Billionaire Bad Boys of Romance 1(13)

He is crazy, I thought to myself. Only a crazy person would think this was acceptable. This was not the house of an artist, but the house of someone who grabbed everything they could think of that might have value and held onto it for some deep, psychological reason. No wonder he hadn't cared about the vase. He probably just grabbed it off a random table before running out the door in the morning.

“Um,” I said.

Malcolm Ward was oblivious to my sudden tension. “This way, this way.” He gestured to me to follow him. Taking a deep breath, I did so. He led me to the stairs, just down the short entryway, and we started climbing up to the upper floors. I caught a glimpse of the living room through a pair of French doors and it looked just as cluttered as the foyer. What had I gotten myself into?

The walls of the stairwell were also lined with photographs and paintings, but as we passed the second floor, they tapered off in intensity, until we finally reached the top floor. Here the walls were bare. Clean, white. Sane.

I licked my lips as he led me out of the claustrophobic stairwell and into the room beyond.

My mouth twisted as I took it in.

It was a huge room. Just enormous. It wasn't quite the length of the house, but it was close. And it had been set up as a photography studio.

Okay.

To my surprise, I found I relaxed a bit now that I was in a studio. I've never really had one of my own, but a creative space is powerful, and I was reassured simply by the trappings of someone sincere and interested in his work. With a sigh, I shed my coat and purse and moved aside while Malcolm strode to his lights and began to fiddle with them.

After about five minutes, I realized he had no idea what the hell he was doing.

What was going on here?

“Do you need some help?” I asked him without thinking. It came out sharp and kind of snide, and immediately I remembered Felicia's admonition to be less of a surly jackass. Oh well, already screwed the pooch on that one, I guess.

“Oh yes, if you could. I've never worked with these before.”

I sighed and walked toward him. “Then what are you doing with them? I thought you were an amateur photographer.”

“Amateur artist,” he said. “And I figured that if I was going to do photography I might as well have a studio.”

“A studio you've never used?”

He shrugged at me as I arrived by his side. He smelled the same as he did last night, but it was a riper scent now, as though he had been sweating slightly. The smell, rather than repulsing me, did weird things to my thoughts. I couldn't help but wonder what his sweat would taste like, if it would bead on his brow and run down his face as he strained and worked, doing... something.

Swallowing hard, I reached up to adjust the light for him. “This isn't that hard,” I said after a moment. “Are you just pretending to never have used this to get me to come over here?”

“No, of course not. It was installed just this morning.”

I paused, processing this. “Excuse me?” I said at last. “You had this studio installed... this morning?”

“Yes. I did.”

Taking a deep breath, I tried to control my irritation. “So you aren't an amateur photographer?”

He laughed, a rich, deep sound, as he leaned around me to see what I was doing with the various knobs on the back of the light. The heat of his body rolled into mine. “Of course I am. I'm a very new amateur.”

Don't think about how close he is, I commanded myself. “So you draw, then?”

“Not yet.”

“Paint? Sculpt?”

“Nope. Not yet.”

“So last night, when you told me you were an amateur artist, you were lying.” My voice was flat and angry. I hate being lied to.

I heard him breathe in sharply, and he moved back slightly. “No, I didn't lie,” he said. “The moment I saw you from across the room, I decided I wanted to be an artist so I could capture you in whatever way I could. I have decided to become a brilliant and tortured artist, inspired by you.”

I am not falling for this. I am not.

“Really,” I said flatly. “You just decided to be brilliant and tortured?”

“Yes. I am going to be a madman in touch with the pulse of the universe through my art, and you are my inspiration.”

My lips thinned down into a line. “Yeah, well, I guess it's easy to be a starving artist when you have billions of dollars.”

“Only one point four billion,” he said. “There are far more cells in the human body than I have dollars. It's all relative if you think about it.”#p#分页标题#e#

Only a rich shithead would say something like that. Anger rose in me, and I whirled around, meaning to confront him. But the sight of him stopped me in my tracks.