Because You Are Mine Part I (3 page)

She entered a magical place.

The luxury of the fabrics and furniture were obvious, but despite the richness, the entryway managed to convey a welcome—an austere welcome, perhaps, but a welcome nonetheless. She caught a quick glimpse of herself in an antique mirror. Her long reddish blonde hair was hopelessly windblown, and her cheeks were stained pink. She’d like to think the color was from the wind but worried the effect came from being with Ian Noble.

Then she noticed the artwork, and she forgot everything else. She wandered down a wide hallway that was also a gallery, her mouth hanging open as she stared at painting after painting, some of them new to her, some of them masterworks that sent a jolt of exhilaration through her to see firsthand.

She paused next to a miniature sculpture set on a column, a very fine replica of a renowned piece of ancient Greek art. “I’ve always loved Aphrodite of Argos,” she murmured, her gaze detailing the exquisite facial features and the graceful twist of the naked torso miraculously carved into hard alabaster.

“Have you?” he asked, sounding intent.

She nodded, overwhelmed by wonder, and continued walking.

“I just acquired that one several months ago. It wasn’t easy to get,” he said, starting her out of her ecstatic amazement.

“I adore Sorenburg,” she said, referring to the artist who had created the painting before which they stood. She turned to look at him, suddenly realizing that several minutes had passed and that she’d wandered like a sleepwalker deeper into the hushed depths of his condominium without invitation, and that he’d allowed her intrusion without comment. She now stood in a parlor of sorts decorated with decadently rich fabrics of yellow, pale blue, and dark brown.

“I know. You mentioned it in your personal statement in the application for the contest.”

“I can’t believe you like expressionism.”

“Why can’t you believe it?” he asked, his low voice making her ears prickle and goose bumps rise along her neck. She glanced up at him. The painting she referred to was hung above a deep cushioned velvet couch. He stood closer than she’d realized, so lost had she become in wonderment and pleasure.

“Because . . . you picked my painting,” she said weakly. Her gaze skimmed over his body. She swallowed thickly. He’d unbuttoned his overcoat. A clean, spicy smell of soap filtered into her nose. A heavy, hot pressure settled in her sex. “You seem to like . . .
order
so much,” she tried to explain, her voice just above a whisper.

“You’re right,” he said. A shadow seemed to come over his bold features. “I do abhor sloppiness and disorder. But Sorenburg isn’t about that.” He glanced at the painting. “It’s about making meaning from chaos. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Her mouth hung open as she stared at his profile. She’d never heard Sorenburg’s work described so succinctly.

“Yes, I would,” she said slowly.

He gave her a small smile. His full lips had to be his most compelling feature, aside from his eyes. And his firm chin. And his incredible body—

“Do my ears deceive me,” he murmured, “Or is that a note of respect I hear in your tone, Francesca?”

She turned to stare sightlessly at the Sorenburg. Her breath burned in her lungs. “You deserve respect in this. You have impeccable taste in art.”

“Thank you. I happen to agree.”

She risked a sideways glance. He was staring at her with those dark-angel eyes.

“Let me take your jacket,” he said, extending his hands.

“No.” Her cheeks heated when she heard how abrupt she’d sounded. Self-consciousness slammed into her haze of enthrallment. His hands remained extended.

“I will take it.”

She opened her mouth to rebuke him but paused when she noticed his hooded gaze and slightly raised eyebrows.

“The woman wears the clothes, Francesca. Not the other way around. That’s the first lesson I’ll teach you.”

She gave him a fake glance of exasperation and shrugged out of her jean jacket. The air felt cool next to her bare shoulders. Ian’s gaze felt warm. She straightened her spine.

“You say that like you plan on teaching me more lessons,” she muttered, handing him the jacket.

“Perhaps I do. Follow me.”

He hung up her coat, then led her down the gallerylike hallway before turning down a narrower one that was dimly lit with brass sconces. He opened one of many tall doorways, and Francesca stepped into the room. She expected to see yet another room filled with wonders, but instead entered a large, narrow space that ran the length of a row of floor-to-ceiling windows. He didn’t turn on the light. He didn’t need to. The room was illuminated by the skyscrapers and the reflective lights of them in the black river. She walked to the windows without speaking. He came to stand next to her.

