“Gareth seems fine,” Duncan said drolly.
“Did I get you into trouble?” That was the last thing she wanted to do.
“Come here.” Duncan pulled her into his arms, and she felt her stomach settle. “You didn’t get me into trouble.” His voice rumbled through her.
“I’m sorry,” Donna said. “I’ll talk to Mairi and make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
“Oh, don’t worry about your sister.” He sounded amused. “Keir’s taking care of her. After an hour drawing Stuart, she’ll be begging you to keep her away from here. I asked him to make sure she got the best view possible, for each and every pose.”
“Was Keir upset?”
He barked out a laugh. “This is the least of the things he has to deal with when it comes to your sister.” He turned them toward the lift. “Come on, you can keep me company while I finish up in my studio.”
It was a subdued Donna that followed him up to the top floor. Through the glass walls that made up the hen run—a passageway that ran over the gallery roofs to the east side of the building—Donna watched the lights of the city flicker in the darkness. It always took her breath away to see so many of them dancing in the night. For a small-town girl, seeing the vastness of the city sometimes made her feel as though she’d been swallowed whole.
Duncan led her to his studio, unlocked the door and pushed it wide. As she stepped inside, the glow of countless candles—almost as many as the lights of the city—met her. She stopped dead a
t the sight of a picnic blanket in the middle of the paint-splattered wooden floor. There was chocolate cake, strawberries, and champagne. But no roses. Those would always remind them both of his first wife, Fiona. Instead, there was a vase of tall sunflowers, their faces so rich in gold and orange that her fingers itched to touch.
Strong arms wound around her waist, and his chin rested on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I had to attend the staff meeting tonight. I’d planned on bringing you up here after your class. It isn’t anything special, but I wanted you to know that I’d thought of you.” He pressed a kiss to the sensitive crook of her neck. “You’re always on my mind, Angel.”
Tears welled in Donna’s eyes as she clung to her husband. She would never get used to having him all to herself. Some days, it felt like she’d been blessed beyond her capacity to handle it.
“It’s perfect,” she said.
He turned her in his arms and cradled her to him. “I thought that after we’d eaten and I’d plied you with champagne, that I could talk you into posing naked for me. I want to see you here, right in the center of my studio, and to immortalize that sight in paint. And then I want to remember it every time I come into this room.”
All she could do was whisper his name.
As his lips descended to hers, Donna thought that Valentine’s Day had turned out so much better than she’d expected it to. And the night had only just begun
Jack’s Next Step
This story takes place two years after Rage.
“Is she still crying?” Jack asked when he heard the window open behind him.
It was late at night, and he was sitting in his usual spot—on the roof outside his bedroom window. Since moving to London from the middle-of-nowhere, Scotland, Jack could often be found looking out over the city while he listened to the constant hum of all those people. Going from a town of about a hundred folk to a city the size of London had been a shock to his system. But not an unwelcome one. Life in London was a million times better.
“No, she stopped crying a wee while ago.” His stepdad, Callum, climbed out onto the roof beside him. “Now, she’s playing with her Barbies.” He cast a sideways glance at Jack, his eyes sparkling. “They’re torturing G.I. Joe for leaving them to go into the army.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. His five-year-old sister, Sophie, was resilient. She might not like that he was going away for army training, but she’d find a way to cope.
“You all packed?” Callum stretched out his legs in front of him and rested back on his elbows.
“Yep.” He grinned at the only man who’d ever been a father to him, even if had only been for the past few, far too short, years. “And then Mum repacked my bag.”
Callum shook his head, a smile on his face. “Did you redo it?”
“Had to. She doesn’t have a clue how to pack.”
“Tell me about it.”
They sat in silence, looking out over the rooftops of Chelsea. To one side of them, at the end of the garden, stood the old terraced building that housed the London office of Benson Security—the business Callum owned with his partners.
“Few years and I’ll be working in there with you.” Jack lifted his chin toward the building.
“I’m counting on it.”