Sinful Temptation (7 page)

“First I need to get this wall primed and repainted. Do you have supplies?”

He jerked his head toward a corner where, sure enough, there was a worktable loaded with cans of paint, primer, rolls, brushes, drop cloths and anything else she might possibly need.

“You just let me know if you need anything. The boss told me to put myself at your disposal.”

At this mention of Tony, her heart skittered. “Where is he?”

Despite all her best efforts, there seemed to be a plaintive note in her voice, as though Tony had disappointed her by not being here as part of her welcome committee. Which was ridiculous.

Mickey’s shrewd gaze narrowed. “He’s not here. Why do you ask?”

“He might have some instructions for me.”

“Like I said—if you need anything, I should get it for you.” He shrugged. “I’m not even sure how much the boss will be here in the next couple of weeks.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Oh.”

Mickey waited, a wicked glint of amusement shining in his eyes.

Talia gritted her teeth. “And why’s that?”

“He’s got an auction house to run back in the city, doesn’t he?”

Yeah, but she’d hoped—

Don’t go there, Talia.

“And where’s everyone else? Sandro, Skylar and his son—Nikolas, isn’t it?”

“They took off for D.C. Sandro’s starting a new job down at the Pentagon. They need to pick out a house, don’t they?”

There went another tiny stab of disappointment. She’d hoped to meet Tony’s family. “Oh.”

The muffled bleat of a cell phone startled Mickey. Reaching inside a pocket on the side of his wheelchair, he pulled out his phone and hit a button.

“Yeah?” he barked.

Was it Tony? The mere possibility made Talia’s idiotic heart race with excitement, which was irritating.

Maybe it was Tony. So what? Big deal.

Look at the mural, girl.

She did, trying to appear engrossed. Her eardrums, meanwhile, strained so hard for any remote sound of Tony’s voice that it was a wonder they didn’t rupture.

“Yeah,” Mickey was saying. “Yeah. Okay. Sure. Okay. Got it.”

She moved farther down the wall, studying another portion of the mural.

“Okay,” Mickey concluded. “Later.”

Working hard on her nonchalant act, which needed some serious practice, Talia turned back around, brows raised, in case it had been Tony and he had some message for her.

“So…”

“So. Where were we?” Mickey scratched his head. “Oh, yeah. Just let me know if you need anything. And no one expects you to start until Monday, so don’t go working overtime. There’s no bonus for trying to be the busiest beaver around.”

“Good to know.” She paused, losing the battle with her curiosity. “So, ah…any idea when Tony will be back?”

His eyes agleam with that annoying amusement—what the hell was so funny about a simple question?—Mickey held the phone up and waved it at her.

“Funny you should ask. That was him on the phone. He’s on his way back.” He winked, a wicked grin inching across his face. “If I’d known you were so interested in him, I would have told him just now. But don’t worry, I’ll be sure to mention it the next time I see him.”

To her further aggravation, the death glare she shot his way only made him chuckle.

After a delicious dinner of fresh lobster, pasta salad and strawberry shortcake with Mickey in the kitchen—he turned out to be a great cook and even better company, keeping her laughing with stories from basic training and his tour in Afghanistan, where he’d served with Tony and Sandro—Talia went upstairs and organized her workstation near the mural. She lingered there for hours, telling herself that she was trying to get lost in the project, the way she always did, and that it had nothing to do with Tony’s eventual arrival and wanting to see him.

Lies. All lies.

Still, she gave the busywork the old college try. She took pictures of the existing mural, studying it from every angle and imagining what she would change, and what she would keep the same. She set up the drop cloth and several spotlights, to make it easier to work late into the evening. She made preliminary sketches. She looked at colors. She studied books on mythology that she’d brought with her, seeking inspiration.

She waited for Tony.

At eleven twenty-eight, when Mickey had long retired to the caretaker’s cottage and the house was dark and quiet, she heard the unmistakable roar of a car’s engine outside. She froze, her body tight with anticipation.

Well, this was a problem. She had a choice. She could do the smart thing, which involved turning out the lights, gathering up her books and sketches, and tiptoeing down the hall to her bedroom, where she could escape before Tony ever came upstairs. Or she could do the self-destructive thing and wait for him.

The options were not equally matched. In fact, the idea of going to bed without seeing Tony first was the rough equivalent of visiting the Louvre for the food in the cafeteria without seeing the
Mona Lisa:
unthinkable.

Anyway, the decision was already out of her hands.

