His Christmas Virgin. Carole Mortimer

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СКАЧАТЬ shook her head. ‘The police didn’t find anything that would directly implicate you, no,’ she admitted grudgingly. ‘But then, they wouldn’t have done, would they?’ she rallied. ‘You’re much more clever—’

       ‘Mac!’

      She blinked at the steely coldness Jonas managed to project into just that one word. Shivered slightly at the icy warning she could read in his expression.

      But she didn’t care how cold and steely Jonas was, the break-in had to have been carried out by someone who worked for him. Who else would have bothered, would have a reason to break into a building that, from the outside, appeared almost derelict?

      Jonas was hanging onto his own temper by a thread. Angered as much by the thought of someone having broken into Mac’s home at all, as at the accusations she was making about him being responsible for that break-in. She could so easily have been at home on Saturday evening. Could have been seriously hurt if she had disturbed the intruder.

      He frowned. ‘Did they take anything?’

      ‘Not that I can see, no. But—’

      ‘Let’s just stick to the facts, shall we, Mac?’ Jonas bit out, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw.

      She eyed him warily. ‘The facts are that I arrived home late on Saturday evening to find my studio completely wrecked. The only consolation—if it can be called that!—is that at least all of my most recent work was at the gallery that evening.’

      Jonas nodded. ‘So there was no real damage done?’

      Mac’s eyes widened indignantly. ‘My home, my privacy, was invaded!’

      And he could understand how upsetting that must have been for her. Must still be. But the facts were that neither Mac nor her property had actually come to any real harm.

      He moved to sit on the side of his desk. ‘At least you had the sense to call the police.’

      ‘I’m not a complete moron!’

      Jonas didn’t think that Mac was a moron at all. All evidence was to the contrary. ‘I don’t recall ever saying otherwise,’ he commented dryly.

      ‘You implied it, with your “at least” comment!’ She thrust her hands into the hip pockets of her denims, instantly drawing Jonas’s attention to the full and mature curve of her breasts beneath the fitted black sweater. Making a complete nonsense of how he had mistaken her for a young girl at their first meeting two days ago.

      She was different again today, he realised ruefully. No longer the waif or the femme fatale, but a beautiful and attractive woman in her late twenties. A man could never become bored with Mac McGuire when he would never know on any given day which woman he was going to meet!

      He sighed. ‘What conclusions did the police come to?’

      She shrugged those narrow shoulders. ‘They seem to think it was kids having fun.’

      Jonas grimaced. ‘Maybe they’re right—’

      ‘Kids don’t just break in, they steal things,’ Mac disagreed impatiently. ‘I have a forty-two-inch flat-screen television set, a new Blu-ray Disc player, a state-of-theart music system and dozens of CDs, and none of them were even touched.’

      Jonas looked intrigued. ‘So it was just your studio that was targeted?’

      ‘Just my studio?’ she repeated indignantly. ‘You just don’t understand, do you?’ she added as she turned away in disgust.

      The problem for Jonas was that he did understand. He understood only too well. Having seen Mac’s work for himself on Saturday evening, he knew exactly how important her studio was to her. It was the place where she created beauty deep from within her. Where she poured out her soul onto canvas. To have that vandalised, wrecked, was the equivalent of attacking the inner, deeply emotional Mac.

      His mouth firmed. ‘But you believe I’m responsible for what happened?’

      Mac turned to eye him warily as she once again heard that underlying chill in Jonas’s tone, the warning against repeating her earlier accusations.

      If Jonas wasn’t responsible, then who was? Not just who, but why? Nothing of value had been taken. In fact, the living-area part of her home hadn’t been touched. Only her studio had been vandalised. Surely whoever had done that would have to know her to realise that the studio was her heart and soul?

      Which, as he didn’t know her, surely ruled out Jonas Buchanan as being the person responsible for the damage? After all, they had only met twice before this morning, and neither of those occasions had been in the least conducive to them gaining any personal insights about each other. Jonas certainly couldn’t know how much Mac’s studio meant to her.

      She gave a weary shake of her head. ‘I don’t know what to believe any more…’

      ‘That’s something, I suppose,’ Jonas commented dryly. ‘Why don’t we start with the premise that neither I nor anyone I employ had anything to do with the break-in, and go from there?’ he suggested. ‘Who else could have reason for wanting to cause you this personal distress? Perhaps an artist rival, jealous of your success? Or maybe an ex-lover who didn’t go quietly?’ he added.

      Mac’s eyes narrowed. ‘Very funny!’

      Strangely, Jonas didn’t find his last suggestion in the least amusing. Especially when it was accompanied by vivid images of this woman’s naked body intimately entwined with another man, that ebony hair falling about the two of them like a silken curtain…

      He straightened abruptly and once again moved to sit behind his desk. ‘I really am busy this morning, Mac. In fact I have an appointment in a little under five minutes, so why don’t we meet up again at lunchtime and discuss this further?’

      Mac eyed him suspiciously. ‘You’re inviting me out to lunch?’ she repeated uncertainly, as if she were sure she must have misheard him.

      No, Jonas hadn’t been inviting her out to lunch. In fact, those earlier imaginings had already warned him that, the less he had to do with the volatile Mac McGuire, the better he would like it!

      ‘On second thoughts it would be far more sensible if you were to talk to my secretary on your way out and make an appointment to come back and see me at a time more convenient for both of us.’

      It would be more sensible, Mac agreed, but after arriving back late from the gallery on Saturday evening to find her studio in chaos, and then another hour spent talking to the police, to spend the rest of the weekend alternating between ranting at the mess and crying for the same reason, she wanted to sort this problem out once and for all. Today, if possible.

      Her parents, safely ensconced in their retirement bungalow home in Devon, where they also ran a B&B in the summer months, already worried that their move to the south of England had left her living alone in London. They would be horrified to learn that she’d had a break-in at her home.

      But was it a good idea for her to have lunch with Jonas Buchanan? Probably not, Mac acknowledged ruefully. Except that he had seemed sincere—no, furious, actually—in his denial that he was in any way responsible for СКАЧАТЬ