“They’re alive, the buildings . . . some more than others,” she said in a hushed voice after a moment. She gave him a rueful glance and was awarded with a smile. Embarrassment flooded her. “I mean, they
seem
like it. I’ve always thought so. Each one of them has a soul. At night, especially . . . I can feel it.”

“I know you can. That’s why I chose your painting.”

“Not because of perfectly straight lines and precise reproductions?” she asked shakily.

“No. Not because of that.”

His expression went flat when she smiled. Unexpected pleasure filled her. He
did
understand her art after all. And . . . she’d given him what he wanted.

She stared at the magnificent view. “I understand what you meant,” she said, her voice vibrating with excitement. “I haven’t taken any architecture classes now for a year and a half, and I’ve been so busy with my art classes I haven’t kept up with journals, or I would have known. Still . . . shame on me for not seeing it until now,” she said, referring to the two most prominent buildings that lined the black-and-gold-speckled shimmering river. She shook her head in wonderment. “You made Noble Enterprises a modern, streamlined version of a Chicago architecture classic. It’s like a contemporary version of the Sandusky. Brilliant,” she said, referring to the echo that the Noble Enterprises building made of the Sandusky Building, a Gothic masterpiece. Noble Enterprises was just like Ian—a bold, strong-lined, elegant, and modern version of some Gothic ancestor. She smiled at the thought.

“Most people don’t see the effect until I show them this view,” he said.

“It’s genius, Ian,” she said feelingly. She gave him a questioning glance, noticing the glints in his eyes caused by the lights from the skyscrapers. “Why didn’t you brag about it to the press?”

“Because I didn’t do it for the press. I did it for my own pleasure, just like I do most things.”

She felt trapped by his gaze and couldn’t respond. Wasn’t that a particularly selfish thing to say? Why, then, did his words cause that heavy sensation to grow at the juncture of her thighs?

“But I am pleased that you’re pleased,” he said. “I have something else to show you.”

“Really?” she asked breathlessly.

He merely nodded once. She followed him, glad he couldn’t see the color in her cheeks. He led her to a room almost completely surrounded by filled, dark walnut bookcases. He paused inside the door, watching her reaction as she glanced around curiously, her gaze finally landing and latching onto the painting above the fireplace. She froze. She walked to it as if in a trance and studied one of her own pieces.

“You bought this from Feinstein?” she whispered, referring to one of her roommates—Davie Feinstein, who owned a gallery in Wicker Park. The piece she was staring at was the first painting of hers he’d sold. She’d insisted upon giving it to Davie as a deposit on her share of the rent a year and a half ago, when she’d been broke before they’d moved into the city.

“Yes,” Ian said, his voice telling her he stood just behind her right shoulder.

“Davie never mentioned—”

“I asked Lin to procure it for me. The gallery probably never knew who actually bought it.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat as her gaze ran over the depiction of the solitary man walking down the middle of a Lincoln Park street in the dark early morning hours, his back to her. The surrounding high-rises seemed to gaze down at him with a detached aloofness, as immune to human pain as he appeared to be to his own suffering. His opened overcoat streamed out behind him. His shoulders hunched against the wind, and his hands were jammed deep in his jean pockets. Every line of his body exuded power, grace, and the resigned sort of loneliness that hardens into strength and resolve.

She loved this piece. It’d killed her to give it up, but rent must be paid.

“
The Cat That Walks By Himself,
” Ian said from behind her, his voice sounding gruff.

She smiled and laughed softly at hearing him say the title she’d given the painting. “‘I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’ I painted this in my sophomore year of undergrad. I was taking an English literature class at the time, and we were studying Kipling. The phrase seemed to fit somehow . . .”

Her voice trailed off as she stared at the solitary figure in the painting, her entire awareness sharply focused on the man who stood behind her. She glanced back at Ian and smiled. It embarrassed her to realize tears burned in her eyes. His nostrils flared slightly, and she turned abruptly, wiping her cheeks. It had touched something deep inside her, seeing her painting in the depths of his home.