The front door opened and closed with a quiet click. His footsteps trailed off into the kitchen, where she heard the distant opening and closing of the refrigerator. Then he was back, striding up the stairs and appearing in front of her with all that masculine energy humming around him.

“Hi,” she said, dropping one of her brushes on the floor and hastily snatching it up again.

“You made it.”

“I made it.” Feeling flustered and clumsy, as though she’d suddenly acquired an additional pair of hands and didn’t know what to do with them, she grabbed one of the books she’d been perusing and held it. “You have a beautiful home.”

“Thanks. Did Mickey feed you?”

“Very well. He’s quite the character, by the way.”

Tony unleashed that grin on her, making dimples bracket his cheeks and a slow curl of awareness tighten in her belly. “You have no idea.” He looked over her progress thus far, frowning. “You’re burning the midnight oil. I hope you don’t think I’m that kind of a slave driver.”

She shook her head. “I wanted to get started. I’m really excited—”

He nodded with no real interest, then took a step away from her, toward another wing of the house. Worse, he raised a hand to cover the beginnings of his yawn.

This rudeness, on top of his barely speaking to her at the auction house earlier, was starting to really tick her off. Which was absurd, because she’d told the man that their relationship was nothing special, and she really needed to stick to that position.

Still, her feelings were hurt. “Am I keeping you awake?”

“Sorry. It’s been a long day. I’m off to bed.”

So he was going then. Good. Great. That was for the best.

“Tony,” she blurted.

He hesitated, looking back over his shoulder. “Yes?”

“I, ah, want to make sure you really want me to do this.”

One dark brow quirked. “Do what?”

Once again, she floundered, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. Something about receiving the full impact of all that intensity rendered her slow and half-witted. To add insult to injury, another bout of the clumsies hit her just then. For no particular reason, the book in her hand slipped, and she bobbled it to keep it from hitting the floor.

Did he really want her to stay here, in his house?

Did he really want to treat her with this cool indifference?

Did he really want to infect her mind the way he did?

Trapped, as usual, behind her fear, she asked none of those questions.

“The, ah, mural,” she said. “Are you sure you want me to paint over it? A good conservationist could probably—”

His face closed off, telling her she’d have a better chance convincing him to hire a chimp with a box of crayons to work on his precious mural.

“I’m positive.” His expression was dark and unreadable. “You’re exactly the person I need.”

Chapter 5

T
his plan of his, Tony privately conceded the next morning, might have a kink or two in it.

Which, given his attraction to Talia, shouldn’t come as any major surprise. Still, it did. Or maybe his turmoil was simply a sign of how bad he had it for the woman.

Damn woman.

The plan was, of course, brilliant in its simplicity. He had lured Talia here, to his beautiful seaside home, with an offer he knew she as an artist couldn’t refuse. They would get to know each other under the safe and nonthreatening (he hoped) pretext of working together. They would grow closer without him pressuring her in any way and he would give her the space she seemed to need. Their relationship would deepen over the course of the project, culminating in a romantic relationship that would include enthusiastic and, if he was lucky, frequent sex.

The end, right?

Not exactly.

For one thing, he hadn’t factored in the difficulty of sleeping in the same house with Talia. The fact that she was under his roof, sleeping in one of his beds, within walking distance, was really doing a job on his mind.

Really ate away at him. Really made him crazy.

Then there was the whole giving-her-space thing, which was, let’s face it, a hell of a lot easier said than done. Why did she need space? How much space was appropriate? What if he ate breakfast when she was eating breakfast? Was that a violation of the space rule?

Thus far, he thought he’d done an excellent job of giving her space.

Hadn’t he let Marcus handle the whole auction house visit even though Tony had been dying to spend the time with her? Hadn’t he hustled himself off to bed last night rather than linger, talking with her into the wee hours, which was what he wanted to do? Hadn’t he feigned minimal interest in her?

Oh, yes, he had, and there was more.

Hadn’t he let her eat breakfast alone in the dining room this morning? Hadn’t he exiled himself to the weight room off his bedroom, pumping iron until his muscles burned? Hadn’t he tried to ignore the scenery out his weight-room window, his spectacular view of the beach, including a spectacular view of Talia trying to paddleboard?

But he’d ended up watching her anyway.

She’d been a tiny figure against the sand, wearing a black string-bikini bottom and, unfortunately, a black long-sleeved skin shirt. The ensemble also included a purple swim cap, which was perfect for her. The distance was a problem, but he’d been able to see the shapely length of her brown legs, the curve of her hips and her exceptional heart-shaped ass.

