As he parked up in front of the door, Sia was almost halfway out of the car before it had stopped. ‘I’m going to stretch my legs before dinner,’ she said with a smile on her lips and in her eyes.
‘It’s not in the garden,’ he teased of the painting’s location.
She shrugged and turned, walking away. ‘But it is here somewhere,’ she called over her shoulder.
Sebastian didn’t see the way the smile slowly loosened on her lips, the way that Sia steeled her shoulders and spine before removing her mobile phone from her clutch, the way her jaw clenched as she checked the fourth message from Bonnaire’s on her answering machine.
‘Ms Keating. This is Michael. We’ve been trying to reach you for quite a number of days now. We have some questions to put to you and we would like to pin down a date for you to come in and speak with our investigative team. Especially given the company you have been keeping since your suspension. We expect to hear from you in due course.’
Her hand shaking, Sia deleted the messages before turning off her phone and slipping it back into her bag. They had suspended her for thirty days. She had been away less than half that. She had five days left of the fourteen that Sebastian had given them and her heart raced at the thought that time was running out. No matter how much she might want to, she couldn’t hide out here for ever.
Dressed in Sebastian’s shirt and an old pair of jeans she’d found in her suitcase, on bare feet Sia made her way out into the garden to a table laden with coffee, croissants and fruit. Smiling at the half-eaten croissant and half-drunk coffee Sebastian must have consumed in haste before heading out to see Maria an hour ago, Sia unfolded the English newspaper he insisted on having delivered to the estate for the duration of her visit.
Sinking into her seat, she poured herself a coffee, picked up the cup with both hands and inhaled the rich aroma as the heat from the china warmed her palms. It was already hot and barely into double digits, today was going to be...
Her thoughts trailed off as she caught sight of the image dominating the front page of the newspaper. A large black and white photo showed a handsome couple, heads bent, as the man stretched out his hand as if both protecting the woman and warding off the press. But it was the woman who caught her eye. Because Sia had seen her before and as her eyes skated over the accompanying article, the bottom dropped out of her world.
Abrani Heiress Weds Billionaire!
Despite recent concerns over the attempted sale of a fake painting, things are beginning to look up for Sheikh Abrani as his youngest daughter Aliah surprises the world with a shock secret wedding!
Rumours about possible pregnancy are yet to be addressed by the royal family, but an official statement is expected in due course.
The Sheikh’s youngest daughter might have been recently married, but less than eleven days ago she’d been sipping champagne with Sebastian Rohan de Luen, in a private club in Mayfair. ‘An old family friend’ he’d said, just before calling her beautiful.
Of all the people perfectly positioned to swap out the real painting for the fake, surely the Sheikh’s daughter would be at the heart. Something caught in her mind, the memory of Sebastian’s righteous recounting of the Sheikh’s sins, the least of which was the fact Abrani had literally gambled her hand away in marriage...and that was considered a good thing.
All this time, Sia realised, she’d been focused on Sebastian but not the people who could have helped him—like the artist who’d created the forged painting. In her mind’s eye she was back in David’s lab, the night the fake had been damaged, scanning the painting, the remaining brushstrokes, the technique that...that...
Her mind leapt from one painting to another, but quite possibly by the same artist. Astou Ndiaye, the Senegalese artist who Sebastian had chosen to commission for his Caribbean i
sland hotel. Because something Sia had seen in the two large canvases—a brush stroke, a colour combination—something even then had risen a flag to her visual senses and now she couldn’t help but wonder...could Astou have been the forger? What had Sebastian called it? A recent commission.
She reached for her phone and pulled up the search engine. Ndiaye’s website was the first hit and she flicked across the images of her abstract paintings, but further below were a collection of classically styled paintings, portraits and still lifes—certainly showing promise and a strong sense of the classical techniques that would have come in handy when trying to forge a Durrántez. Clicking through to her bio, Sia’s heart plummeted as she discovered that Ndiaye grew up in Senegal but went to live in France after her mother, who had been a high-profile trader, had been forced to declare bankruptcy. Right around the time Eduardo’s business deal had fallen through.
A wave of anger began to build, as if a way out from shore yet but coming closer and closer the more her suspicions grew. And she almost didn’t want to look further because if she was right, if what she thought was true, it might break her.
Bracing herself, she pulled up a new tab and searched for the name Sabbatino. Headlines screamed back at her, laying bare the various secret assignations of the Italian brothers, one particularly insalubrious article saw a woman proclaiming to have spent the night with both of them. Ignoring the attention-grabbing reports, she instead clicked on the few images.
Pictures of the two handsome Italian brothers grinning at the camera, suave, sophisticated, charming and doing absolutely nothing for Sia until she caught sight of one particular image. She clicked on the thumbnail and used two fingers to enlarge the image on her screen. There they were, arms slung around each other as they stood in front of their yacht. A yacht they were currently sailing around the Caribbean.
A pit yawned open in her stomach and she pushed the phone away before she could see any more. Before she could hurt any more. It wasn’t the proof that she needed. It was nothing she could take back to Bonnaire’s. But that didn’t matter any more.
She’d always known that he’d stolen the painting but at the very least thought she’d had his respect, his promise not to lie to her. He might have been a thief but she’d thought him truthful. Honourable. She’d been such a fool.
Sebastian had told her that his life was an open book and perhaps she couldn’t say that he’d lied.
Because everything he’d done had been done in front of her, even from the first moment. Aliah in Victoriana—the thief imprisoned by her father and paid with, what, her freedom? Ndiaye’s paintings in the Caribbean—the forger whose mother’s career was ruined, and paid off with a massive commission. And the Sabbatino brothers? Who knew what they’d got or what even their connection was to the defunct oil deal. Did it matter any more?
She was devastated by the wave of hurt as it drew closer and closer, threatening to overwhelm her. Not because of a plan that had been put in place before she’d ever laid eyes on Sebastian Rohan de Luen, but the fact that he could do it under her watchful gaze and think he’d get away with it. Was he really that cruel? Had everything been a lie? All of it? Or was it just the painting?
The last time she had questioned his actions she had hidden in the fantasy. But she couldn’t do it again. This time she couldn’t ignore what was staring her in the face.
Sebastian returned to the house just as the sun was beginning to set, feeling much better than he had for a long time. He and Maria had spoken almost all day. He was surprised to find how strong she was. Hurt, yes, and for that he would most definitely make Montcour pay. But her determination to forge a future that would protect her and her child had made him proud for her.
For the first time he had seen her as more than his little sister. He had seen her as an adult, a woman. A mother. It was incredible.
He took the steps to the house two at a time, excited and happy to be returning to Sia. He’d told Maria about her, of course. Not everything, and nothing about the Durrántez, but he’d explained that he was thinking about things differently. And he only had Sia to thank for that. He wanted to tell her, thank her for making him wait, for making him calm down. That as much as he’d wanted to step in and take control, Sia was also right in that Maria needed to do that by herself and she was flourishing.