“I think I’d better get going,” she said.

Her heart started to do a drumroll in her ears in the heavy silence that followed.

“Perhaps it’s best,” he said eventually. She turned and gave a sigh of relief—or was it regret—when she saw his tall form exiting the room. She followed him, murmuring a thanks when he held up her jean jacket once they reached the entryway. He resisted when she tried to take it from him. She swallowed and turned her back to him, letting him put it on her. His knuckles brushed against the skin of her shoulders. She repressed a shudder when he slid his hand beneath her long hair, skimming her nape in the process. He gently drew her hair out of the jacket and smoothed it over her back. She couldn’t repress a shiver and suspected he felt it beneath his hand.

“Such a rare color,” he murmured, still stroking her hair, sending the alert status of her nerves up another notch.

“I can have my driver Jacob take you home,” he said after a moment.

“No,” she said, feeling foolish for not turning around to speak. She couldn’t move. She was paralyzed. Every cell in her body prickled with awareness. “My friend is going to pick me up in a little while.”

“Will you come here to paint?” he asked, his deep voice echoing just inches from her right ear. She stared in front of her, unseeing.

“Yes.”

“I’d like you to start on Monday. I’ll have Lin provide you with an entry card and password to the elevator. Your supplies will be ready for you when you come.”

“I can’t come every day. I have class—mostly in the morning—and I waitress from seven to close several days a week.”

“Come whenever you can. The point is, you’ll come.”

“Yes, all right,” she managed through a constricted throat. He hadn’t removed his hand from her back. Could he feel her heart throbbing?

She had to get out of there.
Now.
She was way out of her depth.

She lurched toward the elevator, pushing a button on the control panel hastily. If she’d thought he’d try to touch her again, she’d thought wrong. The sleek elevator door slid open.

“Francesca?” he said as she hurried inside.

“Yes?” she asked, turning.

He stood with his hands behind his back, the posture causing his suit jacket to open, revealing a shirt-draped lean abdomen, narrow hips, a silver belt buckle, and . . . everything beneath it.

“Now that you have some financial security, I would prefer you didn’t wander the streets of Chicago in the early morning hours in order to find your inspiration. You never know what you might encounter. It’s dangerous.”

Her mouth dropped open in stunned amazement. He stepped forward and pushed a button on the panel, causing the doors to slide closed. The last glimpse she had of him was his gleaming blue-eyed stare in an otherwise impassive face. Her heartbeat escalated to a roar in her ears.

She’d painted
him
four years ago. That’s what he was telling her—that he knew she’d observed him walking the dark, lonely streets in the dead of the night while the rest of the world slumbered, warm and content in their beds. Francesca hadn’t realized the identity of her inspiration at the time, nor had he probably known he was being observed until he saw the painting, but there could be no doubt of it.

Ian Noble
was the cat who walked by himself.

And he’d wanted her to know it.

Chapter 2

He managed to fully put her out of his mind for a full ten days. He traveled to New York for a two-night stay and finalized the acquisition of a computer program that would enable him to begin a new network that combined social aspects and a unique gaming application. He made his regular monthly visit to his condominium in London. While he’d been in Chicago, meetings and work had kept him at the office until far past midnight. By the time he’d reached the penthouse, the interior was dim and silent.

It wasn’t
entirely
accurate to say that he’d kept Francesca Arno fully out of his mind, though.
Or honest,
Ian conceded sternly to himself as he rode the elevator to his penthouse Wednesday afternoon. His awareness of her would come to him in quick, powerful flashes, penetrating his focus on the details of the everyday world. Mrs. Hanson, his housekeeper, innocently gave him updates during her typical banter about how her weekly projects were going in the house. He’d been pleased to learn that the elderly Englishwoman had befriended Francesca, inviting her to the kitchen occasionally to join her for tea. He’d been glad to hear Francesca was becoming comfortable in his home, and then asked himself why it mattered one way or another. The painting was the only thing he wanted, and surely the working conditions were adequate for that.