He’d once asked Antonia why the look. ‘Life,’ she’d answered flatly. ‘She’s seeing life.’ Then she’d shuddered and walked away and never asked to see the painting again.
It had been an unexpected response from someone who refused to reveal any hint of embarrassment whenever she came up against her own nudity in one of the many other forms it had taken since Kranst had painted her. The signed prints, the calendars, greetings cards, etcetera, being the mediums by which the artist earned his real fame and fortune.
Only this painting upset her. Or was it the fact that he owned it that made her walk away? She refused to talk about it, and would be appalled to find out that to acquire it he’d had to convince his own mother to sell it to him.
The irony in that put a smile on his lips. ‘Stefan Kranst is a worthy investment,’ his mother had said. ‘He has a gift for catching the inner soul of his subject. This poor creature, for instance, is dying inside that beautiful outer casing. I feel for her. I feel for the artist because he so clearly loves the inner woman.’
The word dying was a disturbing description. He preferred the word empty, because it soothed some part of him to know that Antonia had never looked empty while she had been with him.
But his mother had admired the woman in the painting before she had known Antonia had moved in with him. Now all she saw was a woman willing to expose herself for all to see and who possessed no conscience about doing it. She also despaired, because her son had not yet assuaged what she saw as his obsession with both the painting and the woman.
The smile turned itself into a sigh, because he was aware he hadn’t assuaged anything where Antonia was concerned. Not his desire for the woman or his fascination with this painting.
Now Kranst was implying that there was another painting, like this one. Which meant what, exactly? That Kranst hadn’t painted out his obsession with Antonia? That this new painting was going to tell him things he didn’t want to know?
If that was Kranst’s motive, then Marco didn’t want to find out, but he knew he needed to. He didn’t want to go to Kranst’s damned private viewing, but he would have to go.
And he didn’t want to lose Antonia, but he had a horrible feeling he was going to lose her one way or another. By his own stupid actions or with the help of exterior forces like Kranst or his mother or the compelling pull of his sick father’s need.
The whisky no longer had any flavour. The painting of Antonia suddenly did nothing for him. He wanted the real woman. The one he had just hurt for no other reason than a need to reassure his own ego.
But she was still the warm and pliant woman probably lying fast asleep in his bed now, he then added, with yet another kind of smile as he left the room and closed the door behind him. Then, with a walk that was almost unwavering, he rid himself of his glass and went to join her.
The bedroom was in darkness, the bed a mere shadow on the other side of the room. Making as little noise as possible, he stepped into the bathroom, silently closed the door to spend a few minutes trying to shower off the effects of the whisky, before going back into the bedroom and over to the bed.
He meant to surprise her awake with some serious kisses in some very serious places. She would be sulking, of course, but he could deal with that. She would fight him too, he would expect nothing less. And he would grovel a little because she deserved to have him grovel—before he drowned himself in the sweetest pleasure ever created for a man to share with a woman.
Then he stopped and frowned when he found himself staring down at the smooth neatness of an untouched bed.
CHAPTER FIVE
A SHAFT of alarm went streaking down his backbone and massed deep in his abdomen. He spun, sharp eyes piercing the darkness to scan the room for a sign of her shadowy figure—curled in a chair, maybe, or standing by the window.
She wasn’t there. The alarm leapt up to attack his heartbeat. She wouldn’t, he told himself. She couldn’t have quietly dressed and left him while he’d been busy drowning his sorrows—could she?
No, he wouldn’t have it. He might have behaved like a rotten bastard, but Antonia would never just walk out and leave!
But then there was Kranst waiting on the sidelines, he remembered, and started moving, unsure, so damned unsure of himself that the uncertainty was actually making his legs feel hollow with fright!
It was the whisky, Marco told himself. But he was still going to kill her when he found her for scaring him like this, he vowed, as he began striding round the apartment opening doors and closing them until he came to the locked door belonging to one of the spare bedrooms.
Relief shuddered through him, followed by a shaft of white-hot fury at her whole attitude. Stubbornly forgetting his own bad behaviour. he banged hard on the door. ‘If you don’t unlock this door I’ll break it down!’ he shouted threateningly.