Page 13 of What a Lord Wants

She reached the studio and paused only to draw a deep breath before scurrying through the wicket. “I’m so terribly sorry that I’m late, but there was an overturned wagon and—”

She halted at the sound of voices raised in heated argument. So heated, in fact, that it took a few moments before the two people realized she was there.

When Vincenzo faced her, he ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Eve, you’ve arrived.” He gestured at the blonde woman with whom he’d been arguing. “We were just finishing our conversation.”

If that was a mere conversation, then Eve was a blue goose. “Should I come back?”

“Yes,” the woman answered. A very beautiful woman. Based on the confident way she held herself, she knew it, too.

“No,” he corrected firmly. “We’re through here.”

“Oh, we haven’t yet begun.” Something about the way the woman said that sent an icy shiver skittering down Evelyn’s spine. Her cat-like green eyes swept over Eve in curious perusal, then she sniffed and turned away, as if she’d found her lacking. “Aren’t you going to introduce us, Dom?”

Dom. The woman was awfully familiar with him, whoever she was.

Judging from the irritation flitting across his face, making introductions was the last thing he wanted to do. Yet he motioned her forward to join them. “Eve, may I introduce you to Constance Devereaux? My former model.”

“His muse,” Constance drawled the purring correction, which caused Vincenzo to tighten his jaw. “And not so former.”

Thatcaused his jaw to clench so tightly that the sinews in his neck pulsed.

Warily, Eve bobbed a polite but shallow curtsy. “A pleasure to meet you.” Then, just because she couldn’t help herself, she added, “Ma’am.”

He looked away, but not before Eve saw his lips twitch with amusement.

The woman pretended not to notice the sly reference to her age. “And you are…?”

“Eve is my new model,” he explained quietly, gauging the woman’s reaction as he leaned back against the worktable and folded his arms across his chest.

Constance took another assessing look at Eve. “Your new model, you say?” Her red lips broke into a slow smile, and dark amusement danced coldly in her eyes. “My! Howinterestingyou are.” She threw a glance over her shoulder at Vincenzo, then clucked her tongue with exaggerated disappointment. “You truly do wish to take your art in a new direction, don’t you?” Another cutting glance at Eve, this one so venomous that she flinched. “The wrong one.”

Vincenzo shoved himself away from the table and angrily took Constance by the arm. She laughed, resting her other hand on his chest. Eve couldn’t help but notice the possessive way the woman curled her fingers into his waistcoat, how she shifted ever so slightly to brush her hip against his.

“We’ll only be a moment longer,” he told Eve, then led the woman aside.

Eve nodded and wandered across the studio to the bookshelves to give them privacy, certainly glad to be out ofthatconversation. The tension was so palpable that the air crackled.

Eve watched surreptitiously as she pretended to look at the books. Whatever was between the two of them was absolutely none of her business. She couldn’t care less if he’d painted that woman or if she was his muse. Or if she meant even more than that to him, based on the way she rested her palm on his shoulder, the way she leaned into him until her breasts touched his chest—

Oh bother! That woman irritated Evelyn to her core.

“Questa è la ragazza che mi ha sostituito?” Constance slipped easily into fluent Italian, not bothering to lower her voice, as if certain that Eve couldn’t understand. “Another find from Covent Garden? Are you certain she doesn’t have the pox?” Then she laughed, despite the cutting coldness in her comment. “Oh my, Dom, how far you’ve fallen! To choose a doxy like her.”

“She isn’t a prostitute,” he countered, also in Italian. “She’s an actress who is well-educated and cultured, and she possesses exactly the presence I want for my next project. She’s perfect for it, in fact.”

“Perfect between your sheets, as well?”

His expression remained inscrutable. “I wouldn’t know, and I have no plans to find out.”

Constance gave another laugh, another toss of her golden blonde curls. “You truly expect me to believe that? That you chose her simply because of the way she appears on canvas?” Her fingers played with the buttons on his waistcoat, as if she were contemplating undressing him right there in the middle of the studio. “When she fails to satisfy you, what will you do? Hmm? Who will you turn to then for your pleasure?”

He stood impossibly still and straight, not moving except for a tick in his jaw where the muscle worked hard to hold in his anger.

“Stop these games and invite me back.” She leaned up to bring her lips close to his, her fingers sifting through the hair at his nape. “Admit it. Your bed is cold without me.”

“Not if I use an extra blanket,” he drawled.

Eve bit back a laugh. When Constance’s gaze narrowed murderously on her, she faked a cough.