“I’d like that.” Grace was a fascinating personality.
“So would I. Talk to you soon.”
The minute they clicked off, Rainey walked over to the paintings and removed them from the wall. After dusting the frames off, she placed them next to the door.
It was a wrench to have to give up the one for Manhattan Merger. Not that she couldn’t do another painting of him from memory. But it would be different the second time around because she’d seen him in person.
If she did do any new sketches, they would show a man embracing his wheelchair-bound fiancée. His eyes and rugged features would reveal intense suffering…
While she waited for the runner from Mr. Wallace’s law firm to arrive, Rainey opened the manilla envelope. It appeared she was to design a series of cards that said “Goodbye—Enjoy your trip!” in various languages.
Having lived in Italy, she reached for her sketch pad and began playing around with some ideas that immediately sprang to mind. Soon her hillside in Tuscany began to come alive like the pieces of a patchwork quilt.
She drew in one of those charming farmhouses with the tiled roof. No one could see inside it, but her imagination allowed her to dream of two people madly in love. They stood at one of the windows overlooking their own spot of heaven. Twilight revealed two bodies entwined.
As Rainey stared into space, she realized she’d been envisioning herself in Payne Sterling’s arms. It wasn’t the first time this had happened. She feared it wouldn’t be the last.
Disturbed by thoughts she had no right to entertain, she threw down her pencil and got up from the desk.
It was a good thing all physical evidence of him would be gone in a few minutes.
But not from her mind.
An overwhelming compulsion to look at him one more time drove her to the door of her apartment. She reached for her favorite painting.
The more she studied it, the more she realized the person who’d gone down the Colorado with her brother seeking adventure bore little resemblence to the man she’d faced in the courtroom.
Rainey finally put it back with the others.
How tragic to think the woman he’d fallen in love with could no longer run into his arms. Talk about cruel.
She tried to imagine herself in his fiancée’s place. How hard it must be for her to want to do everything for him, to share everything with him when she—
The buzzer sounded from the foyer, interrupting her tormented thoughts. She spoke through the intercom. When she’d ascertained it was the runner, she told him to come up.
A half minute later there was a rap on the door. She opened it expecting to see a college-age person. Her greeting stuck in her throat to find a huskily built man blocking her exit. He was in his late thirties and wore casual clothes.
“Ms. Bennett?”
“Yes?”
He looked beyond her to the apartment itself, as if he were casing the interior. Sensing something wasn’t right, she was about to close the door when another man came up behind him dressed in a business suit.
“I’ll take it from here, John.”
The second Rainey saw who it was, the breath rushed out of her lungs. Maybe she was hallucinating.
The all-seeing blue eyes of Payne Sterling seemed to take in every detail of her face and body before their gazes locked.
“I’m here for the artwork, Ms. Bennett, but I’d like to talk to you first.” His cultivated male voice permeated her bones. “May I come in?”
Rainey couldn’t believe this was happening. Thank heaven she’d done her housecleaning earlier that morning.
“Yes. Of course.”
Once he’d stepped inside and shut the door, he dominated her tiny studio apartment.
“Would you like to sit down?” Even to her own ears she sounded breathless.