Lethal Affair. Jean Pichon Thomas

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СКАЧАТЬ had been fixed on Julio and the car. When she turned back to face Casey, she found him standing close to her. So close she could feel the heat of his hard body.

      She lifted her chin, meaning to ask him to back off. Mistake. He was looking down at her, his probing eyes meeting her own gaze with such intensity that she caught her breath.

      Green eyes. He had green eyes capable of registering a range of moods—humor, softness and, when they narrowed, a kind of tough, cold anger that could be dangerous. Could make a woman shiver. She had always been able to read those moods. But that had been then. Now she wasn’t at all sure.

      And something else. Casey’s right eyelid drooped a little. A sexy, bedroom kind of thing that never failed to fascinate women.

      Managing to breathe again, she asked him curtly, “What?”

      He didn’t answer her. He simply kept staring.

      “Casey, go away, will you? This commission is much too important to me to risk you screwing it up by your hanging around me like this.”

      He didn’t move.

      Voice shaky now, his presence unnerving her, she pleaded softly, “Please, just leave.”

      To her relief, he backed away from her silently. Only when he was a safe distance away did he speak.

      “If you should get into any trouble, Brenna, and need me, I’ll be here for you.”

      How was she supposed to reply to that? She didn’t know, not with that sober tone in his voice, the equally sober look now on his face. He waited for a few seconds, but when she had no response for him, he turned and started to walk away.

      Brenna found herself seized by a sudden, unexpected guilt. The same guilt she had suffered two years ago. Until now, she’d been able to convince herself she’d overcome that guilt, successfully put it behind her. Apparently not.

      She couldn’t prevent herself from calling after him. “Casey, wait.”

      He turned back, his dark eyebrows raised questioningly.

      Even though she had expressed it at the time, she felt the need to tell him again. “I—I’m sorry I hurt you when I broke our engagement,” she told him quietly. “But I hurt, too, Casey. I hurt, too.”

      “I know,” he said, his voice deep, husky.

      And that was all. His hand lifting in parting, he turned again and moved back up the beach the way he had come. He left her with the forlorn, unwanted memories of what they had once shared. The love he had lavished on her both physically and emotionally, and what it had cost her to sacrifice them.

      She went on gazing after his striking figure, damning him for reawakening all those potent feelings. Angry with herself, too, for her weakness, for still finding herself attracted to him.

      Enough of this.

      Facing her easel again, she considered the painting on it. It seemed to look back at her, demanding her renewed attention. Brenna complied, picking up a brush and her palette, prepared to attack the canvas. This time with a fierceness determined to shut out the image of Casey McBride.

      * * *

      The sprawling villa, Moorish in style, was perched on an elevated point of land overlooking the sea on one side. Stretched below on the other side were the winking lights of Georgetown, St. Sebastian’s capital and only city.

      Brenna thought how different the setting here was by day. The stuccoed white walls of the villa glared with pride in the tropic sun. But now, at night, those same walls, with their arches and plastered domes, were subdued into something that resembled a soft, shadowy gray.

      She was looking at the lamplit boats bobbing in the harbor that fronted Georgetown when Marcus spoke to her.

      “How was your day?” he asked her in that gentle voice that had what she felt was a hypnotic quality to it. “Pleasant, I hope.”

      They were having a late dinner on the open terrace. The perfect meal consisted, among other dishes, of pepper pot soup, an island favorite, and freshly caught, baked grouper.

      “It was,” she said, meeting his gaze across the candles that glowed in their hurricane globes on the table.

      His hair gleamed in that same light. Pure silver hair, without a touch of any other color in it, framed his patrician face. Brenna supposed most people would describe that face as distinguished. It certainly reflected the breeding of an impressive ancestry. And even in his late fifties as he was, with some noticeable lines, Marcus Bradley could be called handsome.

      His blue eyes, however, had the clarity of a much younger man’s. Observant eyes that, at the moment, were watching her with a sharpness that made her slightly uncomfortable. Made her turn the direction of the conversation to a subject that would distract him from what she was beginning to suspect was an interest in her that was more personal than just her art.

      “So how was your day?” she inquired brightly. “You were going to spend it at the resort’s building site, weren’t you?”

      “I was and did. It’s coming along, although like most large building projects, it has its problems.”

      “Oh? What are they?”

      “Nothing that you’d find particularly interesting, I’m afraid.”

      She knew how invested he was in his resort, both financially and emotionally, and she wanted to keep him discussing it now. “I’d love to see the place, Marcus.”

      “I’ll have to take you there sometime, but right now it’s in a pretty rough state for any touring. Let’s get back to your own day. How is the painting coming?”

      Her effort had failed. “I think you’ll like the scene I’m working on when it’s finished. It’s still in a rough state, too. Traditional, of course, but that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

      “Yes. A seascape, I believe?”

      “Basically. On location from one of the beaches.”

      “I see.”

      The blue eyes continued to search her as she briefly described the scene for him. This was growing awkward. She had the distinct feeling he knew she was withholding something from him, and that he also knew what that something was.

      Marcus nodded slowly when she was finished. Then, stabbing a forkful of fish, he said smoothly, casually, “I hear you had a visitor on the beach.”

      Casey. He’d learned about Casey. There could only be one source of information for that. Julio had reported it to him. Brenna had insisted the driver was not a watchdog when Casey implied he was just that. But now she wasn’t so certain that Julio’s employer hadn’t planted him to specifically spy on her.

      “Just a tourist wandering by and stopping to look at what I was painting,” she said with what she hoped was a believable, innocent explanation. “I’m used to it. It’s a common occurrence when artists are painting on location.”

      Brenna regretted the necessity of her lie, but she was afraid that СКАЧАТЬ