His Christmas Virgin. Carole Mortimer

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СКАЧАТЬ appearance this evening was an illusion, he reminded himself. Tonight she was the artist, deliberately dressed to beguile and seduce art critics and art collectors alike into approving of or buying her paintings. The fact that she had almost succeeded in seducing him into forgetting exactly who and what she was only increased Jonas’s feelings of self-disgust.

      His mouth thinned as he stepped away to look down at her through hooded lids. ‘I really shouldn’t keep you from your other guests any longer.’

      Mac trembled slightly at the contempt she could hear in Jonas’s tone. As she wondered what she had done to incur that contempt; he had been the one about to kiss her and not the other way around!

      Her gaze returned to those sensually sculptured lips as she wondered what it would have felt like to have them part and claim her own lips. Jonas’s mouth looked hard and uncompromising now, but seconds ago those firm lips had been soft and inviting as they lowered to hers—

      Get a grip, Mac, she instructed herself firmly as she straightened decisively. The fact that he looked wonderful in a black evening suit, and was one of the most gorgeous men she had ever set eyes on, did not detract from the fact that he was also the enemy!

      She eyed him mockingly. ‘I would be polite and say that it’s been nice seeing you again, Mr Buchanan, but we both know I would be lying…’ She trailed off pointedly.

      He gave a humourless smile in recognition of that mockery.

      ‘I doubt very much that you’ve seen the last of me, Mac.’

      She raised dark brows. ‘I sincerely hope that you’re wrong about that.’

      His smile deepened. ‘I rarely am when it comes to matters of business.’

      ‘Modest too,’ Mac scorned. ‘Is there no end to your list of talents?’ She snorted delicately. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Mr Buchanan.’ She didn’t wait for his reply to her statement but moved to cross the room to where she realised Magnus had discreetly been trying to attract her attention for the past few minutes.

      Jonas stood unmoving as he watched her progress slowly across the room, stopping occasionally to greet people she knew. Unlike her behaviour towards him, the smiles Mac bestowed on the other guests were warm and relaxed, the huskiness of her laugh a soft caress to the senses, and revealing small, even white teeth against those full and red-glossed lips.

      The tight-fitting silk dress emphasised the rounded curve of her bottom as she moved, and the slit up the side of the gown revealed the shapely length of her thigh. Jonas scowled his disapproval as he saw that most of the men in the room were also watching her, with one persistent man even grasping her wrist and trying to engage her in conversation before she laughingly managed to extricate herself and walked away to join Magnus Laywood.

      ‘So what did you make of our little artist…?’

      Jonas turned to look at Amy, compressing his mouth in irritation as he realised he had been so engrossed in watching Mac that he hadn’t noticed his cousin’s approach. A tall and beautiful redhead, with a temper to match, Jonas’s maternal cousin wasn’t a woman men usually overlooked!

      ‘What did I think of Mary McGuire?’ Jonas played for time as he was still too surprised at his reaction to the artist’s change in appearance to be able to formulate a satisfactory answer to Amy’s archly voiced question. ‘She seems…a little young, to have engendered all this interest,’ he drawled with bored lack of interest as he took two glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and handed one of them to his cousin.

      ‘Young but brilliant,’ Amy assured him unreservedly as she sipped the chilled wine.

      ‘High praise indeed,’ Jonas mused; his cousin wasn’t known for her effusiveness when it came to her job as art critic for The Individual.

      Amy linked her arm with his encouragingly. ‘Come and look at some of her paintings.’

      Mac continued to chat lightly with a collector who had expressed a serious interest in buying one of the paintings on display, at the same time completely aware of Jonas Buchanan and his cousin as they moved slowly through the two-roomed gallery to view her work.

      It was impossible to tell from Jonas’s expression what he thought of her paintings, those blue eyes hooded as he studied each canvas, his mouth unsmiling as he murmured in soft reply to Amy Walters’s comments.

      He probably hated them, Mac accepted heavily as she politely tried to refer the flirtatious collector to Jeremy for the more serious discussion over price. No doubt Jonas preferred modern art as opposed to her more ethereal style and bright but slightly muted use of colour. No doubt he had only agreed to accompany his cousin this evening in the first place because he had known that by doing so he would undermine Mac’s confidence.

      He needn’t have bothered—Mac already hated all of this! She disliked the artificiality. Found the inane chatter tiresome. And she found herself especially irritated by the opportunistic collector she now realised was unobtrusively trying to place his hand on her bottom…

      Mac moved sharply away from him, her eyes snapping with indignation at the uninvited familiarity. ‘I’m sure that you’ll find Jeremy will be only too happy to help with any further questions you might have.’

      The middle-aged man chuckled meaningfully as he moved closer. ‘He isn’t my type!’

      Mac frowned her discomfort, at a complete loss as to how to deal with this situation without causing a scene. Something she knew was out of the question with a dozen or so reporters also present in the room.

      In their own individual ways Jeremy and Magnus had worked as hard on producing this exhibition this evening as Mac had. If she were to slap this obnoxious man’s face, as she was so tempted to do, then the headlines in some of tomorrow’s newspapers would read ‘Artist slaps buyer’s face!’ instead of any praise or constructive criticism on her actual work.

      She gave a shake of her head. ‘I really don’t think—’

      ‘Sorry to have been gone so long, darling,’ Jonas Buchanan interrupted smoothly as his arm moved firmly about Mac’s waist to pull her securely against his side. He gave the other man a challenging smile, those compelling blue eyes as hard as the sapphires they resembled. ‘It’s rather crowded in here, isn’t it?’

      ‘I—yes.’ The older and shorter man looked disconcerted by this unmistakable show of possessiveness. ‘I—If you will both excuse me? I’ll take your advice, Mac, and go and discuss the details with Jeremy.’ He turned to hurriedly disappear into the crowd.

      Mac found that she was trembling in reaction—and was totally at a loss to know if it was caused by the unpleasantness of the last minute or so, or because Jonas still held her so firmly against him that she was totally aware of the hard warmth of his powerful body…

      Jonas took one look down at Mac’s white face before his arm tightened about her waist and he turned her towards the entrance to the gallery. ‘Let’s get some air,’ he suggested as he all but lifted her off the floor to carry her across the room and out of the door into the icy cold night. Something he instantly realised was a mistake as he could see by the street-lamp how Mac had begun to shiver in the thin silk dress. ‘Here.’ He slipped off his jacket to place it about her shoulders, his thumbs brushing lightly against the warm swell of her breasts as he stood in front of her to pull the lapels together.

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