A really great ass.

The image of her laughing and splashing in the waves as she tried to get her balance and actually paddle on the board further ate its way under his skin. Talia was out there on his beach—with Chesley the dog, by the way—having fun.

Without him.

But, hey, he was giving her space. That was part of the plan.

Why was that part of the plan? He couldn’t remember.

Anyway, he’d finished his weight lifting, come down to the beach and was now ready to commence the second part of his usual physical fitness routine, which was a jog along the beach. And here was that whole giving-her-space thing again, rising up to bite him in the ass. Should he pretend he didn’t see her over there in the water? Just head on his way? Would that be rude?

Could he manage it?

No. He really didn’t think so.

From the first second he’d laid eyes on Talia, he’d been unable to manage his attraction to her, which had always been startling and undeniable. He remembered the day he met her like it was ten minutes ago.

That afternoon, as a favor to Sandro, who’d had a conflicting meeting, Tony had swung by Talia’s studio to pick Nikolas up after his painting lesson. Arriving a few minutes early, he knocked on the door and waited, his mind full of the artists he’d been cataloguing at the auction house—one-eared eccentrics with red hair, or, alternatively dark-haired eccentrics with handlebar mustaches and Spanish accents.

He hadn’t expected the door to swing open and reveal a laughing, gray-eyed woman who would change his life.

He froze, his hand still raised midknock.

She was beautiful, with a dimpled smile and white teeth, light brown skin and those sparkling eyes that seemed to contain all the warmth and energy of the sun. She was also decked out like a woman from ancient Athens, complete with white toga slung over one bare shoulder, a white ceramic pot cradled in the crook of an elbow and a wreath of green leaves perched atop her cascading tumble of black curls. Her body was lush with breasts and hips that curved to perfection.

His brain stalled out, and his thoughts fluttered away like breeze-blown confetti.

She waited, brows on the rise, as though his drop-jawed silence amused her.

“I, ah,” he began.

“You weren’t expecting a goddess to answer the door?”

He heard the swell of repressed laughter in her voice. “No. I was expecting Salvador Dali, to tell you the truth.”

She shrugged. “I don’t paint like him, either. Sorry to disappoint.”

She was a lot of things, but a disappointment wasn’t one of them. “I’m not sure I have the right place.”

“I’m not, either. Who the heck are you?”

“Antonios Davies.”

“What’re you doing here?”

“I’m picking up Nikolas Davies. My nephew.”

“Well, then you have the right place. You’d better come in.”

She swung the door open, admitting him into a studio that was full of easels, paintings, light and the smell of turpentine. From a back room came the chatter of young voices and the splash of water.

“They’re just getting cleaned up,” she informed him, setting her pot on the nearest table and stretching across it to straighten up a couple of bins of paint tubes. Her round ass, he noticed, was a thing of beauty. “He should be out in a second.”

“Great.” Tony was engaged, and he hadn’t so much as looked twice at a woman since he’d put that ring on Skylar’s finger, but getting this woman’s name suddenly seemed important. “Should I call you Helen of Troy, or…?”

“I prefer Athena, actually.”

She laughed again, and the sound was so contagious that he found himself grinning at her and easing closer, as though he wanted to reach out and touch her joie de vivre. He wasn’t normally a grinner, especially with complete strangers, but there was something elusive but significant about her that encouraged laughter and easy banter. If she gave him another thirty seconds, he’d probably be telling her the story of his life.

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense. What’s your name?”

“I’m Talia. I’m the artist and teacher. I’m also today’s model, since the one I hired for the students didn’t show up.”

“Models,” he muttered. “You can never trust them.”

“That’s a sad fact of life, isn’t it?”

“So does Nik have any talent? Tell the truth.”

“He’s got a lot of talent. Wait’ll you see his charcoal sketch of me. You’ll love it.”

“We’ll see.”

“‘We’ll see’? I have a skeptic on my hands. Do you doubt his talent, or my skill as a teacher?”

“No comment.”

“And what do you know about art, pray tell? Do you paint?”

“I appreciate. I studied art history in school.”

“No way. Where’d you go?”

“West Point.”

“Get outta here. There’s no art at West Point.”

“There is art at West Point,” he assured her.

“So what do you do now?”

“I’m in the army.”

For the first time, her smile dimmed. “What are you doing roaming around with the general public, then?”

“I’m on leave. That’s allowed.”

“But—”

“I’m going back to Afghanistan next month.”

