought two of your pieces from your last showing. I can’t tell you what a pleasure this is.”
    â€œYou flatter me.”
    â€œNot at all,” Margerite insisted. “You’re already being called one of the top artists of the nineties. And you’ve commissioned him.” She turned to beam at her speechless daughter. “A brilliant move, darling.”
    â€œI—actually, I—”
    â€œI’m delighted,” Mikhail interrupted, “to be working with your daughter.”
    â€œIt’s wonderful.” She gave his hands a final squeeze. “You must come to a little dinner party I’m having on Friday on Long Island. Please, don’t tell me you’re already engaged for the evening.” She slanted a look from under her lashes. “I’ll be devastated.”
    He was careful not to grin over her head at Sydney. “I could never be responsible for devastating a beautiful woman.”
    â€œFabulous. Sydney will bring you. Eight o’clock. Now I must run.” She patted her hair, shot an absent wave at Sydney and hurried out just as Janine brought in a soft drink.
    Mikhail took the glass with thanks, then sat again. “So,” he began, “you were asking about windows.”
    Sydney very carefully relaxed the hands that were balled into fists under her desk. “You said you were a carpenter.”
    â€œSometimes I am.” He took a long, cooling drink. “Sometimes I carve wood instead of hammering it.”
    If he had set out to make a fool of her—which she wasn’t sure he hadn’t—he could have succeeded no better. “I’ve spent the last twoyears in Europe,” she told him, “so I’m a bit out of touch with the American art world.”
    â€œYou don’t have to apologize,” he said, enjoying himself.
    â€œI’m not apologizing.” She had to force herself to speak calmly, to not stand up and rip his bid into tiny little pieces. “I’d like to know what kind of game you’re playing, Stanislaski.”
    â€œYou offered me work, on a job that has some value for me. I am accepting it.”
    â€œYou lied to me.”
    â€œHow?” He lifted one hand, palm up. “I have a contractor’s license. I’ve made my living in construction since I was sixteen. What difference does it make to you if people now buy my sculpture?”
    â€œNone.” She snatched up the bids again. He probably produced primitive, ugly pieces in any case, she thought. The man was too rough and unmannered to be an artist. All that mattered was that he could do the job she was hiring him to do.
    But she hated being duped. To make him pay for it, she forced him to go over every detail of the bid, wasting over an hour of his time and hers.
    â€œAll right then.” She pushed aside her own meticulous notes. “Your contract will be ready for signing on Friday.”
    â€œGood.”