That killed her smile outright but, to her credit, she recaptured it pretty quickly. “Back? So you know how to stay safe, right?”

“Let’s hope so.”

“How long will you be over there?”

He tried to keep his voice light, but that was hard with the shadow of war doing its best to block out the sun. “Not long. A year.”

“I’ve never really met a soldier. I guess I don’t travel in military circles.”

“You’ve met one now, haven’t you?”

“I’m going to write to you.” She hesitated, seeming to think better of this plan. “Or do you have too many pen pals already?”

This announcement infused him with an unreasonable and inappropriate shot of happiness. Too late, he remembered Sky and felt a stab of guilt, which he shoved aside. It wasn’t as if he was going to date this art teacher. A few letters while he was overseas. What could happen?

And honesty was always the best policy.

“Not many. Just my fiancée.” It seemed important to get that out there, for the record. Or maybe he just needed to remind himself that this woman could never be anything more to him than a friend.

“Will she mind? Tell her I’m not trying to steal you away or anything. I have a boyfriend.”

He stared at her.

For one bewildering second, before he caught himself, he tried to decide which possibility was worse: that she spent her nights rolling around in bed with some faceless but clearly lucky dude, or that she was oblivious to what he considered some pretty serious electricity crackling between them.

But, again—he was engaged.

This woman, and any other interesting woman who might happen across his path in life, was therefore off-limits.

On the other hand, he could always use a new pen pal.

“I don’t think she’ll mind,” he told her.

“Great.” Beaming, she grabbed pen and paper from the table and handed them to him. “I’ve never been a pen pal before. I’ll be great. You’ll see. I’ll take my responsibilities very seriously.”

He’d lapsed into grinning again—her smile was very contagious—but he paused to fix her with a stern look before he wrote down his information.

“See that you do. It’s very bad manners to get a soldier’s hopes up and then never write.”

“I won’t let you down.”

Talia hadn’t let him down, ever.

Until that terrible day when she’d rejected his final letter.

Why had she—

“What’s up, Cap?”

“Hey, Mick,” Tony said automatically, not fully registering Mickey’s presence. “What’s up?”

“Well, I was thinking about taking some lunch down to the beach.”

The thing was, Tony reminded himself, Talia was afraid of something, and he needed to respect that. Give her time. See if she’d open up—

“Are you listening to me, Cap? ’Cause I get the feeling you’re not listening to anything I’m saying.”

—But what if she never opened up? What if she kept all those walls between them? What then? It wasn’t as if these art projects were going to last forever—

“And I’m thinking that I could start babbling a bunch of nonsense right now and you’d never notice, Cap. For example, what if I said the Taliban is coming up the lane right now? What do you think? What about if I said this giant-ass meteor is heading right for our beach and we’ll be dead in ten minutes? Would you hear me then? What if I said that I think that woman has your panties in a bunch? What about that?”

—And what if she finished both projects and they never came any closer than they were now? Huh? What then, genius? And what if—

“What about this, Cap? What if I say her name a few dozen times? I think I’ll try that. Talia. Talia… Talia… Talia.”

The name registered with Tony’s frazzled brain.

With a fair amount of difficulty, he yanked his gaze away from where Talia was now tumbling off her paddleboard for the thirty-third time, and turned to face Mickey. The smartass was sitting there in his chair with a picnic basket in his lap, grinning up at him with that smug expression that could only mean he’d gotten the best of him. Again.

“Are you trying to be funny, Mick?”

Chuckling, Mickey ran a hand over his stubble. “I’d say I was being funny. Between you and your lovesick brother, I don’t think there’s a clear brain among the Davies men these days—you know what I’m saying?”

This assessment did nothing to sweeten Tony’s mood. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m thinking of just ignoring it.”

“And to think they put your sorry ass on the front in charge of a bunch of men,” Mickey said sadly, shaking his head. “What’s the army come to?”

“Yeah. Okay.” Tony did a lunge or two, trying to look as though he’d been engrossed in his prejog stretches. “I’m doing my run. I leave you here to your nonsense. Maybe the seagulls need a laugh.”

“Actually, Cap, I have a better idea. Why don’t you take this basket on down to the beach and have lunch with Talia? Since you’ll be thinking about her anyway, you might as well give her a little face-to-face action.”

Tony hesitated.

This proposal did have some appeal. He could run his ass up and down the beach until he dropped from exhaustion, or he could eat some of Mickey’s excellent cooking—he’d recently taken some professional cooking classes and had taken over cooking duties at the house—in front of sparkling waves with his favorite person in the world.